Object Details
- Société des Lunetiers
- Description
- This brass instrument has steel points that are both bent at the end. It has a ridged cylindrical handle and is held together with a screw. One arm opens and closes at the joint. That arm is marked: STE DES LUNETIERS (/) FRANCE.
- In 1849 several workshops in Paris formed the Société des Lunetiers to cooperatively sell spectacles and mathematical instruments. Since 1972, the company has been known as Essilor.
- Keuffel & Esser, an American maker and dealer of slide rules and drawing instruments, donated this object to the Smithsonian in 1971. Part of a paper tag received with the object has been lost, but the remaining portion suggests these dividers may have been used by company employees preparing lettering. None of the dividers offered in K&E catalogs in 1909, 1921, or 1936 resemble this instrument.
- References: Nicolàs de Hilster, "Société des Lunetiers," Geodetic Instruments, http://www.dehilster.info/index.php?doc=http://www.dehilster.info/instrumenten/theodolite1/sdl.html; "About Essilor," http://www.essilor.co.nz/about_essilor/.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Gift of Keuffel & Esser Company
- ca 1900
- ID Number
- MA.335260
- accession number
- 306012
- catalog number
- 335260
- Object Name
- dividers
- Physical Description
- brass (overall material)
- steel (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 1 cm x 14.2 cm x 1.1 cm; 13/32 in x 5 19/32 in x 7/16 in
- place made
- France: Île-de-France, Paris
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Mathematics
- Science & Mathematics
- Dividers and Compasses
- National Museum of American History
- Subject
- Mathematics
- Drafting, Engineering
- Record ID
- nmah_904336
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a7-3937-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
