F. W. Starr Drawing Instrument
notes: label: Description
content: This large ferrous metal object, painted black, has four curved legs and an indented central support that holds a flat slide. Moving the slide rotates two linked steel bars at the front (any scribe attached to these bars that would actually draw a curve is missing). A long metal handle with a brass spring and knob at the front moves above the slide. Its motion is controlled by a projection into a curved crosswise indentation, and controls the motion of the slide in the central support and the rotating bars.
label: Description
content: A mark on the handle reads: STARR. A mark on the handle at the point of the crosswise indentation reads: PATD JAN 29 95. A metal tag attached to the top of the handle at the back reads: SOLD BY (/) THE (/) HISTORICAL (/) PUBLISHING (/) CO. (/) DAYTON, OHIO.
label: Description
content: On January 29, 1895, Ferdinand W. Starr of Springfield, Ohio, was granted patent number 533,095 for his improvement to drawing instruments. His invention, he said, would draw parallel lines, angles, circles, ellipses, and more. Use of Starr’s patent by The Historical Publishing Co. of Dayton was the subject of patent infringement litigation in 1912 and 1913. Starr also used the patent in the design of a smaller ellipsograph that was sold in the early twentieth century by Queen and Company of Philadelphia and by Eugene Dietzgen Company of Chicago.
label: Description
content: F. W. Starr was born in Germany in 1846, immigrating to the United States when he was an infant. According to the 1900 census records, he was the manager of a cutting machine, lived in Springfield, Ohio, with his wife of 20 years, Alice, and their five children. He received two other patents, in 1901 for a cutting instrument, and 1904 for a machine for cutting curved pieces. He died in 1938 at the age of 92.
label: Description
content: This example of Starr’s instrument was found unprocessed in the Engineering collections and transferred to Mathematics in the early 1980s.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Ferdinand W. Starr, “Drawing-Instrument,” U.S. Patent 533095, applied for December 23, 1893, granted January 29, 1895.
label: Description
content: “Starr v. Houser et al” <I>Federal Reporter</I>, Saint Paul: West Publishing, 1912, pp. 730-732.
label: Description
content: “Houser v. Starr,” <I> Federal Reporter</I>, St. Paul: West Publishing, 1913, pp. 264-275.
label: Description
content: “The Queen-Starr Ellipsograph,” <I>The Railway Age</I>, vol. 39 #6, February 10, 1905, p. 202.
label: Description
content: <I>Catalogue of Eugene Dietzgen Company</I>, Chicago: Dietzgen, 1907-1908.
label: Description
content: Biographical information about Starr may be gleaned from sources in ancestry.com
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Ohio, Dayton
topic: label: Subject
content: Drawing Instruments
label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2019.3036.01
label: nonaccession number
content: 2019.3036
label: catalog number
content: 2019.3036.01
label: patent number
content: 533095
objectType: label: Object Name
content: drawing instrument
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal, ferrous (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall; part: material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 25.5 cm x 81 cm x 76.5 cm; 10 1/32 in x 31 7/8 in x 30 1/8 in