Nutcracker
notes: label: Description
content: This is a metal nutcracker which was invented/designed by John E. Lovret. It was for household use.
label: Description
content: There is a rectangular base with a 2 inch piece perpendicular to the base. There is a 9.5 inch long piece attached to the perpendicular piece that moves up and down. A pointy prong about half way down the long piece that hits a raised metal area on the base. Scratched on the base top and bottom "11-324-6."
label: Description
content: John Emile Lovret was born in 1912 in Guadalajara, Mexico, and was the son of an itinerant American civil engineer. In 1924, after a workplace injury left his father disabled, 12-year-old John quit school and began to work at a railroad machine shop where he learned to be a machinist.
label: Description
content: From 1928-1933, he worked at the Southern Pacific Company in El Paso, Texas. From 1939-1941, he attended the Texas College of Mines, now known as the University of Texas at El Paso. He continued to be variously employed as a toolmaker in Philadelphia and Detroit from 1941-1942, and from 1942-1946, served in the United States Army, with 1 ½ years of this period being spent at Georgetown University and the City College of New York.
label: Description
content: After the war ended, from 1946-1948, Lovret served as a U.S. representative for a group of businessmen in the Philippines. Lovret continued to serve as the president of Lovret & Processing Co. from 1948-1952 and the manager of the Machine Division of Air Transport Equipment Company Incorporated from 1952-1954.
label: Description
content: In 1956, Lovret became a partner of the Microtron Tool Corporation, subsequently known as the Microsizer Corporation of America, until 1959. From 1960-1964, Lovret was the Head Tooling Consultant at Litton Industries. While simultaneously at Litton, Lovret invented a microsizer for precision boring, which he made and marketed himself. This microsizer would have been used to create very small holes unable to be achieved with conventional tools. Lovret and his invention are emblematic of skilled machinists that were active in the United States after World War II and their contributions to the changing industrial needs of the postwar era.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: John Emile Lovret
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1999.0079.12
label: catalog number
content: 1999.0079.12
label: accession number
content: 1999.0079
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Nutcracker
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 1/4 in x 10 in x 3 3/4 in; 5.715 cm x 25.4 cm x 9.525 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 1/2 in x 9 3/4 in x 3 3/4 in; 6.35 cm x 24.765 cm x 9.525 cm