1868 | Technology
Technology
The U.S. Government adopts a standard system of screw threads established by Philadelphia machine-tool maker William Sellers, now 44 (see 1864). The Pennsylvania Railroad will follow suit next year, and the Sellers (or United States) Standard will become almost universal.
Cooper Hewitt's New Jersey Steel and Iron Co. builds the first U.S. open hearth steel furnace at Trenton (see 1862).
Boston inventor William H. Remington patents a process for electroplating with nickel. Patent No. 82,877 calls for a solution prepared by dissolving refined nickel in nitric acid, then precipitating the nickel by the addition of carbonate of potash, washing the precipitate with water, dissolving it in a solution of salammoniac, and filtering it (see nickel steel, 1888).
Tungsten steel is invented by English metallurgist Robert F. (Forester) Mushet, 57, whose alloy is much harder than ordinary steel (see 1882).
Clockmaker Chauncey Jerome dies in poverty at New Haven, Connecticut, April 20 at age 72, having gotten involved with shady businessmen in the 1850s with the result that his business failed.
Yale Lock Manufacturing Co. is established in October by Linus Yale in partnership with Pennsylvania-born engineer John H. (Henry) Towne, 50, and builds a factory at Stamford, Connecticut, to produce the new cylinder lock patented by Yale 3 years ago, but inventor Yale dies suddenly of heart failure at New York December 25 at age 47 soon after the plant goes into operation. His lock will be used for well over a century on the doors of houses and business establishments nationwide.