Happy President's day from MAKE - a look at a President who made things - Thomas Jefferson

Mountrushmore Monument
President's day was once associated with just Washington (and later Lincoln) but now all Presidents are celebrated today, and by that I mean you might have the day off. Here's @ MAKE we're going to take a look at Thomas Jefferson.

Make Pt0424
Not only was Jefferson the author of the Declaration of Independence, the third president of the United States but an inventor. Here's a look at some of the things he made (or remade).

Wheelcipher Lg
Disassembled Wheel Lg
Wheel cipher - In 1792 while Jefferson was US Secretary of State he developed a wheel cipher to encode and decode secret messages (here's how it works).

Vc59.1
Portable copying press - called the polygraph, Jefferson helped perfect this two-pen writing device used to copy letters and used it for all his correspondance. It's like a manual BCC'ing! Here's a Quicktime VR of the device.

Plowttttt
Plow "Moldboard of least resistance" - using math, Jefferson designed a better plow to lift and turn over sod more effectively - this new plow had a huge impact and instead of patenting the invention, Jefferson gave it away it - to be "solely used for the good of the people and not for the advancement of the inventor, Jefferson encouraged public use of this easily duplicated invention".

Greatclock
The Great Clock - Jefferson created a cool clock - made from hanging cannonballs, this gravity power clock was connected to a giant gong on the roof of the entrance hall at Monticello. He also needed to invent a folding ladder to repair it (which was later used for other things like getting books and trimming trees).


Others:

  • Macaroni machine
  • Sundial
  • Dumb waiters
  • Automatic double doors
  • Revolving bookstand
  • Beds that lift
  • Revolving chairs


All these and more can be found at the Jefferson's inventions page - Link.

Further reading:

  • Thomas Jefferson - His Life as an Inventor - Link.
  • Jefferson @ Monticello - Link.
  • Jefferson @ Wikipedia - Link.


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Comments

Oldest comments listed first.

Posted by: waterresistantto50meters on February 18, 2008 at 11:29 AM

if jefferson had only waited 2 years he could have done his manual BCCs with carbon copy paper. http://www.kevinlaurence.net/essays/cc.php


Posted by: paul on February 18, 2008 at 3:11 PM

You might actually be think of the pantograph.

But hats off to Mr Jefferson, all the same.


Posted by: ad_astra on February 18, 2008 at 9:45 PM

Actually, that device really was called a polygraph. We just use that word to mean something else these days...


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