Thomas Lamb's “Wedge-Lock”

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DESIGN TO ENABLE THE BODY:

THOMAS LAMB’S “WEDGE-LOCK” HANDLE, 1941-1962

Rachel Elizabeth Delphia

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Early American Culture

Spring 2005

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DESIGN TO ENABLE THE BODY:

THOMAS LAMB’S “WEDGE-LOCK” HANDLE, 1941-1962

Rachel Elizabeth Delphia

Approved: J. Rfitchie Garrison, Ph.D. Professor in charge of thesis on behalf of the Advisory Committee a ^ 4 Approved: X —-_____2k J. Ritchie Garrison, Ph.D. Director of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture

Approved: Conrado M. Gempesaw II, Ph.D. Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

Approved: Conrado M. Gempesaw II, Ph.D. Vice-Provost for Academic and International Programs

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Photograph by author, Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Come let me clutch thee

- E. J. Kahn

iii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the fifteen months since I began working on this project, countless individuals

have provided assistance and support. Lynn Catanese, Marge McNinch, and all the staff

in Manuscripts and Archives at the Hagley Library have been wonderful. Thank you for

introducing me to the Thomas Lamb collection, answering my many questions, and

retrieving countless boxes of handles.

I am much indebted to Susie Strasser, who oversaw my initial exploration of

Lamb’s designs. Through her insightful advice on prewriting and outlining, she has

influenced my approach to writing and research more than anyone since my tenth-grade

English teacher. I also thank Ben Schwantes and Kathleen Kvortek for tackling my

earliest drafts and locating my argument when I could not. Casey Helfrich, Bobbye

Tigerman, and Dwight Yee also offered invaluable criticism on various drafts, and my

mother, Elizabeth van Balen Delphia, is still my favorite proofreader in the world.

Without her careful readings, I might actually have had to buy the Chicago Manual o f

Style rather than just pilfering it from my roommate’s shelves from time to time.

Thank you to the entire Winterthur faculty for your unwavering dedication to the

students and for indulging my twentieth-century interests. I am especially appreciative of

my advisor Ritchie Garrison. Your generous feedback throughout this process has helped

me focus my ideas and strengthen my finished project. Thank you also, of course, to my

wonderful Winterthur classmates for making the last two years so enjoyable.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I can never express enough gratitude to my family. To my parents: Thank you for

teaching me to love learning and creating and for supporting me in all my endeavors.

To Casey: Thank you for encouraging me through this adventure and inviting me to

embark on a new one.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES...... vii LIST OF TERMS...... xi ABSTRACT...... xii

Introduction ...... 1

Thomas Lamb...... 7

Industrial Design in America ...... 14

Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) ...... 20

Crutches & Handles: Research & Development (1941-1948) ...... 29

Testing the Civilian W aters ...... 42

Designing Wedge-lock Handles ...... 48

A Taste of Success: Affiliated Retailers Incorporated ...... 57

An Enduring Relationship: Cutco Cutlery & Wear-Ever Aluminum ...... 62

Up for Grabs: Public Response to the Wedge-lock Handle ...... 67

Conclusion ...... 82

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 149

APPENDIX A: Lamb's Wedge-lock Model Notebook, 1945-1958 ...... 158

APPENDIX B: “The Lamb Grip-hold,” patent essay, c. 1944...... 186

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES

1 File cabinet drawers full of handles in Thomas Lamb's office, c. 1958 ...... 92

2 Portrait of Thomas Lamb, c. 1954 ...... 92

3 Design for screen-printed handkerchief by Thomas Lamb, 1941 ...... 93

4 Printed cotton handkerchief for child, designed by Thomas Lamb, n.d ...... 94

5 Chronocyclegraphs of the motion and fatigue study of bricklaying (22), drill press (23), and typesetting (24) ...... 95

6 Hand Measurements of Men, Women and Children ...... 96

7 Percent of Total Handle Development Hours Spent on Various Types of Products, 1945-1958 ...... 97

8 Pneumatic crutch pad, US Patent 1,980,044, Clarence M. Fallon, 1934 ...... 98

9 Spring-filled armrest, US Patent 2,364,053, James Bourne, 1944 ...... 98

10 Two of Lamb's hand studies, 1941-1943 ...... 99

11 A sketch of Lamb's crutch armrest, dated Nov. 28, 1942 ...... 100

12 Armrest for crutches, US Patent 2,362,642, Thomas Lamb, 1944...... 101

13 Handle, US Patent 2,390,544, Thomas Lamb, 1945 ...... 102

14 Back and side views of the Grip-Hold handle on the cane/crutch combination from Lamb's sketchbook, Jan. 15, 1945 ...... 103

15 A top view of the Grip-Hold handle, from Lamb's sketches, Dec. 28, 1943 ...... 103

16 Drawing depicting the 10 - 20 degree angle (off perpendicular) of the human hand to the extended arm ...... 104

17 The Lamb Natural Crutch as it appeared in a sketch on Dec. 28, 1943 ...... 104

vii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 Crutch, US Patent 2,409,365, Thomas Lamb, 1946...... 105

19 Photo of the all aluminum Lim-Rest Cane-Crutch, Tumpane Co., 1946 ...... 106

20 Lamb Lim-Rest brochure, R.H. Macy’s, 1946 ...... 106

21 Display window at R.H. Macy's, 1946, advertising the new Lim-Rest Crutch... 107

22 Photograph showing slip- and sweat-resistant handle and armrest coatings ...... 108

23 Sketches showing various curves of the hand ...... 109

24 Lamb uses the curves of the hand to determine the shape of the handle...... 110

25 Lamb shows the ideal workload for each digit of the hand ...... I l l

26 Wing surfaces enable the thumb and forefinger ...... 112

27 Two-part plaster mold of Lamb's original Wedge-lock handle model, 1943 ...... 112

28 Interior of two-part plaster mold depicted in figure 2 7 ...... 113

29 Wedge-lock handle design no. 2 ...... 114

30 Wedge-lock handle design no. 3 ...... 114

31 Wedge-lock handle design no. 4 ...... 115

32 Wedge-lock handle design no. 5 ...... 116

33 Generic luggage handles for comparison and research...... 117

34 Sketch of loose-swinging carrier handle for Standard Handle Company, design no. 100 ...... 118

35 Handles produced by Standard Handle Company for ARI’s Arflite Luggage ... 118

36 Assorted wooden sketch models of knife handles ...... 119

37 Model no. 305, knife handle with block and screw attached for lathe w ork ...... 119

38 Sketch of Disston's original saw handle design ...... 120

39 Sketch of Disston saw handle, calculating hand angles and applied pressure.... 121

40 Sketch of potential Disston saw handle, design no. 201 ...... 122

viii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 Sketch of potential Disston saw handle, design no. 2 1 1 ...... 122

42 Sketch model of Disston saw handle design, wood ...... 123

43 Mock-up of iron base for testing handle models ...... 124

44 Model no. 284 A, knife handle, split bi-laterally to allow insertion of blade for testing ...... 124

45 Original Disston saw handle, being prepared for insertion of a Wedge-lock handle grip ...... 125

46 Presentation model of Disston saw handle with Wedge-lock grip inserted ...... 125

47 Drawings from Lamb’s Grip-Hold notebook, which isolate the functional part of the handle from its connection ends ...... 126

48 Loose sketches of handle designs for knives and top-of-stove ware ...... 127

49 Loose sketches of handle concepts for a household steam iron ...... 128

50 Refined sketches of handle concepts for a household steam iron, design no. 119/162 and no. 49 ...... 128

51 Model no. 119/162, steam iron, painted wood ...... 129

52 Model no. 49, steam iron, painted wood ...... 129

53 Tag from Arflite luggage for ARI, featuring the Wedge-lock Handle, 1947 ...... 130

54 Top-of-stove ware for ARI, featuring the Wedge-lock Handle, 1947 ...... 130

55 Wear-Ever's new pots and pans with Wedge-lock handles are announced in a company newsletter, the W-E Confidential ...... 131

56 Cover of the Wear-Ever N ew s ...... 132

57 An array of Cutco knives with Lamb Handles, c. 1952 ...... 133

58 “Modem cutlery for today’s modem kitchens” ...... 134

59 Advertisement for Wear-Ever's line of Professional Cutlery...... 135

60 “At last.. .modem cutlery for modem homemakers” ...... 136

61 Cutco Blade Special Report on Thomas Lamb ...... 137

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 “Sportsman’s Knife Lifesaver in Battle with Octopus”...... 138

63 Wear-Ever top-of-stove ware salesman showing his products to a mother and daughter ...... 139

64 Early manifestations of Wedge-lock principles on Cutco knives, mid-1950s.... 140

65 The "Universal Wedge-lock" Cutco design from the mid-1970s ...... 141

66 Cutco knife handles in 2005 ...... 142

67 Introductory panel for “A Elandle to Fit the Hand.” Exhibit at the Museum of Modem Art, 3 March -16 May 1948 ...... 143

68 "Potential Uses" panel from the MoMA exhibition ...... 144

69 Lamb stands proudly in front of the "In Production" panel from the MoMA exhibit...... 145

70 Medal awarded to Lamb in 1950 by the American Designers’ Institute for achievement in industrial design on the Wedge-lock handle ...... 146

71 Future applications for the Wedge-lock handle, as imagined by Lamb in 1949 ...... 147

72 The Tom Lamb display at the "Artisans-Techniciens Aux Etats-Unis" exhibition in Paris in 1957 ...... 148

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TERMS

ANTHROPOMETRY (-TRIC) The practice of measuring the human body in order to express its form quantitatively; the study of human body measurements especially on a comparative basis1

ERGONOMICS The scientific study of the efficiency of man in his working environment2; An applied science concerned with the characteristics of people that need to be considered in designing products so that people and things will interact most effectively and safely3

HUMAN ENGINEERING The scientific study of the interaction of human beings and their working environment and the exploitation of this interaction in the interests of efficiency; the application of the human sciences to the design of machines4

HUMAN FACTORS Often used as a synonym for ergonomics. Connotatively, “human factors” expresses a slightly broader spectrum of issues (psychological, emotional, etc.) than ergonomics, which is often used to refer specifically to physical concerns.

MANUSKINETIC S The science of the forces of the hand at work; coined by Thomas Lamb to describe his field of study, but never accepted into the general lexicon

UNIVERSAL DESIGN The design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialization5

UNIVERSAL DESIGN MOVEMENT A motion within the design community in the late 1960s and 1970s to adopt universal design methods; the movement coincided with civil and disability rights movements

1 Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, 2002, s.v. “Anthropometry.” 2 Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “Ergonomics.” 3 Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, 2002, s.v. “Ergonomics.” 4 Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “Human.” 5 Ron Mace. See xi

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT

Ergonomic design is now commonplace, but the idea of shaping a product based

on aggregated measurements of the human body was once revolutionary. In 1941, New

York City industrial designer Thomas Lamb began an ambitious study of hand and

handle function. He soon patented a remarkable, new “Wedge-lock” handle, which

lessened fatigue and increased comfort and efficiency. Over the next fifteen years,

Lamb’s handle appeared on crutches, luggage, cutlery, tools, etc., and his clients ranged

from Macy’s to Cutco. Drawing on Lamb’s business papers, correspondence, patents,

models and sketches, this project explores an insufficiently studied design

development—the practice of utilizing empirical physical research to create products that

better serve the human body. Lamb was an evangelical crusader, hoping to save the world

one handle at a time. His pioneering use of anthropometric design methods provided a

model for other designers and foreshadowed a significant shift in twentieth-century

design practice. The Wedge-lock handle introduced many Americans to the concept of

ergonomic design.

xii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction

In a row of boxes on seventy linear feet of shelving at the Hagley Museum and

Library in Greenville, Delaware, sit several thousand oddly-shaped handles that date

from the 1940s through the 1970s. The handles share a strangely captivating set of

biomorphic curves. Channels at the front of each side accommodate the thumb and

forefinger, and the contoured underside presents a comfortable home for the remaining

digits. Although the shapes are similar, the materials are as varied as the handles’

intended functions. There is a U-shaped wooden handle with chipping black enamel that

was once attached to the lid of a pressure cooker and two cast plaster handles that are the

only known physical remnants of an inventive World-War-II-era crutch called the “Lim-

Rest.” Other handles are made of aluminum, clay, and phenolic resin, and their various

markings—contour lines, tool marks, and model and patent numbers—illuminate the

creator’s process and efforts to protect his invention. Together the assorted handles

constitute an impressive and peculiar sample of mid-twentieth-century material culture: a

huge array of functional objects of a single type created by one individual.1

The handles and their creator are all but forgotten today, but their contemporaries

viewed them with a mix of curiosity and awe. When the Museum of Modem Art

1 Thomas Lamb Papers, Collection 2181, Hagley Museum and Library, Greenville, Delaware (hereafter cited as Lamb Papers). The Lamb Papers were reorganized during the year that I worked on this project. Unfortunately, this made it difficult for me to cite the new file locations for every drawing, model and document. I apologize for any difficulties that this may present to future scholars.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. exhibited the handles in 1948, they “likened [them] in appearance to abstract sculpture

and in importance to the automobile, the light bulb, and the radio.”2 Edgar J. Kaufimann

Jr., curator of the exhibit, further argued that the handles represented a “feat of

engineering comparable to the George Washington Bridge and the Eiffel Tower.”3 In

contrast, a journalist writing for the inaugural issue of the magazine Industrial Design

called the designer’s workshop “darkly reminiscent of some basement wing of the

American Museum of Natural History” and suggested that in their storage cabinets, the

handles collectively looked like “the shards of some ancient civilization.”4 (See figure 1.)

In fact, the handles were the major life work of New York City industrial designer

Thomas Babbitt Lamb (1898-1988), who spent most of the 1940s trying to develop a

better handle design.5 Although they now sit in relative obscurity, in the 1940s they were

the first ergonomically-designed handles to appear widely on consumer products. This

thesis is an exploration of the development of the Lamb “Wedge-lock” handle, as it was

called, and its significance to the history of industrial design and American consumer

2 E.J. Kahn Jr., “Profiles: Come Let Me Clutch Thee,” New Yorker, 29 May 1954, 33.

3 Ibid.

4 “Tom Lamb the Handle Man,” Industrial Design 1 (1954): 111.

