Jul 15, 2013
Schuyler Towne is on a mission to recover as much information as possible about the lock-related patents that were lost to the patent office fire of 1836. His primary interest is in the history and the story of the creators of the lost locks, but his goal is to conduct all of the research in public, using Zotero, so everyone can follow along and those particularly inclined can even participate. That rough research will remain available indefinitely, but he will go on to curate and organize the work for publication on the website. Depending on what we recover we could potentially restore entire patents to the patent record, or 3D print working locks based on their drawings. We could solve a mystery, or rewrite history.