Pope-Hartford Radiator Emblem
notes: label: Description
content: Albert A. Pope, the nation’s leading mass producer of bicycles in the late nineteenth century, introduced thousands of Americans to the benefits of personal mobility. In the late 1890s, the Pope Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut also became a major player in the new start-up field of automobile manufacturing. Pope used his production capacity and mass production methods to manufacture automobiles, the next personal mobility frontier for upper middle class, urban Americans. Initially Pope was committed to electricity as a power source because it was clean, simple, and safe; he believed that demand for electric cars would surpass gasoline and steam cars. Pope introduced the Columbia electric car in 1897 and built 500 examples in the late 1890s – the largest volume of any auto maker at that time -- before selling the car division to a group of investors. Pope then began manufacturing Pope-Waverley electric cars in Indianapolis. By 1904, as gasoline cars proved more appealing than electric cars, Pope expanded again, building Pope-Hartford gasoline cars in Hartford and Pope-Toledo gasoline cars in Toledo, Ohio. By the time of Pope’s death in 1909, the Indianapolis and Toledo concerns and their products had disappeared, victims of a crowded field of automobile manufacturers and competition in the high-priced range. The Pope-Hartford continued under the management of Pope’s brother George until that business entered receivership in 1913 and shut down in 1914.
label: Description
content: Radiator emblems are small, colorful metal plates bearing an automobile manufacturer's name or logo that attached to the radiators grilles of early automobiles. Varying in shape and size, the emblems served as a small branding device, sometimes indicating the type of engine, place of manufacturing, or using an iconic image or catchy slogan to advertise their cars make and model. This emblem is part of the collection that was donated by Hubert G. Larson in 1964.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Transportation, Road
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content: Radiator Emblems
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content: Transportation
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content: Road Transportation
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Hubert G. Larson
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: TR.325528.194
label: accession number
content: 260303
label: catalog number
content: 325528.194
objectType: label: Object Name
content: emblem, radiator
label: Other Terms
content: emblem, radiator; Road; Automobile