Star-Rite Vibrator
name: label: maker
content: Fitzgerald Manufacturing Company
notes: label: Description
content: Patrick J. Fitzgerald (ca. 1879-1961) was an Irish immigrant who formed the Fitzgerald Mfg. Co. in 1906, and began making engine gaskets. He also designed the firm’s next important product, the Star Electric Vibrator. This inexpensive ($5) electric-powered hand-held device came on the market in 1919; by 1922, more than a million examples had allegedly been sold. The inscription on this example reads “STAR-RITE VIBRATOR / ALTERNATING CURRENT - 60 CY – 110 VOLTS / THE FITZGERALD MFG. CO. TORRINGTON, CONN. / PATENTED / CAUTION: DO NOT USE VIBRATOR IN BATH TUB / OR WHEN STANDING ON WET FLOOR OR IN / CONTACT WITH GAS, WATER OR DRAIN PIPES.”
label: Description
content: Ref: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, “Massage Vibrator,” U.S. Patent 1,327,466 (Jan. 6, 1920).
label: Description
content: Ads for “Star Electric Vibrator” in <i>Cosmopolitan</i> (July 1919), p. 151; and in <i>Good Hardware</> (Feb. 1922), p. 116,
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Estate of Carolyn H. Edwards
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.296611.34
label: catalog number
content: 296611.34
label: accession number
content: 296611
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Vibrator
label: Other Terms
content: Vibrator; Medicine
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 1/2 in x 3 in x 10 1/2 in; 11.43 cm x 7.62 cm x 26.67 cm