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OLD MAIDS, MUSHROOMS & BUTTERFLIES
Popcorn has been around for centuries. Ceremonial wreaths, necklaces, and ornaments on the statues of Aztec gods contained ears of popcorn, corn kernels, and popped flakes Native American dance rituals of various indigenous peoples included corsages and headdresses made with ears of popcorn, corn kernels, and the flowery petals of popped kernels. The Iroquois and other tribes believed that quiet, contented, spirits lived within each kernel. These spirits become angry when their peaceful kernel home became too hot. Exhibiting their displeasure, a popcorn spirit danced aggressively, resulting in the spirit’s kernel home jumping about. Eventually the corn kernel exploded as the outraged spirit exited his home in a flash of smoke (steam water vapor) to seek a more comforting kernel home.
Later this month, on January 21st at 7 PM, the first program of 2021’s Behind the Steam series will occur. The topic is the Cretors Steam Popcorn Popper and how Charles Cretors’s first steam-powered peanut roasting machine, constructed in 1885, became the start of a family-owned business into the 21st century. Pictured right: an electric Cretors Popcorn Machine at the F.G. Lindsay Store circa 1925, Washington, D.C. (Shorpy Photographs).
The worldwide popcorn market, including both ready-to-eat and pop-it-yourself categories, is projected to reach $15 billion by 2023. The popcorn we enjoy today is grown to ensure very few “old maids” (unpopped kernels) and that the endosperm (soft core material) within each pericarp (shell) explodes into the largest butterfly or mushroom shape possible. Americans love to lather on butter, caramel, salts, and seasonings to enjoy this tasty snack.
Without the benefit of Cretors’ machinery that revolutionized the consumption of popcorn, how did Native Americans and even early American settlers prepare popcorn?
Answer
Before the introduction of Charles Cretors’s machinery, popping corn was not a simple task. Ideally a harvested kernel stripped from a corn cob needs to contain around 14% moisture. A kernel’s typical popping temperature is near 350° Fahrenheit. As the kernel’s temperature rapidly rises past 212° Fahrenheit, the encapsulated endosperm moisture transforms to steam and pressure builds within the pericarp. When the steam pressure within the kernel reaches approximately 130 pounds per square inch, the shell violently ruptures while the steam entrapped within the endosperm explosively expands the soft endosperm material forming the classic mushroom or butterfly shape. A popped kernel is referred to as a “popcorn flake.”
Due to the pericarp’s impervious characteristics, the eating of unpopped popcorn kernels may break teeth and do not digest in our stomachs, resulting in intestinal pain and discomfort. Native Americans placed kernels in a mortar and crushed them with a pestle to form a flour. Sifted through coarse cloth to remove shell fragments and debris, the flour can be mixed with milk, honey, fruit, and similar flavorings and served as a morning meal. Popcorn soup made from the popped kernels was enjoyed by the Iroquois and other tribes. Popcorn flour was dried and mixed with honey to form a biscuit for consumption on hunting trips providing quick nourishment similar to a shack.
Native Americans formed large shallow flat clay pans that they could set on rocks atop a hot bed of embers. The bottom of the pan was lightly covered with corn kernels followed by covering the kernels with a thin layer of coarse sand or fine gravel to insure uniform heating of the kernels. An earthen or bark cover kept the kernels from leaving the vessel upon popping. Once the last of the ‘spirits’ vacated the kernels, the pan was removed and the popped corn kernels were picked out, the sand/gravel blown off, and eaten. Alternatively, a couple ears of corn might be placed in an earthen crock filled with coarse sand or fine gravel where the kernels popped on the cob (pictured).
While only the wealthiest American settlers might have access to one of Benjamin Thompson’s (inventor of the thermos bottle as well!) early 1800’s stove designs, cast iron stoves became widely available in the mid-19th century, consuming wood or coal for fuel. For most Americans, cooking was performed at open hearth fireplaces or at a classic campfire-type configuration until the 1900s. Popcorn was often cooked over an open fire, including a cabin fireplace heating the structure, in enclosed wire baskets. Where covered pans were used, in place of sand or gravel, animal derived oils of the day such as bacon fat, lard, or tallow were used. Cretors’ invention was based around a steam engine continuously agitating the corn kernels at a controlled temperature in a pan containing special blend of fats, oils, and ingredients. The cooking aroma from Cretors’s secret blend of bacon fat, butter, salt, and seasonings transformed popcorn from a novelty to a mainstream snack food. Cretors graduated popcorn to being about the sights, sounds, and smells of it being prepared as well as the taste of the salty flakes.