5 Lamb’s parents did not give him a middle name. In his teens, he added his mother’s maiden name, Babbitt, but dropped it after Sinclair Lewis published a novel of the same name in 1922. There is some discrepancy on Lamb’s date of birth. His World War I draft card and Social Security application list September 18, 1898, but his obituary in the New York Times on Feb. 7, 1988 and the Federal Census of 1900 suggest that he was bom in 1896.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. culture. More broadly, this paper considers the history of the use of ergonomic research

by industrial designers, a subject few scholars have studied.

The word ergonomics was coined in England in 1949 to describe the scientific

study of the efficiency of humans in their working environments.6 For simple clarity in

this project, I use “ergonomics” anachronistically at times.7 Today, many people

associate ergonomics with adjustable office chairs, computer keyboards, or stocky,

neoprene-handled kitchen tools. Very few think of ergonomic design as revolutionary.

Common sense suggests that designers should create products that complement and

enable the body, especially when people will use them repeatedly or for long periods of

time. But, until the middle of the twentieth century, such concerns were often secondary.

Ergonomics is a useful tool that has the potential to benefit product users, but it

falls into a category of issues that might be called luxury problems.8 In other words, only

a culture that has mastered (and, in fact, moved beyond) the production of the means of

subsistence can begin to undertake the meticulous, labor-intensive process of designing

6 J. Christopher Jones, “Ergonomics: Human Data for Design,” Design 66 (June 1954): 13.

7 To my knowledge, Lamb never referred to his work as “ergonomic,” as the word was not commonly used in the U.S. during his career.

8 When considering the ultimate reception of a product, designers often refer to “users” rather than “consumers.” This practice de-emphasizes the designer’s relationship to advertising and marketing and stresses a benevolent role in which the designer helps improve lives through better products. Many designers also practice “user-centered design,” which aims to incorporate feedback from subsets of individuals who represent the segments of the population that will ultimately use a product. In this paper, I follow design convention and refer to users and consumers as separate but overlapping groups of people. Note: I have borrowed the phrase “luxury problems” from a friend, Justin Suissa.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ergonomic products. According to an article in the British journalDesign, in the mid

1950s the notion of ergonomics was revolutionary. “It was argued that scientific

knowledge of human attributes could aid designers in forming objective assessments of

people’s functional needs and, by doing so, help them to design products better.”9

Though they were somewhat forward-looking, the new ergonomic design methods

appealed to mid-twentieth-century Americans, who placed tremendous faith in science.

The use of ergonomics in American design arose not only out of a desire to help

improve product efficiency for the sake of the users, but also because it became profitable

in the competitive milieu of the post-World War II-era. Thousands of returning veterans

set up households and increased the national demand for mass-produced goods. In the

ensuing flood of new merchandise product differentiation became increasingly important,

and savvy businesspeople turned to marketing and design. Marketing strategies varied,

but in an era of technological and scientific positivism producers seeking to increase the

perceived value of their product or carve out a new market niche found ergonomic design

to be a tactical advantage.

Lamb was personally enthralled with the scientific spirit of the time, but he also

knew how to capitalize on popular ideas in his business. Several decades before

ergonomic design became mainstream Lamb approached his scientific research with zeal.

Between 1941 and 1948, he devoted more than 10,000 personal hours and thousands of

9 James Woudhuysen, “Ergonomics: People Aren’t as Simple as Machines,” Design 340 (April 1977): 53.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. dollars of his own money to developing the ideal handle.10 Adapting methods of

anthropometric research that, until then, had belonged primarily to cultural

anthropologists and military efficiency experts, he undertook a study that included taking

detailed measurements of more than seven hundred pairs of hands. Rather than

privileging aesthetic appearance like many of his fellow industrial designers, Lamb used

his aggregated measurements of human hands to derive a handle that maximized comfort

and efficiency. In 1954, an interviewer from the New Yorker noted Lamb’s tendency to

“gesticulate... excitedly.. .while discussing hands and handles, twin subjects of

conversation that to anyone in his evangelical presence [made] all others seem

insignificant.”11 Numerous other articles and personal letters recorded Lamb’s enduring

enthusiasm, his unwavering belief in the contribution that his project would make to

humanity, and the positive response from an American public that had not yet seen many

products designed with such careful attention paid to the physical needs of the human

body.

Art historian and critic Jon Bird has suggested that in order to understand a design

object, one must ask how and why a design developed and whose interests it served. 12

10 Thomas Lamb to Frances Orbeck, 1 July 1957, Lamb Papers. Lamb noted that “to date” he had spent over $65,000 on crutch and crutch handle research and development. Undoubtedly, he spent much of this money during the 1940s when he concentrated most heavily on the crutch.

11 Kahn, “Come Let Me Clutch Thee,” 33.

12 Clive Dilnot, “The State of Design History Part I: Mapping the Field,” Design Discourse, ed. Victor Margolin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989): 228. Dilnot analyzes Jon Bird’s argument from “Art and Design as a Sign System,” in Leisure in the Twentieth Century (London: Design Council, 1978): 86-91.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This framework is helpful for studying Lamb’s Wedge-lock handle, which served various

constituencies in diverse ways. Lamb, his clients, his fellow industrial designers, the

consuming public, and even plastics manufacturers had stakes in the product. Clients

depended on the lure of Lamb’s ergonomic handle to help sell their products. Plastics

firms established symbiotic relationships with the designer, whose handle depended on

their new polymers for successful molding. Lamb touted their phenolic resins as the best

material for his handle, and they responded by praising his designs in their own publicity.

Consumers faced a new criterion on which to judge a product: its fit in relation to their

bodies. Many responded positively to the handle and its marketing pitch, which offered

pure functionalism, promising more efficiency, a safer grip, and less fatigue. As Lamb’s

name and occupation appeared in advertisements and articles about the Wedge-lock, the

public also learned that industrial designers did more than merely “style” products; they

also considered people’s physical needs. The Wedge-lock subtly altered Americans’

perceptions of the industrial design profession, which, in turn, affected other designers.

Lamb’s own stake in the Wedge-lock handle was personal and practical: both

philosophical and monetary. As a man passionate about design and anatomy, Lamb found

great satisfaction in his handle work. He believed strongly in the usefulness of the

scientific method that he had developed to create forms that enabled the human body, and

he took pride in having bestowed physical and psychological benefits upon his fellow

human beings through his invention.13 His belief was so strong that he risked significant

13 The degree of benefit derived from the handle is debatable, Lamb was certain that his design offered significant relief from fatigue in increased efficiency.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. debt while banking on the ultimate success of the handle. His investment proved to be

worthwhile, and his handle left an important, though overlooked, legacy.

Lamb took a firm stand on the function of an everyday object—the ubiquitous

handle—arguing that it was not working with the human body. As a pioneer of

ergonomic design in consumer products, he crusaded on behalf of the entire population

for objects that enabled the body to better perform its daily tasks. Even compared to work

in more recent years, Lamb’s study of hand and handle interaction remains one of the

most in-depth ever conducted. His Wedge-lock handle raised public awareness of

ergonomics as an important concern and created a model for future industrial designers to

use similar practices in their work. His work, from 1941 onwards, foreshadowed a shift

that the design community at large would take fifteen to twenty years later when they

began to seriously discuss ergonomics and human factors. By the time theuniversal

design movementemerged in the late 1960s, Lamb had been designing with users’

physical needs in mind for nearly thirty years.

Thomas Lamb

Thomas Lamb was bom to John and Margaret (Babbitt) Lamb on September 18,

1896, in New York City. His parents were both American-born. Margaret Lamb was of

New England Presbyterian descent, and John Lamb was an Irish Catholic. Thomas was

the second of five children. Several siblings either died in childhood or were put out to

work; the eldest, Josephine, who was bom in 1894, was absent from the 1910 census, as

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. was a son, Francis, who was listed at age one in the census of1900. Other siblings

included sisters Florence (bom in 1900) and Edna (bom in 1906). To support his large

family, John Lamb held a series of jobs including running a laundry and working as a

factory foreman.

Little else is known about Thomas Lamb’s early life, except that he spent it

exploring diverse interests in New York City. As a young man, he showed great promise

in both art and medicine. He hoped to become a doctor and dabble in art. In addition to

regular schooling, he took classes in drawing and painting at the Art Students League.

His ability to accurately render the human form at early age impressed his parents, and he

soon spent his evenings apprenticing with a doctor named S. B. Battey. The doctor taught

him anatomy in exchange for doing medical drawings and such odd tasks as watching

over his car and changing his tires. At the age of eleven, Lamb also assisted Battey with

an amputation of the fifth finger. When he was not busy helping the doctor or doing

schoolwork, the precocious young man often stayed up late into the night reading a

borrowed anatomy book and indulging a fascination with the human hand that would

help him create an innovative handle more than thirty years later.14

When he was fourteen Lamb received a scholarship to study art in Europe. At the

urging of his doctor friends he decided to take it and abandon his goal of becoming a

physician. Lamb soon changed his plans again when a major European lace and drapery

designer offered him a summer apprenticeship preceding art school. He accepted, and

14 John Terry, “Thomas Lamb Biographical Notes,” c. 1950, Lamb Papers; Thomas Lamb, Curriculum Vitae from the American Designer’s Institute Award Press Release, 18 May 1953, Lamb Papers. Under “Education,” Lamb listed, “Anatomy, 5 years, Doctor S. B. Battey.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. stayed for six years, never pursuing his scholarship. The apprenticeship had a tremendous

impact on Lamb and his career. Impressed with the youth’s natural artistic ability, his

master refused to expose him to historic designs or outside influences. He installed Lamb

in a small office and insisted that he design from “within out” rather than from “without

in.” The senior designer adored his apprentice’s designs, and patterns that he created

during his first few weeks on the job remained in production for several years. By the

time he was seventeen, Lamb ranked second only to the head of the firm and “supervised

ten designers between the ages of thirty and fifty.”15

After his apprenticeship and service in the U.S. Navy during World War I, Lamb

returned to New York and set up shop as a freelance designer in 1919. Having learned

much about “art and merchandising” from his European mentor, Lamb set up a

prospering business.16 Within a year he earned $350.00 a month in profit. Soon he hired

other designers and “was on his way to international acclaim” designing textiles that were

sold to Lord and Taylor, R.H. Macy’s, and Saks.17 Lamb designed a range of textiles for

diverse audiences. His patterns for printed scarves, shower curtains, and other decorative

items displayed his fine artistic skills. Looking at his beautiful, stylized floral motifs, one

can see why his designs were popular (figure 3). In addition to these stylish items, Lamb

created children’s handkerchiefs and illustrations for numerous books and games (fig. 4).

15 Ibid., 2.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid., 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The character of Lamb’s office changed when he shifted to handle research,but at

the height of his textile design career (1920-1940) he oversaw a busy and fashionable

organization. Looking back in 1954, a journalist commented that he found it “hard to

believe that in the old days, before he went into handles, [Lamb] ran an establishment of

stylish dimensions with a crew of designers working on Tom Lamb textiles and a

publicity director to spread his fame as ‘Tom Lamb, Top-Flight Designer.”’18 Lamb’s

textiles were so successful that he was sometimes called the American Rodier.19

Observers labeled his designs “daring” and “highly creative” and “always salable and

easy to manufacture.” Such qualities led to Lamb receiving royalties on his designs early

m• hisU- career. 20

Despite his success, textile design never fully satisfied Lamb, so he began

spending his profits on invention and “the fostering of new ideas in a search for

something more vital.”21 Still clinging to his childhood interest in becoming a doctor,

Lamb sought a project that would “give him an opportunity to utilize both his knowledge

18 “Tom Lamb the Handle Man,” 112; Lamb papers. It is unclear how many employees Lamb retained when he began handle designs, but he had at least three. Carolyn Buchanan (probably the future Carolyn Lamb) worked as his secretary starting in 1946. Carolyn Lamb’s name began appearing on business correspondence in the early 1950s. Joseph Stott is credited with making the models in some of Lamb’s early patent materials from 1944. Phyllis Alexion (later Simpson) seems to have worked both as a secretary and possibly as a designer. Another employee with the initials SK probably served as a secretary prior to Carolyn’s arrival.

19 Rodier was one of the largest French manufacturers of textiles in the early twentieth century.

20 Terry, “Thomas Lamb Biographical Notes,” 4, Lamb Papers.

21 Ibid., 5.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of anatomy and his ability to shape things with his hands.”22 Taking the contemporary

industrial design mantra “form follows function”23 to the extreme, Lamb decided that

product designs were only truly functional when “designed with regard to the

physiological structure of the part of the body destined to use them.... He wanted to

contribute fatigue-reducing and pain-saving hours to humanity by providing shapes that

would cooperate with the body.”24 Lamb was deeply philosophical and sought to connect

his work to humanistic goals. He never published his writings, but he filled journals with

essays about the various quandaries of human existence. He also abandoned his Catholic

faith as a teenager to explore other spiritual practices “including Buddhism, Judaism,

Rosicrucianism, and yoga. ‘I’ve always been interested in the whole problem of the

brotherhood of man,’... [he said], ‘I guess I’ve spent almost as much time on philosophy

as I have on handles.’”25

22 Ibid.

23 Form Follows Function is now a catch-all phrase used by industrial designers to emphasize functional design over historicism and randomly tacked-on ornament. It was coined by famed architect Louis Sullivan in the late nineteenth-century, and by the mid- 1930s, the creed included two main tenets—first that an object should not disguise its basic principle of construction and secondly that it should not disguise the material from which it was made. Designers like Walter Dorwin Teague and Norman Bel Geddes soon added their own qualifications, such as Teague’s idea that objects should also be “candidly expressive... of the purposes for which they are intended.” For a complete overview see Jeffrey L. Meikle “The Practical Ultimate,” Chap. 7 in Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1939, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001).

