overall: 35 7/8 in x 4 7/8 in x 2 in; 91.1225 cm x 12.3825 cm x 5.08 cm
Object Name:
lightning rod component
Other Terms:
Lightning Rod; Components; Power and Lighting; Power and Lighting
Date made:
ca 1870
Description (Brief):
This is the top section of a lightning rod attached to a wooden plate, and may have been used as a sales sample. Two paper labels on the wooden plate read: "The Starr Copper / Lightning Rod / (Chadwick & Foot's Patent, 1869)"; and "Manufactured At Gainesville, Ga. / By Hooker & Rich / R. V. Cobb, Agent / Watchman Nonpareit Jobber Print. Athens [GA]". Copper plate stamped "13K1". The patent is: US 93609, "Improvement in Lightning Rods," issued to David A. Foot and Avery Chadwick of Winona, Minnesota, 10 August 1869.
Their patent describes a process of forming the metal such that "we get a star-shaped [cross section] lightning rod of great strength and beauty, furnishing in a small compass a great extent of surface for the electric current, with the most approved receiving-points, and a novel ground or discharge-point, as well as a rod that can be readily adapted to the contour of buildings to which it may be attached." Foot and Chadwick did not assign their patent to a company, so presumably Hooker & Rich (Company?) licensed the patent for sales in Georgia. The piece may have been given to the University of Georgia as a sales sample or for use as a teaching tool in the Physics Department.
Location:
Currently not on view
Credit Line:
from the University of Georgia, thru C. Dewey Cooper