Today we have all sorts of flavorings to enhance our popped flakes. Southwest Native Americans, such as the Navajo, Hopi, and Ute, gathered peanuts, which were heated along with the corn kernels in the sand-filled pans. A small blend of roasted and shelled peanuts, placed in a stone mortar, were ground to a butter-like consistency with a pestle. Added to the mortar’s peanut butter might be honey or Boxelder Tree sap (a southwestern native of the Maple Tree with a unique taste more reminiscent of caramel than maple), ground rock salt, and other finely ground native plant seeds, berries, and leaves. As the popcorn flakes and peanuts were picked from the popping pan, they are dipped in the mortar’s “flavoring” before eating.
WRENCHES: OLDER THAN SPANNERS
For FAH volunteers who have worked on one or more of the collection’s Stanleys, it is learned early on that some of the screw and bolt fasteners used on various parts of the engine and body are not standard thread sizes found in common use today. In checking the author’s copy of List of Parts Used to Make a Complete Model 735 Car, issued by the Stanley Motor Carriage Co. of Newton, Massachusetts, on April 1, 1918, we find various lengths of #5-32 Round Head Machine Screws and ¼”-30 Fillister Head Machine Screws listed (the first number is the diameter, the second number is the threads per inch). Today, the common sizes in use would be #5-40 or #5-44 and ¼”-20 or ¼”-28.
Pictured below is a Craftsman Vanadium-series open-end wrench or spanner, as it is referenced in Britain. Sears Roebuck & Company (owned by Stanley Black & Decker since 2017) contracted with various tool manufacturers to produce the Craftsman line sold through Sears-branded catalogs beginning in 1927. In 1932, Craftsman introduced “Vanadium Steel” wrenches that tested 50% lighter yet 200% stronger than their previously offered wrenches.
Note that the open-end wrench pictured below is marked 3/8 W and 7/16 W. A quick check using a ruler reveals the openings physically measure 11/16″ and 13/16″ wide, respectively. While the wrench and others in the set were produced long after Stanley steam car production ceased, what sort of fastener is the wrench designed for?
Answer
In the 1800s, as the Industrial Revolution was taking hold worldwide, screw and bolt fasteners were manufactured by any number of ironworking shops. One can only imagine the diversity of screws and bolts produced. The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, at the urging of Congress, released a report in 1861 defining a set of fastener standards based on the work of William Sellers that the U.S. Congress adopted as the “United States Thread” standard. The U.S. Navy, as well as many of this nation’s railroads, converted to using only United States Thread-compliant screws, bolts, and nuts by 1870. The great advantage being that compliance ensured screws and bolts, and their associated nuts, were interchangeable between manufacturers.
After World War I, it was realized that while a standard existed, there were issues that needed addressing. The National Screw Thread Commission was established by an Act of Congress in 1918 and by 1921 issued a preliminary report of the Commission’s recommendations. As a result, the “American National Standard” form of screw thread was born based on the existing standard. The American National Standard includes two series: National Coarse-Thread and National Fine-Thread, both in use today. In 1948 the National Standard Thread was changed to the Unified National Standard Thread, when the U.S. standard was adopted by Britain and Canada for use on war equipment.
In developing the National Standard screw thread, the Commission adopted many of the principals and specifications of the Whitworth Thread, which was used by British railways and industry. The Whitworth system, defined by Joseph Whitworth in 1841, became the world’s first screw thread standard and was the British standard until replaced with British Association Standard Thread. A difference not adopted was maintaining Sellers’s 60-degree thread angle instead of the 55-degrees used on Whitworth threads. Whitworth rounded the peaks and valleys of the thread, which Sellers left flat. The rounded edges and corners reduce stress points where fractures often originate providing Whitworth threads superior fatigue strength. The Whitworth thread was a preferred choice for many American locomotive builders for firebox stay bolts in the 1800s and early 1900s due to strength advantages while Sellers threads were extensively found throughout the rest of the locomotive.