24 Terry, “Thomas Lamb Biographical Notes,” 5, Lamb Papers.

25 Kahn, “Come Let Me Clutch Thee,” 36.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Between 1937 and 1939, Lamb tried out hisnewly-defined functional principles

on the design of a massage chair, but the chair never made it into production. Then in

1941, Lamb engaged in conversations that helped him formulate the career shift that he

had been seeking. He had joined a new professional organization, the American

Designers’ Institute (ADI) in late 1940, and the following October the New York chapter

held its first conference—an event that may have given Lamb the inspiration to begin his

handle research.26 According to newspaper articles published after the conference, the

designers spent the two-day symposium thinking about their proper roles during “the

emergency.” An article called “Designers Pledge Their Aid...” included the resolution

passed by ADI members during the seminar:

Resolved— That the creative ingenuity of the designers of America should be devoted to the furthering of the Defense Program. That the designer, because of his training and experience is ideally suited to the solution of many of the problems produced by the Defense Program, particularly the adaptations and revision of existing products in new and available materials. That, therefore, the American Designers’ Institute will seek to make available the creative resources of its members to the United States Government, the Army, and the Navy.27

26 Lamb Papers. Fellow New York designer Belle Kogan, who served as secretary for the New York chapter of ADI, sent Lamb an application in December, 1940. In the spring of 1941, Lamb also joined the executive committee along with Ben Nash (chairman), Alfons Bach, Ruth Gerth, Belle Kogan, Morris Sanders, and John Vassos. By October 7,1941 the executive committee had expanded. Belle Kogan, secretary; Thomas Lamb, Finance Committee; S. Wilson, Publicity Committee; Alfons Bach, Membership Committee; Morris Sanders & G. Cushing, Program Committee; Leo Jiranek, Emergency Cooperation Committee; Ruth Gerth, W. O’Neil, G. Kosmak, Standards of Practice.

27 “Designers Pledge Their Aid,” Retailing: Home Furnishings (New York, NY) 13, no. 40, 6 Oct. 1941, Lamb Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A series of cards in Lamb’s handwriting show the copious notes he took during the

conference, and marked-up transcripts of several talks also found their way into his files.

One speech by the president of R.C.A. must have caught Lamb’s attention as he

considered his future design goals. T. F. Joyce’s talk not only highlighted designers’

responsibilities during wartime but also mentioned an ergonomic challenge. In an

example about how design had helped R.C.A.’s business, Joyce described a problem with

two transmitter knobs that had to be operated at the same time: “Originally, those

controls were but inches apart, but as the transmitters grew, the controls became

separated by as much as four or five feet.”28 R.C.A. turned to designer John Vassos to

help them redesign the controls to within the reach of all workers. Concepts from papers

like Joyce’s and ensuing discussions with peers about the need to help the war effort must

have complemented Lamb’s own interests.

He soon seized upon the idea of designing a better crutch—a project that united

many of his talents and offered to fulfill his desire to design something more “vital” than

tablecloths and decorative glassware. In crutch and crutch handle design, Lamb could

draw on his interest in anatomy and the skills he had honed as a young man. As a pupil at

the Art Students League, he had observed that many people struggled to draw hands and

decided to perfect the skill.29 Years later New York University English professor John

Terry, a friend and writing teacher of Lamb’s, wrote that in the crutch project Lamb

28 T. F. Joyce, “Design in the Emergency and the Long Range Program,” A talk given before the American Designers’ Institute, 3 Oct. 1941, Lamb Papers. Joyce was then president of the R.C.A. Manufacturing Company in Camden, New Jersey.

29 Terry, “Thomas Lamb Biographical Notes,” Lamb Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. resolved to “make his contribution to humanity by alleviating the human suffering which

was certain to be a corollary of the war.”

Although he abandoned his thriving textile career, Lamb drew heavily from his

previous experiences. His success in the textile business ensured a continual revenue

stream (at least for awhile) even as he stopped producing new textile designs. This

income allowed him to devote himself fully to ergonomic projects for several years

without worrying about money. His entrepreneurial skills also followed him into the new

phase of his career. Crutch design took him into new product categories, but he brought

with him sound knowledge of branding, self promotion, and a firmly-established business

model.

Industrial Design in America

Before discussing Lamb’s crutch and handle designs in detail, we should first

place him in historical context by exploring the development of industrial design and

human factors engineering in the first half of the twentieth century. Industrial design

emerged in America in the late 1910s and early 1920s. The new profession combined art

and engineering to improve the form and function of mass-produced products. Its 31

practitioners took it upon themselves to apply “taste and logic to the products of

30 Thomas and Carolyn Lamb, “The Story of the Lamb Lim-Rest,” 1, Lamb Papers.

31 For histories of the emergence of the industrial design profession see Meikle, Twentieth Century Limited and Arthur J. Pulos, American Design Ethic: A History of Industrial Design to 1940 (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1983).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. machinery.”32 Designers imagined themselves filling a void that had appeared in

industrial production once client and craftsperson no longer interacted. They posited

themselves as mediators who served both clients and consumers by endowing products

with superior visual and functional qualities.

Formal schooling for industrial design did not exist until the Carnegie Institute of

Technology founded the first degree-granting program in 1934, so the first industrial

designers came from a variety of backgrounds. Most had training in painting, drawing,

and sculpture. A number also studied design or advertising, and a few trained in

architecture or engineering. The lack of formal accreditation for industrial design led to

conflicts with engineers and architects who questioned the rights of designers to practice

in “their professional fields.”33 The lack of accreditation also led designers themselves to

argue about professional standards and qualifications.

Charged with the appropriate application of art to industry, industrial designers

strove to develop a new aesthetic for American products. As the profession grew, various

methodologies emerged. Some designers restyled the outermost shell of a product

without altering its functional components. Others deemed such practice unethical and

strove to redesign the entire object. During the late 1920s and the 1930s, “streamlining”

dominated product design. The style attempted to affect the form of the teardrop—lauded

in contemporary design circles for its ideal, aerodynamic shape. Streamlining suited the

32 In this except taken from Henry Dreyfuss, Designing for People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955): 22, Dreyfuss paraphrases cultural critic and New York Times writer Gilbert Seldes.

33 Bill Davidson, “You Buy Their Dreams,” Colliers, 2 August 1947, 23.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. era’s trains and automobiles and conveyed American’s desire to speed confidently into

the future. However, critics complained that, at times, designers superficially applied the

style without regard to the function of the product; kitchen appliances and tools had no

need for aerodynamic form. Years later, designer Henry Dreyfuss, who had rejected

streamlining in its heyday, noted, “hearse and fountain pens and pencil sharpeners were

stupidly modeled after the teardrop.”34 Streamlining and styling became almost

synonymous terms with equally negative connotations. Design historian Arthur J. Pulos

defined styling as, “endowing a product with superficial and misleading forms and details

that abused the consumer’s faith.”35

From the late 1920s through the 1940s designers received mixed publicity on their

work. Several famous designers enjoyed laudatory press for particularly spectacular new

designs. Raymond Loewy and Henry Dreyfuss each appeared on the covers of a major

news magazine.36 Other articles about industrial design focused on planned obsolescence

and lumped together designers and advertisers in a plot to ease overproduction and

market saturation by tricking consumers into buying things they did not need. Some even

joked that streamlining actually referred to catalyzing the flow of money into the pockets

of designers and their clients.

34 Dreyfuss, Designing for People, 77.

35 Arthur J. Pulos, American Design Adventure: 1940-1975 (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1988): 268. For a general discussion on streamlining also see Meikle, Twentieth Century Limited.

36 Loewy appeared on the cover of Time in 1949. Dreyfuss was depicted on the cover of Fortune.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Many designers lamented their participation in artificial obsolescence. As

historian Jeffrey Meikle notes in Twentieth Century Limited:

Designers themselves felt the attractions of images they had created. Ambivalent about loyalties to art and business, they sometimes rejected their commercial role, selling products, and instead saw themselves as pioneers remaking society by bringing its artifacts in line with modem times. Tension between commercialism and social service ran through their published remarks and revealed itself in compromises necessary for success.37

Although Meikle did not consider Lamb in his book, we can conclude that Lamb was of

like mind. Lamb’s comment that he searched for something “more vital” in his work

reveals a desire to move beyond superficial style.38

It is difficult to situate Thomas Lamb within the industrial design community at

the time he began his handle work. In the 1940s design professionals were squabbling

over the definition of industrial design. Debate raged between the two newly-formed

professional societies—the American Designers’ Institute (ADI), founded in 1938, and

the Society of Industrial Designers (SID), founded in 1944.39

Of the two organizations, the ADI was more egalitarian. “The ADI was conceived

as an organization of designers, not as one of industrial designers, [which] may have

reflected the fact that most of its members were rather closely tied to craft-based

37 Meikle, • Twentieth Century Limited, 39.

38 Terry, “Thomas Lamb Biographical Notes,” 1, Lamb Papers.

39 “By-Laws and Code of Ethics of the American Designers’ Institute,” pamphlet, n.d., Lamb Papers. The foreword states that the ADI was organized in Chicago, July 7, 1938. Permanent headquarters were established in Chicago at the American Furniture Mart, 666 Lake Shore Drive.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. industries.”40 The first president of ADI, John Yassos, described the organization as “a

society for the promotion, education, and dissemination of information and good will

with reference to the art of designers; to bring to the public information concerning the

standards and ethics of designers.”41 Many of ADI’s members “specialize^] in a single

area, such as furniture, fabrics or ceramics.”42 In the eyes of industrial design purists,

these individuals were vestiges of the earlier craft-based production system rather than

modem professionals.43

From the beginning, the Society of Industrial Designers (SID) limited its

membership to a handful of industrial designers, not just “designers” in general. Their

formal definition established industrial designers as generalists, and they rejected

specialists such as design icons Charles Eames and George Nelson because their

experience was largely limited to furniture design.44 SID defined an industrial designer as

“one who has successfully designed a diversity of products for machine and mass

40 Pulos, American Design Adventure, 197.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Because of its willingness to accept a broad spectrum of designers, ADI had a much larger membership than the Society of Industrial Designers. Pulos estimates that the ADI had more than 200 active members by 1955. In 1947, Colliers stated that SID had 78 members and ADI had 350 (Davidson, “You Buy Their Dreams”).

44 As recalled by designer Russel Wright according to Pulos in American Design Adventure, 200.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. production.” 45D iversity meant that a designer must have created and produced products

in at least three different industries.

Henry Dreyfuss, Raymond Loewy, and Walter Dorwin Teague—the founding trio

of the organization—were arguably the most famous designers of their time, and the

“fraternity” they formed in the Society of Industrial Designers was often faulted for its

exclusivity 46 Loewy, who was known for his flamboyance and devil-may-care attitude,

once remarked, “We had to contend with a group of twenty or thirty crackpot commercial

artists, decorators, etc., without experience, taste, talent or integrity, who called

themselves industrial designers.”47 Although the exact referents of Loewy’s comment

cannot be determined, he almost certainly referred to designers at ADI or their ilk.

Thomas Lamb was a founding member of the New York chapter of ADI in 1940

and also served on the chapter’s executive board for many years. From his active

participation in the organization, it is clear that Lamb valued his membership. Had he

applied to the SID he probably would have been rejected. His background in the home

furnishing trades—his repertoire included printed and woven textiles, shower curtains,

45 Ibid., 199-200.

46 Ibid. Pulos notes that Dreyfuss jokingly referred to SID as the fraternity. The other original members of SID included Egmont Arens, Donald Deskey, Norman Bel Geddes, Lurelle Guild, Ray Patten, Joseph Platt, John Gordon Rideout, George Sakier, Joseph Sinel, Brooks Stevens, Harold van Doren and Russel Wright.

47 Raymond Loewy, Never Leave Well Enough Alone, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951): 128-129.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. towels, table linens, paper novelties, glassware, oilcloths, furniture, wallpapers and

linoleums—was exactly the kind of traditional, craft-linked career that the SID scorned.

Regardless of the SID’s definition, Lamb’s personal correspondence and journals

make clear that he thought of himself as an industrial designer. Nevertheless, members of

the SID like Raymond Loewy (who designed everything from Sears refrigerators to trains

and Lucky Strike cigarette boxes) spread their names across a broader spectrum than

Thomas Lamb, setting the stage for contemporary fame and for a firm place in the

historical record. The best-remembered designers also published books about their work

and design philosophies, something that Lamb never did. His handles were well-

publicized in the 1940s and 1950s, but due to his limited scope and his lack of published

remarks, most historians have missed Lamb’s contributions.

Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE)

Lamb’s work has remained under the radar partly because it does not fall neatly

into an aesthetic category. Design history scholarship has tended to focus either

biographically, on a handful of design superstars like Loewy, Dreyfuss and Teague, or

stylistically, on designed objects that fit nicely into historical categorizations: art

nouveau, art deco, Modernism, Post Modernism, etc. Between the founding-father

worship and high art, the broader history of functional design has fallen through the

cracks. Only a handful of “comprehensive” historical surveys of industrial design exist,

48 Thomas Lamb, Curriculum Vitae, 1941, Lamb Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and within these volumes, ergonomics is lucky to comprise a single paragraph—if it

appears at all. Lamb’s contributions fall squarely into this missing chapter of design

history.

Part of the fault for this omission lies with historians, who have paid little

attention to this branch of design functionalism.49 Another reason is the multidisciplinary

nature of HFE. From its inception in the early twentieth century, the practitioners of HFE

were more likely to be engineers or experimental psychologists than designers. Having

developed their own distinct methodology by the 1940s, HFE specialists were reluctant to

recognize similar research conducted by industrial designers. Tension over who owns the

methodology continues to the present day.

In the late nineteenth-century American physical and cultural anthropologists

coined the term anthropometry, which referred to the system of measuring the human

body and its parts in order to express its form quantitatively. Anthropologists used their

system of measurement to classify groups of people ethnographically. In contemporary

language use, anthropometry usually refers to the collection and use of primary

information from the human body. In other words, a handle might be ergonomic, but its

design is based on anthropometric data.

Another salient term is human engineering—first used in print in 1911 by

Frederick Winslow Taylor in a paper presented to the American Society of Mechanical

49 The topic is too functional for most art historians, who until recently have conducted the majority of research in design history. It is also too design-specific to have been touched by more general historians.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Engineers titled “The Principles of Scientific Management.”50 From its inception, the

central goal of human engineering was the creation of a more efficient workplace. The

term described “the scientific study of the interaction of human beings and their working

environment and the exploitation of this interaction in the interests of efficiency.”51 As a

phrase, “human engineering,” has largely fallen out of use, perhaps because it sounds a

bit frightening in the modem context of bio-technology. However, it was widely used

through the 1960s.

Taylor’s 1911 treatise became so well-known that his principles of scientific

management were eventually referred to as “Taylorism.” He believed that Americans

suffered considerable daily losses from lack of efficiency in all their basic tasks. He

compared the waste of human effort to the waste of natural resources—but noted that

unlike erosion or the depletion of coal, waste of human effort left no visible trace.

Therefore, only diligent scientific study could expose the waste in various manufacturing

and industrial processes.

Taylorism also became synonymous with the more familiar term “task

management,” which made up the foundation of Taylor’s methods. He timed workers in

various activities, instructed them on a new modus operandi, and timed them again. He

achieved efficiency at the loss of individuality. Workers were not allowed to determine

50 For more in Taylor’s theories and methods on Scientific Management see: Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles o f Scientific Management (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1911). Reprint, (New York: Dover, 1998).