The wrench pictured in our question is for Whitworth bolts! The Whitworth system defines a bolt based on the diameter of the bolt shaft and not the dimensions across the flats of the bolt’s head or matching nut, as is current practice in the United States. Thus, the wrench pictured will work for either a 3/8″ or 7/16″ diameter Whitworth Thread bolt. The U.S. National Standard would use a 9/16″ wrench (the distance across the flats of the bolt’s head or nut) for a 3/8″ diameter bolt with either National Coarse or National Fine threads.
STATE ROADS AND KING’S HIGHWAY
The image below was broadly circulated in the Diamond State a century ago as a proposal for a Delaware roadway. Who originated the proposal, and was the roadway ever constructed?
Answer
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Delaware’s roads were considered some of the worst in the nation. As most of the state consists of a flat plain of sandy soil not much higher than sea level, the land does not dry quickly, especially a century ago when large stands of timber covered vast stretches of the state. There were several north-south roads established as “King’s’ Highways” by the Levy Courts in the late 17th century. Delaware typically called north-south routes a “State Road” or King’s Highway and east-west routes a ‘”County Road.”
In the late 1800s, with the development of the steam carriage, electric carriage, and eventually the motor carriage, the need for improved roads became increasingly important. The Roosevelt administration pushed for federal aid in constructing better roadways throughout the country. In 1911 the National Highways Association was established with Board Chairman T. Coleman du Pont leading the organization. The organization established a national “good roads everywhere” movement with a vision that the U.S. would have a network of well paved roads, including Delaware.
By 1910 there were nearly 1,000 registered vehicles in Delaware. The image above was generated in 1912 as T. Coleman du Pont’s vision for a boulevard he was willing to fund and construct the length of the state. Du Pont is quoted in a 1912 Scientific American article as desiring the road to be “constructed of water bound macadam or concrete base, on top of which will be laid asphalt and stone mixed; or a surface composed of water bound macadam with a half-inch covering of asphalt and trap rock to make it dust and water proof.” An objective of du Pont’s boulevard would be the elimination of “twists and sinuosity” of most existing roads by following the principal that a “straight line is the shortest distance between two points.”
Du Pont’s new company, Coleman du Pont Road Incorporated, would acquire a 200-foot right-of-way through each of Delaware’s counties (later reduced to 60-foot). After constructing the boulevard, each 10-mile segment completed was to be turned over to the state to maintain. Eventually known as the Du Pont Highway, it was designated U.S. Route 13 north of Dover and U.S. Route 113 south of Dover. Fully completed in 1923, it became the nation’s first divided highway.
For more photos and a detailed history of the Du Pont Highway’s construction, the U.S Department of Transportation’s National Transportation Library has “Historic context for the DuPont Highway U.S. Route 113, Kent and Sussex County, Delaware” (https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/40800 ) from which the images were obtained.
HIDDEN STORIES
During Steamin’ Days and private tours, we often tell visitors that laid out before them is the evolution of the automobile from birth to maturity. The museum’s story revolves around the Stanley Motor Carriage Company, but a similar story might be told for any number of other manufacturers of the era. Once pointed out, visitors begin noticing lighting evolving from removeable kerosene lamps to carbide to acetylene gas lamps and finally to electric. They notice the evolution from wood bodies to aluminum and steel, from tillers to right-hand steering to left-hand steering. But there are many more stories hidden away within the Marshall Steam Museum yet to be told.
For example, every vehicle in the museum (with the exception of the Penny Farthing currently on display) has a minimum of four wheels. Perhaps in the future, a temporary display might detail the evolution of the automotive wheel and tire. In 1916 an estimated 6,470,832 wheels, tubes, flaps, and tires had to be produced for the 1,617,708 steam, electric, and internal combustion-powered horseless carriages manufactured that year. Estimates also indicate that due to the lack of robust rubber tire construction, not to mention the deplorable condition of American roads, the 3-million-plus passenger vehicles in use in 1916 consumed an average of eight tires per year! The result was American industry produced upwards of 20 million tires annually in 1916 to keep pace!
While the 1914 Ford Model T included in the collection highlights one of the three primary technologies vying for supremacy during automotive adolescence, future investigations might highlight the impressive impact Henry Ford and the Model T provided in multitudes of ways. People think of the Model T as the first mass-produced, mechanically complex commodity manufactured but rarely recognize Ford’s insight in taking the fundamental operation of a meat packing plant and reversing it (put something together instead of cutting it apart as a series of operations or steps) for mass production of almost any manufactured commodity.