51 Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989, s.v. “Human.”

52 Taylor, The Principles o f Scientific Management.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. their own methods or pace. The workforce, and eventually business leaders, faulted

Taylor for his top-down research methods, arguing that he and his followers knew little

about the jobs they studied and set unreasonable goals. Following a strike at the

Watertown Federal Arsenal in 1911 after a task management study, the government

banned the use of time-study from projects that received federal funding.

Taylor’s approach proved to be too strict and prescriptive, but one of his students

developed an intriguing new method. In the 1910s Frank Gilbreth and his wife Lillian

created a visual process for studying time and motion. Rather than relying only on a

stopwatch, the Gilbreths used photography to map bodily motion. By attaching lights that

blinked twenty times per second to a subject’s wrists, the Gilbreths captured all of the

body’s movements on film with prolonged exposure. These special photographs, or

chronocyclegraphs, as the Gilbreths called them, helped Frank and Lillian analyze work

stations to find the most comfortable and efficient body positions and motions. (See

figure 5.)

Unlike Taylor, who dictated his “improved” methods to powerless employees, the

Gilbreths involved their subjects in the study—often soliciting their feedback in

interpreting the chronocylcegraphs. Having worked in both bricklaying and construction

throughout his life, Frank Gilbreth could rely on his own experience. His personal

knowledge, coupled with Lillian Gilbreth’s doctoral degree in psychology led to an

approach that was much more humane than Taylor’s. The Gilbreths stressed each

53 The Gilbreths published a number of books. For more about their time-motion work see: Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Fatigue Study, the Elimination o f Humanity's Greatest Unnecessary Waste; a First Step in Motion Study (New York: Sturgis & Walton Company, 1916).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. worker’s “right to happiness” and believed that employers should help eliminate waste

and fatigue from the job so that the worker would be more contented.54

Taylor’s and the Gilbreths’ work reveal emerging trends in the first quarter of the

twentieth century. Taylor’s efforts demonstrated American manufacturers’ growing

interest in using task management to improve productivity. The Gilbreths’ studies show a

fascination with the relationship between work, tools, the environment, and the human

body. They had different approaches to their work, but they focused on the same basic

subject—improving efficiency in the workplace.

The U.S. military was also active in HFE research and nurtured the discipline in

both World Wars.55 Historian David Meister suggests that prior to and through World

War I, most research on human-machine interaction took the form of trial and error or

“fitting the man to the machine.”56 As an example he cites the Civil War submarine, the

C.S.S. Hunley, famous for being the first submarine to sink a warship. The makers of the

submarine obviously did not take the human form into account in designing their barely-

54 Mike Mandel, Making Good Time: Scientific Management, the Gilbreths, Photography and Motion, Futurism (Santa Cruz, California: M. Mandel, in association with California Museum of Photography, 1989).

55 David Meister, The History o f Human Factors and Ergonomics (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., 1999). Military personnel from other countries certainly also experimented with human engineering. British research paralleled that in the U.S. in many respects. Meister also writes briefly about German and Russian HFE research. For the purposes of this project, I have focused mostly on the American HFE tradition.

56 Ibid., 147. Meister approaches HFE as an engineer, and the book does not cover the contributions of industrial designers. Much of the text actually relays contemporary HFE methods. Despite the title, only two chapters are dedicated to history. Meister uses the metaphor of fitting the man to the machine vs. fitting the machine to the man throughout his historical chapters.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. four-foot-high interior. The sub was what it was, and the military had to choose

individuals who would be the least hindered by the sub’s size. They fit the men to the

machine, not the machine to the men.

Prior to the First World War, human engineering practitioners were almost

exclusively engineers, but developments during the war increased the presence of

psychologists to the point where they dominated the discipline. In an attempt to find the

best-fit men to serve as pilots, the U.S. military, in conjunction with the American

Psychological Association (APA), instituted a series of twenty-three mental and

physiological tests. After the war, behavioral psychologists attempted to discern the

physical and psychological characteristics in pilots that had determined their combat

performances.

The exponential increase in new military technology during World War II forced

c o efficiency experts to take a different tack. In 1937, the military created their first flight

simulator which, among other things, enabled the testing of cockpit design and layout.

This device proved useful in the face of war. With the evolution of more complex

machines, nearly every solider faced an onslaught of buttons, knobs, triggers, and gauges,

all of which required split second decision-making and manipulation. Fighter planes in

particular demanded lighting-fast reactions. With such a profusion of technological

gadgetry, military staffers could no longer find the perfect person to fit each machine and

57 Ibid., 148-49. The APA created the tests in 1918.

58 John Heskett, Industrial Design (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980). During World War II “the need for split-second reactions in fighter-plane combat stimulated ergonomic studies to co-ordinate controls and instruments” (162).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. pre-existing job.59 Although physical and psychological testing continued (in fact even

escalated), military personnel recognized that concessions had to be made in equipment

design to help alleviate problems caused by human limitations.60 “There was no time to

train armies of superexperts. The machines had to be redesigned so that men of average

education could make sense out of the dials, gauges, and scaling devices that sprouted

like weeds on the equipment.”61 In other words, machines had to be made to fit the man,

rather than the other way around.

World War II stimulated research on HFE. After the war the numerous military,

private, and academic labs that had conducted government-funded research during the

previous few years began publishing their findings.62 Most of these publications were

inaccessible to industrial designers hoping to create ergonomic products for consumers.

With few exceptions, the data focused on specialized military applications. User-friendly

publications on ergonomics and human factors would not arrive until 1959, when

Dreyfuss published the seminal reference, The Measure o f Man (see figure 6).63

59 Meister, The History of Human Factors and Ergonomics, 151.

60 Ibid., 149. In 1939 the U.S. Army established the Personnel Testing Section, and in 1941, the Army Airforce Aviation Psychology Program to select and train servicemen for particular tasks.

61 Edmund L. Van Deusen, “They’re Redesigning Your Life” Colliers, 30 Oct. 1953, 34.

62 Meister, The History of Human Factors and Ergonomics, 150-155.

63 Henry Dreyfuss is considered by many to be the father of the field of human factors design, and most historical texts that reference human factors and ergonomics refer only to Dreyfuss’ work. In 1955 he published Designing for People, which introduced the hypothetical characters “Joe,” “Josephine,” and “Joe Jr.” In his product

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In addition to publishing the results of wartime research, HFE researchers

founded the first professional societies in their field. In 1949 the British founded the

Ergonomics Research Society (ERS), an interdisciplinary group involving medicine,

physiology, psychology and engineering. The ERS eventually published the journals

Ergonomics, Applied Ergonomics, and Work and Stress. Eight years later, in 1957,

Americans founded The Human Factors Society. In naming their new professional

societies, British and American researchers also defined new terms that eventually

become standards. Ergonomics, the scientific study of the efficiency of humans in their

working environments, is probably the most recognizable term to contemporary readers.64

While British practitioners tended to use “ergonomics,” from the 1950s through the

1960s Americans favored human factors or human engineering. Similar to ergonomics

in its pursuit of understanding human interaction with objects, human factors defines a

slightly broader spectrum of physical, social, cultural and psychological factors that

affects human experiences with the designed world.

designs, Dreyfuss imagined the physical and psychological needs of these characters, and he stressed that the best designs were those that were literally built around people. Four years later, in 1959, he publishedThe Measure o f Man, in which he provided anthropometric data for men, women, and children and emphasized the need to design for assorted sizes rather than for the average. Both of Dreyfuss’ books became seminal references for industrial designers. Niels Diffrient, who worked in Dreyfuss’ office for many years, founded a company called Humanscale in 1982 and published his own series of anthropometric reference manuals under the same name. Diffrient’s name is one of the few others that occasionally appear in the history of human factors in industrial design.

64 The Oxford English Dictionary cites “ergonomics” as coming from the United States in 1952. However, the British “Ergonomics Research Society” was founded in 1949.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In the 1940s human engineers turned away from military and production-side

applications for the first time and began to look towards consumer products. Traditional

HFE practitioners, who had typically been engineers and behavioral psychologists, faced

a choice; they could continue to do pure research, or they could join the ranks of product

development teams and see their research applied to consumer goods.65 Project sponsors,

including the government, tended to prefer projects with tangible results. As human

engineering experts leapt into product development, they began working with industrial

designers. Initially the HFE specialists advised designers, but designers began conducting

user-research as well. As is often the case, new dynamics created some excellent and

some not-so-excellent working relationships and gave rise to many conflicting opinions

about how the disciplines could/should work together.66

In a 1953 article for Colliers, Edmund L. Van Deusen highlighted the

collaborative process in an article called “They’re Redesigning Your Life.” According to

Van Deusen, after mechanical engineers finished their tasks, the industrial designers “put

the parts together in a design with maximum eye appeal.” Van Deusen credited both

professions (engineering and industrial design). “Each man is an expert in his field. But

no single expert has the training or experience to predict accurately where all man-

machine frictions might occur.” Therefore, the human engineer was a necessary

65 Meister, The History o f Human Factors and Ergonomics, 155.

66 Ibid., 155. In the 1960s, after several decades of funding research, the government had not seen the magnificent returns that it expected and withdrew funding.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. component. Such specialists were usually “trained psychologists— men who have made a

specialty of studying people.”67

Although we do not know for sure, Thomas Lamb does not seem to have worked

with HFE specialists. Instead, following his inspiration to design products that better fit

the human body, Lamb did his own primary research. He quite possibly spent more time

than any individual before him (and definitely more than any previous industrial

designer) studying the human hand and its capabilities. His resulting Wedge-lock handle

exposed ergonomic design in a form that all could see, feel, and understand, and it raised

public awareness of ergonomics as a new and important concern.

Crutches & Handles: Research & Development (1941-1948)

In 1941 Lamb set out to design a more comfortable and efficient crutch that

would eliminate pain and fatigue. The ultimately-more-successful, general Wedge-lock

handle began as a byproduct of his crutch research. In later promotional materials Lamb

often referred to the “seven years” and “10,000 hours” spent on perfecting his handle

concept, and he always gave credit to the crutch as the project that started it all. Parts of

Lamb’s process are more transparent to a researcher than others. Some of his notebooks

and sketches are dated and easy to interpret, but others lack labels and render parts of the

process a mystery. It is clear that he spent much of the early years (1941-1943) studying

67 Van Deusen, “They’re Redesigning Your Life,” 34, 35.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the body and collecting measurements, but there is little evidence to show how he

actually moved from his raw data to his handle formulas.

What is clear is that by July 1943 and January 1944, respectively, Lamb was

prepared to file patents for his crutch armrest and general handle. After the U.S. Patent

Office granted Lamb the second patent, he began to keep detailed notebooks. These

ledgers contain a handle model number, project name, client name, start and finish dates,

the number of “Lamb” hours and the number of total hours spent on the model by all

office staff together. From these books we learn that, between June 25, 1945 and August

5, 1958, Lamb’s office spent 38,719 total hours on 380 Wedge-lock handle design

variations for more than 65 clients.68 (See Appendix A for a complete transcription the

notebook).

Over the years Lamb experimented with other handle designs including a torque

handle for twisting applications. Additionally, as his utility patent for the Wedge-lock

handle neared its expiration date of December 11,1962, Lamb applied to patent an

updated version known as the “Universal Wedge-lock” handle.69 All told, Lamb’s

complete handle repertoire probably numbered several thousand forms (many of them

subtle variations of several main types). A complete overview of his various design

concepts would comprise a volume of encyclopedic proportions. Therefore this paper

considers only the “Wedge-lock” handles—those produced under the patent number

68 Wedge Lock Handle Notebook, 1945-1958, Lamb Papers. The records for his crutch research are less thorough, but I have done my best to compile an account of this work because it launched the entire process of handle exploration.

69 Thomas Lamb. 1964. Handle. US Patent 3,122,774, filed Aug. 8, 1961 and issued Mar. 3, 1964.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2,390,544 between 1945 and 1958—and their antecedents in the form of the crutch

handle (1941-1945).70 Even after limiting the scope to Wedge-lock handles, there are still

hundreds of handles to contend with in a range of product categories. Figure 7 shows the

percent of total hours that Lamb’s office spent developing handles in each of thirteen

product categories.71 In the pages that follow, I explore Lamb’s original crutch research

and elaborate on a select group of later handle manifestations.

Prior to the mid-twentieth century, many crutches caused users as much pain as

they alleviated. The typical crutch had a spindly wooden handle that could not support

the body and a thin arm rest that had to be padded with bandages. Convention held that

the user’s weight was to be placed primarily on the arm rests— a practice that both cut off

circulation and damaged nerves under the arms. Lamb decided to create an ideal crutch to

replace these poorly-designed “antiquated instruments of torture.” 79

Lamb researched the history of crutches and found that they had changed little in

thousands of years. Ancient Egyptian paintings depicted men leaning on shoulder-high

sticks capped by cross pieces, and a Greek image from the fifth century showed a similar

70 Lamb’s Wedge-lock patent (2,390,544) did not expire until 1962. However, since his business plan operated on a system of patent licensure and royalties, there was little incentive to begin new license agreements in the last few years preceding the patent’s expiration. In the late 1950s, Lamb had steady royalty income, so he stopped marketing his Wedge-lock handle for new applications and devoted his time to designing the “Universal Wedge-lock” handle, for which he received a patent in 1964.

71 The thirteen categories are mine, not Lamb’s. According a letter from Lamb to Edgar Kaufrnann Jr., 21 April 1954, Lamb Papers, because of the endless possibilities for handle designs, he limited his research in the early 1950s to four categories: 1. the home, 2. surgery, rehabilitation, safety, 3. National defense, and 4. Workmen’s tools. The objects considered in this paper fall mostly into Lamb categories 1 or 4.

72 Lamb, “The Story of the Lamb Lim-Rest” 1, Lamb Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. stick topped with a curved armrest made from a cow’s hom. The more modem-looking,

n ' i forked crutch with both an armrest and a handle evolved in the eighteenth century.

Given numerous technological advancements in the early twentieth century, Lamb

regretted that design and modem science had failed to improve upon the cmtch’s archaic

design.74 Although early twentieth-century manufacturers added rubber tips and padded

armrests, inadequate handles and improperly prescribed patterns of use left many users

with pain and paralysis in their arms and shoulders.

Despite the addition of handles more than a hundred years earlier, mid-twentieth-

century physicians and therapists still taught patients to put most of their weight on their

underarms rather than on their hands, and patients suffered the consequences. Mary

Eleanor Brown, a physical therapist who worked closely with Thomas Lamb on his

cmtch research, commented on cmtch-related injuries in a booklet she wrote with her

colleague George Deaver in 1945: “Cmtch paralysis is a condition dreaded by cmtch

walkers.”75 This ailment developed when users placed too much weight on the sensitive

bundle of armpit nerves. Over time they could suffer permanent disability, including

tingling and paralysis. In spite of growing recognition among medical professionals in the

73 Lamb Papers; also, George Deaver and Mary Eleanor Brown, The Challenge o f Crutches (New York: Institute for the Crippled and Disabled, 1945), 398, Lamb Papers. Lamb wrote passionately about the history of cmtches in his publicity statements and in “The Story of the Lamb Lim-Rest’’ (a twenty page essay on the cmtch project that Lamb co-authored with his wife Carolyn). Lamb’s choice of historical examples, the presence of a marked-up copy of their booklet in his files, and Lamb’s personal correspondence with Mary Eleanor Brown, suggest that he drew heavily on Deaver and Brown in his research.

74 Lamb, “The Story of the Lamb Lim-Rest,” 1, Lamb Papers.

75 Deaver and Brown, The Challenge o f Crutches, 400.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. late 1930s and early 1940s that pressure needed to be taken off the underarms, crutch

users continued to support their bodies on armrests because the thin, wooden handles dug

into the flesh. Deaver and Brown cited the frequency with which patients had to stop to

shake out their hands and massage their bruised palms.

In light of Deaver and Brown’s treatise, one might wonder why no one had

bothered to redesign the crutch handle. Lack of communication between medical

researchers and those who developed products might have been part of the problem.

Patent research suggests that only a few innovators worked on handles at the same time

as Lamb. Unaware of the growing concern about cmtch paralysis in the medical

community, most product designers in the 1930s and 1940s pursued new versions of an

old solution—a better padded armrest—and patents for hammock-like fabric armrests,

spring-filled pads, and inflated cushions abounded (see figures 8 and 9).

Lamb’s lifelong interest in medicine and his former apprenticeship to a doctor

eroded communication barriers that may have challenged some of his peers. He eagerly

solicited the opinions of doctors and physical therapists and even sent them his designs

for review.76 Applauding the medical community’s research into the function of the

human hand, Lamb bemoaned what he saw as designers’ failure to utilize this research in

the creation of better crutches. He took it upon himself to design a cmtch with a handle so

comfortable that users would naturally place most of their weight upon it. According to

Lamb, peers laughed at his theory that the key to more effective cmtch design lay in

serving the hands, not the underarms and at his assertion that the hands could support

76 Lamb Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. more body weight than previously thought.77 Lamb argued that one only needed to look

around for proof of existing crutches’ failures—noting that everyone who used them had

to resort to bandaging and swaddling the handles and armrests to minimize the pain

caused by the poor design. He marshaled evidence from the media, noting, “Newspaper

photos—even government war posters—depict its use in this bandaged state.”78

Ironically, the additional padding often exacerbated, rather than alleviated, the problem

by putting even more pressure on sensitive nerves.

Deviating from conventional industrial design practice, Lamb embarked upon the

research and development of his crutch without a commission from a client—a practice

that imposed financial constraints yet offered the freedom to control every aspect of the

project. 7Q His background in anatomy and medical drawing had familiarized him with the

structure of the body and particularly with hands. However, in order to solve the problem

of injurious crutches, Lamb needed more than just his ability to draw. He believed the

answer lay in scientific observation.

77 Thomas Lamb to Mrs. Edgar Kaufrnann Sr. (Liliane S. Kaufmann), 19 October 1948, Lamb Papers. Lamb’s relationship with the senior Kaufinanns seems to have stemmed from his friendship with Edgar Jr. Liliane S. Kaufrnann expressed a strong interest in Lamb’s crutches. She died four years after this correspondence, but she had spent a lifetime working in public health. Most notably, she was the first female Pres ident of Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh (1934-43). For more on the Kaufmanns see: .

78 Lamb, “The Story of the Lamb Lim-Rest,” 2, Lamb Papers.

79 Designers rarely worked on speculation, as noted by Henry Dreyfuss in Designing for People, 1955. “Even in the early, struggling days of the profession, industrial designers pretty successfully resisted working on speculation. Today the practice is strictly taboo among firms of any standing” (194).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Although Lamb was the first designer to develop a full-fledged set of

anthropometric measurements of the human hand, others had conducted physical research

to varying degrees. Lamb’s contemporaries also recognized the importance of

considering the physical needs of product users. Henry Dreyfuss studied the shape of the

head and hand before his famous redesign of the Bell telephone in 1937, and as

mentioned earlier, he ultimately provided the first major anthropometric handbook for

designers in 1959. When Raymond Loewy redesigned Greyhound’s fleet in 1936, he

traveled around the country by bus to experience its problems firsthand. 80

Unlike Lamb, Dreyfuss and Loewy did not use a strictly ergonomic process.

Typical contracts set finite billable hours that constrained design research within

reasonable limits. During the 1930s and 1940s they conducted user testing for numerous

projects but did so in an expeditious manner. Because they worked over such a broad

range of product categories (as required by the Society of Industrial Designers), they

would not have had time to conduct excessive amounts of anthropometric research for

O 1 each and every project. Additionally, these designers subscribed to a more holistic

method than Lamb, in which human factors, aesthetics, marketability, cost, and

maintenance received equal consideration. Lamb relied almost exclusively on ergonomics

to design his handle because he believed strongly in the method, and his financial

80 Davidson, “You Buy Their Dreams.”

81 Dreyfuss believed strongly in the use of human factors in design, and he worked for many years to develop a broad range of anthropometric data for all industrial designers to use. Twenty five years after Lamb created his crutch, no designer would have thought of spending thousands of hours compiling their own data sets because reference books like Dreyfuss’ provided handy reference manuals.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. independence allowed him the freedom to conduct extensive research for which a

reasonable client would not have paid.

Lamb’s reliance on scientific data and his willingness to incorporate feedback

from medical professionals and patients made for a lengthy design and development

process. During the first few years of his crutch project, he spent much of his time just

gathering data. He acted cautiously, unwilling to release his crutch into the market until

he was sure he had perfected it. Yet the timeliness of his research (a crutch in the midst of

wartime), the desire to create physical models for user testing and feedback, and the

threat of competing products pushed Lamb to accelerate production.

Designers frequently released products on which the design was not entirely

satisfactory and altered them later. Unresolved stylistic problems might have aggravated

aesthetes, but they rarely affected the product’s function. However, Lamb’s crutch,

developed with a goal of pure functionalism, demanded perfection in every design detail.

Outside pressure seems to have forced him to launch his crutch somewhat hurriedly and

before he had resolved all the necessary problems. As a result, he continued to revise his

design after the crutch went to market in the hope of creating a more successful version.

The first phase of Lamb’s research began in 1941, lasted until about 1944, and

included most of his primary research. This work informed the development of two

separate parts of the crutch—the armrest and the handle. He began by watching patients

walk with crutches. Like Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Lamb found photographic records of

the body to be incredibly useful. Slow-motion films helped him gauge the motions of

crutch walking and weight distribution. The most labor-intensive task involved taking

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. hand and body measurements from over seven hundred individuals. Unlike military

researchers who measured only young, healthy males, Lamb sampled a wide range of

people, and the resulting crutch fit adults from 4' 8" to 6' 4".82 He traced the left and

right hands of each of his subjects and carefully noted the boundaries between key

muscle groups and the precise locations of knuckles (figure 10).

Once compiled, the data helped Lamb determine the points of maximum carrying

strength as well as normal gripping positions. In separate charts he recorded height,

weight, length of legs and arms, the distance from the floor to the armpit, and other

specialized measurements in order to keep track of the body types that went with each set

of hands. Additionally, he made drawings and impressions of armpits to determine the

points that received the most pressure when full weight was placed on the armrest. He

then correlated these pressure points with anatomical models of nerves, arteries, and

muscles to determine the least damaging shapes.

Although Lamb ultimately released a completely redesigned crutch, he patented

each of the parts before the whole. In July, 1943, he filed a patent application for an

armrest with a new “S” shape that more naturally fit the underarm space (see figures 11

and 12). 83 The reversely symmetrical design curved inwards at the rear to rest against the

latissimus dorsi muscles of the back, and curved outwards in front to avoid pinching the

pectoral muscles or breasts. Lamb also made the center of the armrest narrow to help

protect tendons and nerves.

82 Lamb, “The Story of the Lamb Lim-Rest,” 11, Lamb Papers.

83 Thomas Lamb. 1944. Armrest for crutches. US Patent 2,362,642, filed Jul. 10, 1943, and issued Nov. 14, 1944.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In January, 1944, five months after patenting the armrest, Lamb filed a patent for

the handle, which he initially called the “Grip-hold” (see figure 13).84 Apparently he had

the foresight to realize that the handle had the potential for applications other than

crutches, so he patented it as a general handle, not specific to the crutch. The Grip-hold

patent stated its purpose, “to provide a handle so designed with relation to the average

human hand and arm as to provide comfortable, natural gripping surfaces which tend to

• RS distribute and equalize gripping tensions and thereby relieve strain and reduce fatigue.”

The design that Lamb developed for the crutch handle fit the body so well that it needed

only slight alterations for other applications. (In 1947 Lamb changed the name from

“Grip-hold” to “Wedge-lock” and trademarked the new name. For purposes of clarity I

will use “Wedge-lock” for the rest of this paper.)86

Form follows function had become a design mantra by the early 1940s, but Lamb

added his own twist to the convention. The phrase had once defined a goal to disguise

neither material nor construction technique, and later represented the idea that a product

o n should candidly express the purposes for which it was intended. Lamb’s description of

his design method implied the additional qualification that form should be entirely

derived from function, even to the detriment of aesthetics: “If, due to its symmetry or to

84 Thomas Lamb. 1945. Handle. US Patent 2,390,544, filed Jan. 1, 1944, and issued Dec. 11, 1945.

85 Lamb, The Story of the Lamb Lim-Rest,” 9, Lamb Papers.

86 Lamb Papers. Other variations appear. J.L. Wood of ARI referred to the handle as the “Wedge-grip” in a letter dated 21 July 1947.

o - j Meikle, Twentieth Century Limited, chapter 7.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. its flowing lines, the handle seem[ed] to also have beauty or eye appeal, it [was] purely

accidental, for the conformation required for functional purposes would have been the

same even if the appearance had been ugly.”88 On the crutch handle, Lamb’s physically-

derived functionalism generated a naturally positioned handgrip that enabled the hand to

press straight down rather than sideways. Furthermore, the handle allowed human hands

to comfortably carry two-thirds of the body’s weight.

The Wedge-lock design took into consideration the “shape of the average hand,

the relative lengths [and strengths] of each individual finger, [and] the relative position of

OQ the thumb in relationship to the fingers.” It offered significant improvement over

previous handles, and validated Lamb’s method of studying the work of each finger

individually. With earlier round, wooden crutch handles, users’ wrists had a tendency to

roll either outwards or inwards, and their thumbs or fingers had to grip harder to keep

from losing control. Lamb surmised that this constant muscle fatigue caused much of the

hand discomfort in crutch use. By adding bulk in the center of the handle, he provided

support for the transverse pollicis muscle—the soft area between the thumb and index

finger—that bore the majority of the weight. Another innovation, a ridge on either side of

the handle running at an angle slightly off-vertical, created a separate space for the thumb

and index finger and provided leverage and stability in gripping (see figure 14 and 15).

Lamb’s final major adjustment involved tilting the handle to an angle of 10 to 20 degrees

off horizontal (see figure 16). This shift compensates for the fact that the cupped hand at

88 Lamb, “The Story of the Lamb Lim-Rest,” 10-12, Lamb Papers.

89 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the end of an extended arm creates a slightly-angled cavity rather than one parallel to the

floor. This adjustment allowed the hand to maintain its natural position and alleviated

pinching at the sides of the wrists. Lamb’s changes resulted in a handle that logically

distributed the strength of the fingers and allowed the thumb to relax, which Lamb argued

relieved tensions in the entire hand. (For detailed diagrams and a description of the

handle’s attributes in Lamb’s words, see Appendix B).

In the early stage of his research, Lamb produced handles and armrests for

standard crutches, but he became intrigued with the development of a crutch/cane

combination (see figures 17 and 18). In June 1945, a year and a half after filing the

handle patent, Lamb submitted a complete crutch, which he called the Lamb Natural

Crutch (later the Lim-Rest).90 Unlike standard crutches, the Natural Crutch had only one

vertical member running between the handle and armrest (see figure 19). Lamb’s

reasoning behind this design related to what he called “psychological factors.”91 In

addition to improving physical comfort and efficiency, Lamb hoped that his crutch would

ease some of the social stigma associated with disability. The idea that canes represented

a more advanced stage of convalescence than crutches figured integrally into his design

decisions. Lamb placed the single upright support behind the arm, so that from the front,

a crutch user would appear to be using only canes (see figure 20). As the user recovered,

he or she could remove the armrest and use the cane alone.

90 Thomas Lamb. 1946. Crutch. US Patent 2,409,365, filed June 23, 1945, and issued Oct. 15, 1946.

91 Typical HFE practice considered both physical and psychological factors. Lamb focused more heavily on physical factors, but this is one clear example of him explicitly addressing psychological aspects of the user’s experience.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Lamb initially intended to serve injured veterans with the Natural Crutch, so he

tried marketing to military organizations. Few records of the distribution of the first

crutch have survived, but Lamb’s notebooks and correspondence with colleagues suggest

that he actively sought military contracts during 1944—even before he had submitted his

Natural Crutch patent. An advertising colleague in Baltimore named Allan Sommerfield

wrote informally to Lamb that he had been talking to “influential people” who thought

that Lamb’s crutch would get better reception from the Navy than from the Army.

Sommerfield even joked that Lamb should send a recently injured Coast Guard officer a

crutch as an advertisement in the form of a gift. 09 A few months later, Lamb

corresponded with Major Frederick Fink, Director of the Technical Division in the office

of the Surgeon General. Lamb described his crutch handle and armrest at great length,

and assured Fink that they could attach to any standard crutch. At the end of his letter,

Q-J Lamb mentioned that he also had a complete redesign, if Fink were interested.