Now step back a bit further to realize that every Model T from 1908 until 1927 required four wheels with tires (and perhaps a spare). Ford’s suppliers, such as Firestone, had to maintain large-scale, efficient, high-volume production operations not only to supply Ford but Stanley, Rauch & Lang and their competitors as well! The adolescent period of the automobile not only introduced mass production but the need for standardization of products, which provides yet another opportunity for interpretation and display.
The first vehicle to move under its own power (steam) on American streets, and the world’s first amphibious vehicle, was constructed by Oliver Evans of Delaware and demonstrated on Market Street and the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia in 1805. The first sale of an American-built self-powered vehicle was a steam car constructed by S. H. Roper of Massachusetts, which sold in 1889. Soon to follow was an electric car sold to J. B. McDonald, which William Morrison of Des Moines, IA, constructed in early 1892 and exhibited on the streets of Chicago in September of that year. The Stanley twins constructed their first car in 1897, a year before the first internal combustion car was sold by Alexander Winton to Robert Allison of Port Carbon, PA, in 1898.
The first public car show was held in Madison Square Garden, New York City, in 1890, where 34 makes were exhibited. Only 3,700 cars of all makers were produced in 1899, rising to 11,000 vehicles by 1903, with Locomobile/Stanley the top seller for 1900 through 1903. A total of 44,000 vehicles valued at $93.4 million were produced in 1907, followed by 85,000 cars of all models in 1908. Production climbed steadily upward, reaching 485,000 cars in 1913 and just prior to World War I. Automotive historians suggest this output was muted from what it might have been. The Marshall Steam Museum’s Model T represents that story as well.
What factor, event, or otherwise was responsible for muting American horseless carriage production, especially for internal combustion engine powered vehicles, right after Alexander Winton sold his first Winton in 1898?
Answer
Our Founding Fathers realized that if this country was to prosper, a means to protect intellectual property was needed. Thus in 1790 President George Washington signed the bill creating America’s patent system. A patent doesn’t grant the right to make, sell or use a product incorporating a patented idea, but rather permits the person(s) having the idea to determine how they wish their idea to be used (license, sell, assign/transfer, gift, etc.) while excluding others from making, selling, importing or otherwise creating an equivalent for some period of years. It was the U.S. patent system that inhibited the rapid expansion of early automotive ideas and designs.
In 1879 George B. Selden of Rochester, NY, applied for a patent for a gasoline-powered engine that might be used in a 4-wheeled vehicle. This was long before anyone thought it worthy putting an internal combustion engine in a carriage, thus rendering it “horseless.” Selden had conceived the idea and constructed a prototype so that he could file a patent application (with George Eastman, no less, as witness!). For the next 16 years, Selden kept updating his application and using similar legal patent regulations to keep the patent application alive until 1895, when he allowed the patent to be issued (Patent 549,160, November 5, 1895). Today patents expire in 20 years; however, in Selden’s time, it was 17 years. Selden effectively stopped the construction and sale of most gasoline-engine powered horseless carriages until 1912 unless a royalty was paid.
The Stanley twins ran afoul of patent law as well, but not Selden’s. They had patented (Patent 663,836) their rear axle differential and later granted sole use to the Locomobile Company when they sold their early steam carriage business. When the twins re-entered the horseless carriage business and introduced a re-designed Stanley Steamer in 1902, it retained a chain drive similar to what they had sold Locomobile but with a re-designed differential. A court case soon developed over the differential’s design, and instead of suffering the expense of a court battle and possibly losing, the twins moved their steam engine to a rear-axle mounting and direct gear drive between the crankshaft and differential, thus avoiding the claimed patent infringement of the twins’ licensed patent to Locomobile!
Selden sold all rights for his patent in 1900 to the Electric Vehicle Company, which enforced it rigorously. Alexander Winton’s Winton Motor Carriage Company was one of the first targeted. As a result, the Manufacturer’s Mutual Association, which later became the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, was formed to fight both Selden and Electric Vehicle Company. Having lost the patent challenge, manufacturers were forced to pay a royalty fee for every gasoline-powered vehicle manufactured. Thus, at the start of the automobile age, every gasoline-powered horseless carriage sold included a licensing fee that raised the catalog price and effectively limited the desire of gasoline-powered carriage manufacturers to risk expanding with new models and features.