If photographs of Lamb’s earliest complete crutch (the Natural Crutch) survive,

they are unknown. However, years later, he wrote that for “military expediency”94 the

first crutch had been made of metal. Manufacturers’ price and material quotes from 1945

confirm that it was made entirely of aluminum.95

09 Allan Sommerfield to Thomas Lamb, 24 August 1944, Lamb Papers.

QT Thomas Lamb to Major Fink, December 1944, Lamb Papers. Fink’s response is absent from Lamb’s files.

94 Lamb to Mrs. Edgar Kaufmann Sr., Lamb Papers.

95 “Lamb Cane Crutch,” price quote for labor and materials, Goodwin-Hill Corp., Brooklyn, New York, 1945, Lamb Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Testing the Civilian Waters

The end of the war marked the beginning of the second phase of Lamb’s research,

during which he produced the civilian version of his crutch (the Lim-Rest) and released

the first Wedge-lock handle on an object other than a crutch. Formal documentation for

the distribution and reception of the military crutch does not survive. However, in late

1944 and in 1945 Lamb received written requests for a civilian release of the crutch—

suggesting that he must have created enough publicity to pique the public’s interest.96

Excited by the possibility of civilian distribution, Lamb diligently went back to

the studio for more measurement and product testing. In April 1945 he conducted a study

with subjects ranging from 4' 10" to 6' 7" in height, focusing particularly on the distance

between the floor and their hands and from their hands to their armpits. Lamb maintained

that existing crutches did not allow for enough adjustment, and he wanted his version to

accommodate as many body types as possible. He held similar tests in October, and in

December he continued to calculate the increments within which his crutch would adjust.

Although research went well, small problems appeared with manufacturing costs

and competition. In early August 1945, fellow designer Gerry Johnson sent Lamb a letter

with an enclosed advertisement for a new crutch, thinking that his colleague would like to

see his competition. In his reply, Lamb expressed frustration with the surgeon general’s

office for “holding things up.” (They were testing his crutch for possible use as standard

equipment.97) He fretted that each new competing crutch that arrived on the market

96 Lamb to Mrs. Edgar Kaufmann Sr., Lamb Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “disturbe[d] one’s plans.” 98 His crutch was currently in production, and he could only

hope that it would successfully fight its own battle in competition. Production costs were

another thorn in Lamb’s side. The all-aluminum crutch cost $15.00 per set to

manufacture, and hospital distributors wanted to price them at $45.00-$60.00 per pair."

Lamb thought these prices were exorbitant, and argued that there were “more poor people

in pain than there [were] rich.”100 He had hoped to make an affordable crutch, and he

worried that his plans would be thwarted.

Despite small set-backs, Lamb moved forward with his Lim-Rest design. In early

1946, he licensed the Tumpane Company of Long Island, New York to distribute the

Lim-Rest. Lamb and Tumpane soon arranged a contract with Affiliated Retailers Inc.

(ARI) to give the Lim-Rest a trial run. ARI, a conglomerate of nearly thirty department

stores in over twenty states, included Macy’s in New York and Kaufmann’s in

Pittsburgh. Macy’s agreed to a one-month launch in mid-March, and on January 25,

97 Lamb Papers. In February or March, 1945, Lamb met a friend of a friend named Louis D. Armstrong. Armstrong had a broken leg at the time of the meeting and tried out Lamb’s crutch. Armstrong apparently convinced Lamb to take his crutch to Washington DC to the surgeon general’s office. As of March 21, 1945, Lamb reported that the Surgeon General’s office was testing his crutch “and other items [identity of these items remains a mystery] for their possible use as standard equipment for war causalities.”

98 Gerald Johnson to Thomas Lamb, 1 Aug. 1945 and Lamb to Johnson, 2 Aug. 1945, Lamb Papers.

99 Lamb to Mrs. Edgar Kaufrnann Sr., Lamb Papers.

100 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1946, the Tumpane Company sent twenty-five pairs of Lim-Rest cane crutches and a

package of Lamb Lim-Rest instruction manuals (figures 19 and 20).101

Apparently the Lim-Rest did not fare as well as Lamb, Tumpane, and Macy’s had

hoped. As the end of the trial month drew near, Lamb noted that he was “still carrying on

the work alone and [had] as yet nothing tangible to show for [his] efforts.”102 Although

doctors and test users gave the crutch good reviews, few consumers rushed to buy a Lim-

Rest. As a friend later noted to Lamb, crutches presented a challenge because people

generally only needed them for a short while. Though Lim-Rest’s unique design and

comfort impressed the public, only those who actually needed a crutch would consider

the purchase, and among those, only a select group could afford the expensive Lim-

Rest.103 Nevertheless, Lamb remained optimistic, hoping that his invention would

eventually gain widespread acceptance in its field.104

Though the Lim-Rest sold poorly, its limited release generated considerable

interest among crutch users. Throughout the summer and fall of 1946 and into the winter

of 1947, Lamb received numerous requests from people who had heard about the Lim-

Rest and wanted to order one. Notes also arrived from those who had compliments or

101 James Tumpane to Marcus Salzman, cc: Thomas Lamb, 13 March 1946, Lamb Papers.

102 Thomas Lamb to Raymond Smokel, 11 April 1946, Lamb Papers.

103 Lamb Papers. Newspaper clippings and magazine articles show that the public responded enthusiastically to Lamb’s concept. Most of them just did not need a crutch.

104 Lamb to Smokel, Lamb Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. complaints about the set of crutches they had purchased.105 Many of these letters survive

in Lamb’s files. Henry Wells of New York wrote that his son Crosby thought that the

crutches were too heavy on top. Alice Higgins, a personal friend of Lamb’s and a nurse at

the New York Reconstruction Center, tested crutches with her patients. She wrote in

early summer to say that her boss, Dr. Landauer, was quite impressed and eager to try out

the crutches with patients. In August, Higgins reported that patients loved the handle, but

did not like the springiness of the upper portion of the crutch. The demarcation of a

distinct left and right crutch by the reversely symmetrical armrests also frustrated patients

when they were in a hurry. Higgins also suggested that Lamb might have success in

putting his handle on traditional crutches.106

A young veteran by the name of Herb Sandick sent a favorable and detailed note

in January 1947. Having progressed beyond needing crutches, Sandick had happily

moved on to using the Lim-Rest cane by itself.107 He wrote, “I am now particularly

pleased with the cane which is part of the crutch. The cane is very well balanced and

provides better support than any other I have seen. The handles are an ingenious idea and

105 Lamb Papers.

106 Henry Wells to Thomas Lamb, 26 August 1946; Alice Higgins to Thomas Lamb, (early summer) 1946; Alice Higgins to Thomas Lamb, 16 August 1946, Lamb Papers. Mrs. Higgins must have been unaware that Lamb had also designed a crutch handle that screwed onto existing crutches.

107 Like its Natural Crutch precursor, the Lim-Rest had a modular design. By simply twisting a thumbscrew the user could remove the armrest to transform the crutch to a cane.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. seem to me to be very well suited to the purpose. They are very comfortable to use.”108

He had not been quite as thrilled with the crutch attachment, which he found to be too

heavy, but he reported the armrest’s shape to be quite comfortable. His biggest complaint

was the angle of the vertical support, which hit his forearm, and he included a small

sketch showing his proposed solution.

By the beginning of 1947, structural problems and unimpressive sales convinced

Lamb to stop production of the Lim-Rest and think about a redesign. He had worked for

long time at his own expense, and had seen no significant return. He withdrew the crutch

from production and looked for more affordable methods of fabrication and design

improvements. To alleviate the problem of sweaty hands slipping against bare metal,

Lamb experimented with synthetic coatings for the handles and armrests.109 Photographs

sent for publication to Interiors magazine in October 1947 show a surface coating that

was absent on the 1946 Lim-Rests (fig. 22).110 Additionally, Lamb explored the

possibility of plastic as an alternative material. Quotes from General Electric’s plastics

division and other manufacturers revealed that plastic molding could reduce the cost of

the handles and armrests to $1.25 per pair, compared to $5.00 per pair in aluminum.111

108 Herb Sandick to George Cohn, 17 January 1947, Lamb Papers.

109 George Puddington (of Seal-Peal) to Thomas Lamb, 6 March 1946; Lloyd Alan Sheeran to Mr. Laurelli, 28 April 1947, Lamb Papers. The coating was most likely either a plastic coating produced by Seal-Peel, Inc. or a sweat-proof enamel made by R.I. Task Enterprises.

110 Interiors, December 1947.

111 Lamb to Mrs. Edgar Kaufinann Sr., Lamb Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Although the ultimate cost per part would have gone down, Lamb’s distributor refused to

pay the considerable capital costs for the mold tooling. 117

Although he desperately wanted his crutch to succeed, Lamb realized that the

Lim-Rest’s days were limited. In 1947 he had received several letters from angry and

concerned therapists and patients whose crutches had snapped while they were using

them. In his desire to meet the psychological needs of his users and obscure the view of

the crutch from the front, Lamb had overlooked a serious structural flaw. The vertical

support that held the armrest was prone to breaking at the point of its attachment to the

handle. The angle of the support created leverage that increased the chance of failure, and

the holes drilled through the aluminum tubing right at the fulcrum of the lever further

compromised structural integrity. Though disheartening, the bulk of the criticism referred

o nly to the Lim-Rest, not its Wedge-lock handle.113

112 Ibid.; Lamb Papers, Box 1. Correspondence suggests that tooling costs could have ranged from twenty to thirty thousand dollars.

113 Lamb returned to his initial idea of creating an interchangeable handle for existing crutches. Between 1947 and 1952, he continued to develop a crutch handle, which unlike the Lim-Rest, could be cheaply manufactured. (One pair of synthetic rubber crutch handles cost only $0.50 to produce.) He nearly secured a distribution arrangement with Loftstrand (in Maryland) until the Korean War forced the company to focus on its government contracts. Nevertheless, word continued to spread about the possible production of the now-famous Wedge-lock handle on the crutch, and patients remained eager to try it. From time to time Lamb received letters of inquiry. Mary Eleanor Brown, treatment specialist at the Hospital for the Crippled and Disabled in New York City, expressed a strong interest in working with Lamb to bring the product to market. After she accepted a job as director of research and product development at Sunnyview, the New York State Health Department’s research institute for Cerebral Palsy, she and Lamb set up a rigorous program through which she would test his crutch handles on her patients. The results of her research have not been located, but the pair’s collaboration demonstrates Lamb’s continued commitment to bring the crutch handles to the public.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Feeling temporarily defeated, Lamb halted work on the crutches and focused on

other applications for his handle. In a letter to Mrs. Edgar Kaufinann Sr. of Pittsburgh in

October 1948, he noted that he hoped that the success of mainstream consumer products

would eventually help bring recognition to his medical innovations. Luckily he already

had a number of projects underway.114

Designing Wedge-lock Handles

Designing a Wedge-lock handle was not as easy as simply carving grooves for

each finger. To detractors who commented that the handle could be easily made by

squeezing one’s hand around a ball of clay, Lamb pointed out that such a handle would

only fit the right or left hand and would not complement any hand but the maker’s.

Solving the handle design problem, as he had defined it, took dedication and ingenuity.

The results of his anthropometric research presented the difficult challenge of creating

physical forms that maintained the required dimensions, angles, and weight allocations.

His illustrated patent essay suggests how he tackled this complicated job (Appendix B).

The process warrants close consideration because it influenced the broader industrial

design community and, therefore, the shapes of countless mass-produced objects in

America. As designers increasingly considered human factors throughout the second half

of the twentieth century, Lamb’s process provided an important model.

114 Lamb to Mrs. Edgar Kaufinann Sr., Lamb Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Lamb began by considering the hand and its many curves: the metacarpal bones

curve down from the wrist to the fingers, the heel of the hand is concave from right to

left, and the underside of the knuckles assumes an indented bow shape across the palm.

Figures 23 and 24 show how Lamb used these shapes to create the handle’s basic form.

In order to accommodate both the right and left hand with the same handle, he created a

wedge-shaped groove on each side for the thumb and index finger. He also maintained

the 10 degree tilt of the handle to complement the angle of the human wrist that he had

discovered during his crutch research.

Lamb next considered the thumb, which was underutilized in traditional handles.

This fact especially concerned him because his research had shown the thumb to be the

strongest of the five phalanges. Speaking like an engineer and an anatomist, Lamb noted

that the fingers connected at different angles and at various heights on the hand.

Logically, each unique anatomical mechanism applied different amounts and types of

force.115 In Lamb’s ideal scenario, the thumb would carry 35 percent of the load, the

index and pinky fingers each 20 percent, the middle finger 15 percent, and the ring finger

10 percent (fig. 25). He astutely pointed out that in many handle functions, the

exceptionally strong thumb merely provided stability. Users could actually move their

thumbs away from a handle with little consequence, proving that their other four fingers

were doing most of the heavy lifting.

115 No papers were found to document Lamb’s method of deriving these percentages. Given his methodical nature, the research probably included measuring the forces that subjects could apply with each finger using spring scales or a similar device.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Lamb enabled the thumb to do more work by adding overhanging, wing-shaped

surfaces above the wedge at the front of the handle (fig. 26). These wings allowed the

thumb and forefinger to provide leverage while remaining in relaxed positions. Nestled

into their grooves, these digits also stabilized the hand on the handle; it was almost

impossible for the hand to slip, roll, or turn. He isolated the remaining three fingers with

a slight ridge at the back of the wedge. Gathered behind the wedge, the middle, ring, and

pinky fingers performed a helping role, carrying 10 percent less of the total load than the

combined thumb and forefinger.

In the midst of this research (during the months prior to submitting his general

handle patent on January 1, 1944), Lamb symbolically reset the clock in his notebooks.

Ignoring several previous years of crutch and handle modeling, he numbered his soon-to-

be-successful general handle patent model “#1” and labeled it “original model” (see

figures 27 and 28). Over the next year and a half he refined the shape, often imagining

future applications like carrying handles or tool grips without any particular clients in

mind (see figures 29 - 32). Finally, with the basic functional form honed to his

satisfaction and his patent soon to be granted, Lamb had viable product to market.

For model numbers 1 through 6, (figs. 27 - 32) Lamb recorded “TL office” under

the client heading, suggesting that he made these models for himself. Between August 11

and December 27, 1945 he created his first models for a specific client. He recorded

model numbers 7 through 10—a series of coffee pot and teapot grips—for Coming Glass.

Model numbers 11 to 14, developed in the spring and summer of 1946, went to the

Standard Handle Company for carriers. Altogether, by the time Lamb abandoned the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Lim-Rest in fall of 1948, he had over a hundred different handle models in various stages

of development. According to his notebooks, during 1946 he worked on golf clubs and

tennis rackets for Spalding and Wilson, an electric drill for Black & Decker, pneumatic

tools for Dow PTG, an electric iron for Silex Corporation, an acetylene welding torch for

Linde Air Products, a handgun for Colt Manufacturing Company, and numerous hair

brushes, knives and assorted items for various companies.

In most cases Lamb made several models for each client and spent anywhere from

a few days to several months-worth of hours on a given client’s project. For instance, his

office recorded 76.75 total hours for making one Black & Decker drill model and 281.25

hours on a series of three tennis racket models for Wilson.116 It is difficult to determine

which of these concepts made it to market and which fell through prior to reaching

production. 117 Wonderful as they are, Lamb’s notebooks tell us only that he modeled a

given handle concept. (See Appendix A.)

Lamb made models for clients for a fee. After seeing the initial concepts they

could choose whether or not to go forth with the project. If a company wanted to produce

the handle on their product, they signed a contract with Lamb agreeing to label all of the

handles with his patent number and to supply him with a specified royalty for each piece

sold. The client had the option of selecting an exclusive or non-exclusive contract for

products of a particular type. In the case of an exclusive contract, (which typically lasted

116 Lamb Handle notebooks, Lamb Papers.

117 Lamb Papers. Of the items listed above for 1946,1 can prove only that the Linde welding torch and the Tek Hughes hair brushes were produced. Photos of these finished products survive in Lamb’s records.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. fifteen months, but could be extended as long as sales stayed above an agreed-upon

minimum level), Lamb agreed not to license his handle to any other company for the

same product category (i.e. top-of-stove ware or tennis rackets). In exchange for

receiving exclusive rights to the patented Wedge-lock handle, the client had to pay a

higher royalty and agree to give Lamb the difference if minimum sales numbers were not

met.

The hours spent on a given client’s project encompassed a number of activities. In

order to begin his study Lamb usually required samples of the products for which he was

to customize a handle design. Figure 33 shows an assortment of leather, metal, and

plastic handles, undoubtedly from typical luggage of the mid 1940s. These may be

samples from Affiliated Retailers Inc., for which Lamb designed a luggage handle (figs.

34 and 35), or general handles that Lamb collected for reference and experimentation. He

could have assessed the relative strengths and weaknesses of these handles and

considered them in the creation of his new design. He may also have used them to

determine standard measurements. For instance, if an original ARI handle attached to its

suitcase at two points exactly five inches apart or at a particular angle, Lamb could use it

to ensure that his version attached in the same manner.

In nearly all of his design projects, Lamb alternated between drawing and

modeling. Drawing could mean loose, brainstorming sketches or tidy images laid out on

graph paper. Modeling, on the other hand, included myriad materials and processes. He

carved many initial models in soft materials like basswood so that he could turn out

numerous iterations very quickly (fig. 36). He worked both by hand and by machine,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. using whichever method provided the most advantage. He cut profiles of handles on the

band saw, turned them on the lathe, and carved elements without radial symmetry by

hand (fig. 37). Throughout the process he used calipers and dividers to check his

dimensions and to maintain bilateral symmetry. Carefully transcribed contour lines,

which often matched the ones on his scale drawings, helped him visualize the high and

low points of complex, intersecting curves as he carved. If he accidentally removed too

much material, he would add Chavant clay, a hard, oil-based clay capable of being

sanded and painted. 118 Once he had refined a design, he often made a plaster mold so that

he could easily cast duplicates in plaster, lead, plastic, or aluminum.119

Figure 38 shows a detailed sketch of an original saw handle from Henry Disston

and Sons. Numerous callouts list every major angle on the handle, showing that Lamb

analyzed its parts before deciding how to proceed with a redesign. Figure 39 shows him

going into even further detail by attempting to trace the pushing forces applied by each

part of the hand with long lines drawn down the length of the saw blade. He also sketched

out different versions of the same handle. Figures 40 and 41 show two Disston saws with

Wedge-lock handles—design numbers 201 and 211, developed in November/December

1948 and January/February 1949, respectively. Based on surviving models, he seems to

have chosen the latter design; he roughly hewed out its shape from a solid piece of wood

(fig. 42).

118 This clay was used extensively in the automotive design industry to carve full- size models of car bodies.

119 The large number of rough castings and the lack of surviving business correspondence with any molders for these models suggest that Lamb had his own casting equipment, either in his large Madison Avenue workshop or offsite.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In addition to matching their prescribed dimensions, handles also needed to be

tested in use. For this step, Lamb created various mockups that let him, test subjects, and

clients try out the handles in their intended positions and functions. Figures 43 and 44

show a mock-up iron body that could accommodate handle models on its protruding

dowel rod and a two-part knife handle model that could trap an actual blade to simulate

the finished product. Using the parts of the original object could also help Lamb achieve

a realistic look. A lacquered model of the Disston saw handle with hand-painted

construction lines probably served as a presentation piece for the client. (See figures 45 to

46). For this model, Lamb used an actual Disston handle. He sawed out the existing grip

and seamlessly replaced it with his own. By using the original handle with its decorative

Disston rivets and gouged ornamentation, Lamb would have helped his client more easily

envision the look of the finished product.

Lamb rarely changed the functional part of his handle. Throughout various design

iterations he made subtle adjustments and changed the orientation and scale, but for the

most part, the patented Wedge-lock shape remained intact. A blindfolded user would

have felt very little difference between the Wedge-lock handle on a crutch, and one

attached to a skillet. Lamb significantly altered only the various extensions that attached

the handle to its host object. For instance, luggage required the handle to extend down

both sides to suspend it a few inches above the container. A skillet, on the other hand,

needed a round or square tenon at the front end that inserted into a matching socket in the

cast aluminum pan, and it required a finished back end. Figure 32 shows the basic

functional part of the Wedge-lock handle as carved by Lamb without any specific

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. attachments. The drawings in figure 47 illustrate how he envisioned the profiles of

various connecting extensions.

Maintaining a single grip both simplified and complicated his design process.

Between 1945 and 1958 Lamb created hundreds of slightly different handle forms. When

he took on a new assignment he could often cull from his large collection a near-perfect

fit. A hunting knife handle that he designed in the mid 1940s proved to work equally well

on domestic steak knives in the mid 1950s. Similarly, a steam iron handle designed for

one company served as the model for another client’s iron years later. On the downside,

Lamb faced the difficulty of giving each product a unique aesthetic and visually relating

the handle to the rest of the object.

This task was further complicated by the fact that he almost never redesigned the

bodies to which his handles attached.120 This method differentiated Lamb from many of

his peers. An industrial designer working in typical consultant fashion redesigned an

entire object to give it a uniform look. He or she could choose a flamboyant style or

create a simpler shape that merely complemented the object’s function. In either case the

designer usually considered the product as a whole.

Unlike a completely redesigned product, on which various related elements

ideally played off each other to create a single, cohesive look, no design features on the

Wedge-lock handle necessarily united it with the object to which it was attached.

120 Lamb occasionally coordinated with the design teams of his clients. In a letter to the sales manager of Hughes Brushes dated Dec. 2, 1946 (Lamb Papers), Lamb suggested a meeting with the company’s designer as a next step in development. In some of his contracts he specified that clients were not to produce a redesign of an object using his handle without his approval.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Although limited by his dedication to functionalism, Lamb managed to give an eye to

style. Since he did not usually design the body, he could not shape its form. However, he

could design his handles to complement the body as much as possible. Hundreds of

sketches from his notebooks show that he thought about subtle visual variations. Figure

48 shows loose sketches of handles for pots and pans. As Lamb experimented with the

back ends of these handles and sketched various ways in which they could terminate, he

must have been considering the overall appearance of the pans more than their function

because the very back end of the handle made little to no contact with the hand. In other

products Lamb was able to incorporate visual cues from the object into the non-gripping

part of his handle. Figures 49 through 52 show sketches and models for household steam

irons in which Lamb captured the aggressiveness and forward-motion of the object.

While staying true to his grip, he managed to create a form that suited the iron and

actually enhanced its appearance.

The combined functional attributes of Lamb’s handle and his ability to adapt it to

almost any product gave him a very broad potential market. The crutch had failed

because of manufacturing costs and the lack of a market, but the general Wedge-lock

handle offered Lamb the opportunity to spread his new design concepts throughout

America. After years of research and sacrifice, he finally found success.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A Taste of Success; Affiliated Retailers Incorporated

Despite difficulties in selling the Lim-Rest crutch, R.H. Macy’s and its parent

company ARI remained committed to Lamb’s work, and in the spring of 1946 they

commissioned him to work on handle designs for luggage. These would be the first

general-use Wedge-lock handles released to consumers and the first of his handle designs

to bring him significant financial return. In June 1947 Macy’s began selling the new line

of Arflite luggage (fig. 53), and they promoted the product extensively. An advertisement

in the New York Times on November 9, 1947 claimed that their suitcases featured the

“first basic change in handles since 6,000 B.C.” Lamb’s name figured heavily into the

advertising campaign. Referencing an article about industrial design published in Colliers

a few months before, the ad drew the reader’s attention to Lamb. “Did you read Collier’s

for August 2?” it asked. If so, “you must have read about Thomas Lamb, the industrial

designer who probably knows more about handles and hands than any man alive.” The ad

promised the reader that the amazing new handle would help them “carry more with less

effort.”121

Despite Lamb’s patent claim that his handle served lifting, pushing, and pulling

functions equally, hands-on experience with extant models suggests that the handle

worked better in some applications and orientations than in others. One of the most

efficient positions for the handle is the lifting or carrying mode in which the hand is

extended at the side of the body. In this position the user is highly aware of (and grateful

for) the 10 degree tilt of the Wedge-lock handle that complements the angle of the human

121 New York Times, 9 Nov. 1947. Page number, unknown (text is cited from a reprint of the ad in Lamb’s files), Lamb Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. hand. Not surprisingly the Arflite suitcases made positive impressions on those who

encountered them.

About a month after Arflite luggage appeared on the market, the President of

Affiliated Retailers, J. Larry Wood, wrote candidly about its success, saying that they had

“shown models of this handle to literally hundreds of people during the last six months

and ha[d] yet to develop a negative reaction.” Personnel1 00 at their various stores had

been pleased, and field tests proved particularly exciting. By attaching the Wedge-lock

handles to ARI staff members’ luggage, they experienced public reactions firsthand. The

“reception far surpassed [their] expectations.... Not only [did] baggage handlers like the

handles, but quite generally the handles ‘stop[ed] the show’ and groups of red caps or 1 00 bellboys congregatefd] to examine and heft them.” Wood suggested that, in general,

luggage had recently been overproduced. Prior to releasing Arflite, he feared that ARI

had entered the suitcase market at the wrong time. However, at the writing of this letter

he expressed extreme satisfaction with the luggage’s performance. He noted that the

majority of their stores nationwide had reordered, several of them three or four times, and

one store had actually reordered five times.

122 J. L. Wood, President of ARI to George M Cohan of Standard Thread / Standard Handle Company, 21 Jul 1947, Lamb Papers, Box 1: ARI Inc. Royalty Department. Wood responded to Cohan’s apparent request for an honest “appraisal of the merchandising value and distribution possibilities of the Lamb Wedge-Grip Handle,” which Standard Thread was currently supplying for ARI’s line of Arflite luggage. Wood states that Cohan requested the analysis “for the purpose of interesting some outside capital” in production. Wood stressed that he had no direct financial interest in his report and that therefore his assessment was honestly given without any hidden motives.

123 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Lamb kept careful tabs on the number of handles produced and sold as well as on

the publicity his products received. Not only did he try to collect copies of every print ad

that featured his Wedge-lock handle, he also tabulated the circulation of various

newspapers and magazines to determine how many times each ad had appeared. A

lengthy record of correspondence from the fall of 1947 survives in Lamb’s files. He

contacted at least twenty-five of ARI’s department stores in cities across the country to

inquire about their publicity of Arflite Luggage. He wrote to May Company Stores in

Cleveland, Denver, and Baltimore, to Kaufinann’s in Pittsburgh, to R.H. White in

Boston, to Maison Blanche Company in New Orleans, and to numerous others with the

same requests: to inform him of the number of advertisements they ran and the

circulation of the various newspapers and to report on customer satisfaction. From these

queries, Lamb estimated that in the second half of 1947, newspapers across the country

circulated 11,238,800 copies of various advertisements for his handles on Arflite

luggage.124

Given popular response to the luggage handles, Wood decided to explore other

merchandising options for the Wedge-lock handle in his stores. He hoped that repeating

the handle on various products throughout the store would be of “cumulative promotional

value,” and suggested that with familiarity customers would “come to look for it as a

desirable quality feature.”125 Not surprisingly, ARI soon negotiated a license for top-of-

stove ware to complement their line of Lamb-handled luggage.

124 Lamb Papers, Box 1: Affiliated Retailers.

125 Wood to Cohan, 21 Jul. 1947, Lamb Papers, Box 1: ARI Royalty Department.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In August, 1947, ARI committed to continue and extend its relationship with

Thomas Lamb by signing a fifteen-month exclusive contract to use Wedge-lock handles

on their top-of-stove ware (see figure 54). Lamb granted ARI exclusive rights to

production and private label distribution of his handle in the United States on “pots, pans,

skillets, kettles, griddles, dutch ovens, roasters, electric irons, electric juicers, electric

mixers, and fishing rods.” According to the terms of the contract, ARI accepted

responsibility for ordering and funding the production of a mold for the plastic handles.

For their exclusive rights, they agreed to pay a $0.05 royalty to Lamb for every handle

produced. If ARI failed to produce at least ten thousand units within seven months of the

date of the contract, the exclusive agreement would be made void, and Lamb would have

the right to license his handle to other manufacturers of pots and pans.