The Selden patent became a thorn in Henry Ford’s plans when his Ford Motor Company was denied a license to use the patent in 1903 after forming his company. That didn’t stop Ford, and he continued with plans for the production of his Model T. Ford’s Model T debuted on October 1, 1908, and within weeks the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers filed a patent infringement case against Ford Motor Company. Nearly a year later, Ford lost his case, similar to others who challenged the Selden patent.
Unfazed, Ford appealed, which none of the others had previously attempted. For the appeal, Ford dove into the intricacies of Selden-patented gasoline-powered engine against the Ford-designed engine. Selden’s engine was based on the Brayton thermodynamic cycle (constant-pressure engine similar to a jet engine but using pistons) and not the Otto thermodynamic cycle (relies on varying pressures to operate) Ford had embraced. Ford easily won the appeal in January 1911, and with only a year left in the patent’s life, further contesting by the Association was not pursued. In 1912 the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers quietly changed their name to the Automobile Board of Trade and by 1914 were known as the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce with the purpose of promoting all horseless carriages. A look at automobile production records reveals that for 1912 and subsequent years, automotive production roughly doubled annually until World War 1.
Next time you visit the Marshall Steam Museum, take a moment to look beyond all that is displayed and let your mind wonder to how it all happened. The Marshall Steam Museum is more than a collection of steam cars and a few era artifacts. Hidden about are stories related to automobiles, the industrial revolution, banking, dealerships and selling automobiles, railroads, steam power, electrical power, galvanized sheet, clay mining, working conditions, and so much more.
UNSEEN FOR HALF A CENTURY, MAYBE LONGER
Answer
The second image of this month’s question is where the Marshall industrial rag paper involvement began – Thomas S. Marshall’s Homestead Paper Mill at Marshall’s Bridge, Kennett Township, PA. This is the mill where Israel and Elwood learned the papermaking trade from their father! Documented photos in the T. Clarence Marshall Collection at Hagley Museum & Library as well as photos in the Charles S. Philips Collection at the Chester County Historical Society confirm the mill’s identity.
A similar image dating from sometime in the 1880s has been displayed in the Marshall Museum and used for various publications. In that image the mill is definitely in operating condition as there is not the uncut growth of plants and grasses around the building. In this image, which has to be post 1904 due to being in in the Stanley-Kodak box and the timeframes of the other images, the mill looks more unused and neglected. While we don’t know the exact year when the Marshalls stopped making paper at the Homestead Paper Mill, indications are it was in the first decade of the 1900s. Marshall paper mills at Wooddale and Yorklyn were steam-powered, efficient, and offered more capacity than the primarily water-powered Homestead Mill.
The dirt road in the foreground is Creek Road (Route 82). Center right is where the road makes a sharp right heading to Old Kennett Pike. Where the road goes behind the mill it crosses the Red Clay Creek to become what we know as Marshall Bridge Road today.
Sharing several of the other glass plate negative images, the photograph below includes the date “August 4, 1915” written on the edge of the glass plate, along with the caption “Marshall’s Meadow, Yorklyn, DE.” The photo, taken from the area where the water tower now stands, shows the West Chester, Kennett, and Wilmington Electric Railway tracks in the foreground. Benge Road is to the left, and Auburn Mill Road is just beyond the row of trees. While we’ve been amazed at the flooding of the Red Clay in recent years, especially twice in one week this past August, it is obvious from Clarence’s photography of multiple floods, the creek swelled above its banks a century ago!
Tom Marshall wrote about the building featured below. Folks today often see the door in the white stone wall on Creek Road as you approach Yorklyn Road’s Iron Bridge and wonder what it was for. It was the door to the spring and ice house for the Snuff Mill Superintendent’s home (a Mr. Durham according to Tom), which was built in the latter 1800s. Becoming known as the “Boarding House” when it was operated by the Jackson family, in 1937 it was razed. Tom, in his writings, noted that the porch frequently collected the occasional stray autocarriage of the era! One of the Garrett Snuff Mill buildings is at the right edge of the image, the remnants still standing close to a paved Creek Road today.
Our final image is of Yorklyn a century ago, taken from atop the high hill across from Auburn Heights. In the foreground is Lower Snuff Mill Row which were snuff mill worker’s homes. The Garrett mansion (behind trees) and 1904 constructed superintendent’s homes are center right. The Garrett Snuff Mills are in the foreground center left with Marshall’s National Fibre & Insulation mills in the distance with their water tower and tall smokestack dating the photo to sometime in the late nineteen-teens or later.