After his positive experience with Arflite luggage, J. L. Wood looked forward to

the success of the Armaid top-of-stove ware as well. The initial run of about ten thousand

pieces (or two thousand sets) met his expectations. However, shortly thereafter, the

company faced a problem beyond their control. In 1950, Wood explained the situation to

Lamb. “Market cost structure changed to an extent whereby, for our quantity

requirements we could not come up with competitive costs and were accordingly priced

out of the market.”127 Wood Likely referred to a crisis in Aluminum production that

126 License Agreement, Lamb papers, Box 1: ARI Royalty Department.

127 J.L. Wood to Thomas Lamb, 9 Mar. 1950, Lamb Papers, Box 1: ARI Royalty Department.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. drove prices up and made it difficult to compete with stainless steel pots and pans.128 In

his letter, Wood assured Lamb that Armaid failed due to high costs and insufficient

marketing funds at ARI, not because of a faulty design. 1 90

Wood’s letter also addressed an apparent complaint from ALCOA about Armaid

top-of-stove ware with Wedge-lock handles on display at Kaufinann’s in Pittsburgh.

ARI’s contract for the handle for top-of-stove ware expired in 1948, and Lamb quickly

granted the license to ALCOA. As the new owner of the exclusive license, they

understandably expressed concern about a competing product on sale in 1950. Wood

asked Lamb to explain to ALCOA that several of their stores had a small inventory left

from the original production in 1947. He assured Lamb that ARI had not produced any

parts since their contract had expired in 1948. Additionally, he pointed out that ARI still

had a two-part mold for making the handle. Because they no longer had a legal right to

use it, Wood offered the mold to ALCOA.

Wood’s letter illustrates the challenges that could arise when exclusive contracts

shifted from one client to another. The second or third client would have to tolerate

existing merchandise from the previous licensee(s) and might also struggle to

differentiate their product from the previous Lamb-handled versions. Perhaps for these

reasons, Lamb’s most successful and long-standing relationships were with clients with

whom he maintained uninterrupted exclusive contracts for many years.

128 “Shortage Feared in Aluminum Ware,” New York Times, 9 Sep. 1948, 40. “Some reduction in supplies of aluminum pots, pans, and other kitchenware will occur in the fourth quarter as a result of growing shortages of the metal.”

129 J.L. Wood to T. Lamb, 9 Mar. 1950. Lamb Papers, Box 1: ARI Royalty Department.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. An Enduring Relationship: Cutco Cutlery & Wear-Ever Aluminum

Thomas Lamb cut his teeth with Affiliated Retailers, who sold three of his earliest

consumer products: the Lim-Rest, Arflite luggage, and Armaid top-of-stove ware. In the

summer of 1948 he began working with the company that would prove to be his most

enduring client. The Aluminum Cooking Utensil Company (TACUCO), a subsidiary of

ALCOA, made a well-known line of aluminum cookware under a division called “Wear-

Ever.” In late 1948 Wear-Ever picked up the top-of-stove-ware contract that ARI chose

not to renew. Lamb altered the handle from the Arflite line slightly, and Wedge-lock-

handled Wear-Ever pots and pans hit the market in October 1950 under the slogan “New

Advanced Design” (figures 55 and 56).

Wear-Ever also had a new product—the Cutco Knife—which they began selling

in 1949 with a handle of their own design. The company signed an exclusive contract

with Lamb to develop Wedge-lock handles for their cutlery. The new knives made their

debut in California on October 1, 1952 and appeared nationwide in January 1953 (see

figure 57).130 Over the next decade, Lamb made at least seventy-five new models of

various forms for TACUCO’s Wear-Ever and Cutco divisions. Of Lamb’s output of 380

Wedge-lock handle concepts between 1945-1958, Wear-Ever products accounted for 20

1 O 1 percent of the total—the largest workload from any single client.

130 Facts Concerning Lamb Handle Cutlery, Lamb Papers.

131 Lamb’s handle notebooks record seventy-nine total models for Cutco or Wear- Ever. Seventy-nine into 380 equals 20.7 percent. Calculating using hours of work rather than number of models yields a slightly higher percentage of work allocated to Cutco and Wear-Ever. The 8,528.25 recorded hours for the two clients divided by the total 38,719 total hours worked by Lamb’s company equals 22.0 percent.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Lamb apparently encouraged his clients to use his name and the trademark,

“Wedge-lock,” in their publicity.132 His files are full of public relations materials—stock

phrases about the handle, its development, its designer, and its merits—that Lamb used in

his own publicity and also doled out to the press, his clients, and any other interested

parties. Surviving advertisements from several of his clients suggest that many of them

took advantage of Lamb’s name and the cache of his scientifically-designed handle.

However, no single company appears to have applied the Lamb and Wedge-lock names

as extensively as The Aluminum Cooking Utensil Company.133 (See figures 58 - 60.)

From the beginning of their relationship, Wear-Ever and Cutco featured Lamb in

nearly all of their promotional material. As time went on his name became an integral

part of their sales pitch, and they strove to educate their sales force about Lamb and his

design process through lectures and company newsletters (figures 61 and 62). Cutco sold

their knives exclusively through personal sales, as they still do today. They did not make

cold calls but instead relied on the connections between friends and family. At the end of

every sales visit, the Cutco representative would ask for referrals to several of the

customer’s friends. When the salesman called up these households a few days later, he

132 I have not found direct evidence of Lamb requiring companies to use his name or the phrase “Wedge-lock Handle” in their publicity. However, such joint promotion would have benefited both Lamb and the client. Lamb kept a healthy dose of quotations about himself that he may have used for publicity. An unpublished booklet called “What Some Heads of Business Concerns Say about Tom Lamb” contains quotes from pleased colleagues at Du Pont Rayon, Good Housekeeping, U.S. Rubber Company, et al.

133 The use of Lamb’s name and the Wedge-lock label by Wear-Ever and Cutco is particularly well documented due to the duration of the working relationship between designer and client. Lamb’s files contain and entire box of material related to this client, much of it advertising, trade publications, and internal newsletters. Lamb papers, Box 5.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. could use the reference of the friend to help get a foot in the door.134 Cutco’s sales were

impressive, totaling about $10,000,000 per year by 1954.135 That year Lamb noted

happily that “there are fifteen thousand salesmen on the road with my handle, introducing

it to countless thousands of homes.”136

Not only did these salesmen, whom Lamb excitedly called “an army of

missionaries for the future,” carry comfortable and efficient Lamb Wedge-lock handles to

every house—they also carried a portrait of Thomas Lamb himself. The “Cutco Lamb

Handle Cutlery - Suggested Sales Talk” provided a script for salesmen that was riddled

with references to Lamb and his research. The guide suggested that, early in his

presentation, the salesmen should perform the following: “Now, Mary, this handle didn’t

just happen overnight. Internationally famous industrial designer, Mr. Thomas Lamb,

(point to his picture in CA-IR) [notation in the original] spent over seven years and over 1 ^7 10,000 hours in the development of this scientific, patented handle.” As the sales pitch

continued, the Cutco representative outlined the five different criteria that should be

considered in purchasing knives. Criterion number two? The Handle. (See figure 63.)

134 Throughout the 1950s, Cutco’s salespeople were almost exclusively men. Recruitment campaigns also targeted only men. There is a whole argument to be made about gender in the context of marketing scientific household products, but that is for another paper.

135 Kahn, “Come Let me Clutch Thee,” 35.

136 Ibid.

137 “Cutco Lamb Handle Cutlery - Suggested Sales Talk,” n.d., Lamb Papers; Lamb Papers, Box 5. A Cutco salesman’s publicity material order form lists the sales talk as item number CS-80. This item was available to the salesman at no charge. Other publicity pamphlets and posters ranged in cost from several cents to a few dollars.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In the long run, the general use handle proved to be much more lucrative than the

crutch. The government granted Lamb his Wedge-lock patent on December 11, 1945, and

he successfully collected royalties from its licensure to various clients until the patent

expired in December of 1962. Lamb’s exact earnings are unknown, but we can begin to

estimate them based on several figures. Tallying his TACUCO sales from the early 1950s

through June of 1957, Lamb noted that the company sold 7,251,400 Cutco pieces and

5,078,350 Wear-Ever top-of-stove items. Based on a $.05 royalty per piece (Lamb’s

standard for exclusive contracts) he would have made approximately $80,571 per year on 1 ^8 Cutco knives alone. The Wear-Ever products would have brought an additional

$39,064 per year, for a grand total of about $119,635 annually throughout the mid

1950s.139

Given that Lamb had contracts with many clients other than Cutco and Wear-

Ever, it is clear that he did very well. However, he had to contend with a period of

uncertainly when his patent expired and royalty payments ceased. In the spring of 1963,

he wrote to his accountant Frank Marino that 95 percent of his income had disappeared

with the expiration of the Wedge-lock patent in December 1962. Keeping Marino abreast

138 The extant Cutco contract does not list the exact royalty per piece. However, other exclusive Lamb contracts, including that with ARI for top-of-stove ware specified a $.05 royalty on each “merchantable handle manufactured by or for [ARI] under its license.” Lamp Papers, Box 1: ARI Royalty Department.

139 Lamb Papers, Box 1. Calculations are based on Lamb’s reported sales figures to Edgar Kaufmann Jr. in a letter dated 19 July 1957. Lamb’s notes included Cutco sales from Jan. 1953 through June 1958 and Wear-Ever sales figures from Jan. 1951 though June 1958. Together, the total income on Cutco and Wear-Ever royalties for the periods described equaled approximately $616,487. Based on the Consumer Price Index for 1957, Lamb’s average yearly income of $119,635 would be worth about $650,000 - $800,000 in 2003 dollars. See: Economic History Services, .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of his expected earnings in the coming year, Lamb noted, “As to1963 - at present I do

not know the outcome for the year I only know I am starting from scratch, & up to 5/1/63

it’s ‘O.’”140 In 1964 the government issued Lamb a new patent for an updated handle

design, the “Universal Wedge-lock,” and he followed a similar business model (licensing

this patent) for the rest of his career.141

TACUCO not only kept Lamb busy with numerous new products throughout the

1950s, but they also continued their patronage of his handles through the second patent

period that began in 1964.142 Lamb redesigned Cutco handles as late as 1973, when he

was seventy-seven years old. At Cutco’s thirty-fifth-anniversary celebration in 1984,

Thomas Lamb, age eighty-seven, made a special appearance as the guest of honor. Erick

Laine, then president of Alcas Cutlery, said that he did not know where the company

would have been without Lamb.143 To this day, the Cutco handle remains nearly identical

to the last version that Lamb designed, making it the closest object to a Wedge-lock

handle still in production. (See figures 64 - 66.)

140 Thomas Lamb to Frank Marino, 22 Apr. 1963, Lamb Papers, Box 2: Kelly Handle Company folder. Note: the letter has nothing to do with the Kelly Company.

141 Most industrial designers did not work on royalties. Instead they preferred yearly retainer fees with major clients, hourly billing or set prices for contract work and reimbursement for materials, travel, etc. Lamb’s use of royalties as his major method of payment is probably a vestige of his days as a textile designer. In the textile industry, royalties were standard practice. See Dreyfuss, Designing for People, 194-6.

142 Thomas Lamb. 1964. Handle. US Patent 3,122,774, Aug. 8, 1961 and issued Mar. 3, 1964.

143 Gary Housey, “Mr. Lamb: Inventor / Philosopher,” Olean Times Herald, Olean, New York, 28 July 1984, 3, Lamb Papers. Alcas Cutlery, based in Olean New York manufactured Cutco’s products.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Up For Grabs: Public Response to the Wedge-lock Handle

The ergonomic intentions behind mass-produced products tend to disappear from

the historical record because they are often invisible. When ergonomic design is correctly

implemented (according to modem theories) products complement the body so

wonderfully that we often fail to realize that they were specially designed to be that way.

The value of Lamb’s work, both during the time period that he created it, and from a

historical perspective, is that he made the invisible apparent. We can both see and feel the

ergonomic impulse at work in his handles; the Wedge-lock exposes what more nuanced

designers integrated seamlessly into their designs. Both then and now, the general public

can read ergonomics in a Wedge-lock handle in a way that they cannot in most products.

Nowhere is this legibility more evident than in the publicity that surrounded the handle.

Thomas Lamb and the handles that he designed possessed quirky personalities

that rendered them innately interesting to the public. Through Lamb’s initial public

relations and the sale of his products, he created a buzz about his handle and his methods.

Subsequent magazine interviews, museum exhibitions, and lectures introduced the

Wedge-lock handle to a broad audience and generated additional interest. This publicity

certainly helped Lamb sell more handles, but it also created commotion about the design

process. The Wedge-lock handle helped link ergonomic research with industrial

designers and thus contributed to the public perception of a profession that was still

defining its identity.

The first wave of public response to the Wedge-lock handle came in the middle of

the 1940s, when Lamb released the initial crutch. As previously mentioned, he received

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. numerous letters— from doctors and physical therapists wanting to test the crutch or to

report their findings, from individuals who had heard about the crutch and wanted to

purchase a set, and from people who already owned a Lim-Rest and decided to share their

opinions with its creator. Comments in these letters were mostly complimentary, a few

were ecstatic, and a handful gave constructive criticism. Because the Lim-Rest went out

of production, it is difficult to gauge long-term satisfaction. However, in the early 1950s,

Lamb did receive an institutional endorsement. He submitted his handle on a standard

crutch for review by the Testing and Development Laboratory of the Veterans

Administration, which concluded that Lamb’s handle did “offer some advantages to the

comfort and lessening of fatigue of users,” as he had claimed.144

The response to Lamb’s first general Wedge-lock handle, on luggage in 1947, was

overwhelmingly positive and exceeded Lamb’s expectations. Thrilled with his public

praise of plastic as the ideal material for Wedge-lock handles, plastics manufacturers

returned the favor by publicizing his work. Articles cropped up in a Bakelite trade journal

and in Plastics. General-interest publications also began to take note of Lamb.145

An article in Colliers from 1947 entitled “You Buy Their Dreams,” offered a

mixed review of industrial design. Somewhat surprisingly (given that Lamb has been

largely ignored by design historians), author Bill Davidson tossed his name about with

the significantly more famous “big three” (Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss, and Walter

144 Anthony Stares, “Evaluation Report C-4/1 Lamb Crutch Handle,” 4 June, 1952, Lamb Papers, Box 1: Crutch Veterans Administration.

145 William Schack, “Molding a Universal Handle,” Plastics, January 1948; Davidson, “You Buy Their Dreams.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dorwin Teague).146 Davidson opened his article comically by casting industrial designers

as the only ones in society interested in fixing various (possibly trivial) problems:

Of the 143,000,000 or so people who inhabit the United States, all but 449 take it for granted that it is man’s lot to suffer quietly such indignities as: (a) coffee cups that slop over on trains;... (b) shower curtains that automatically wrap around one like a damp shroud when the water is turned on; ... and (f) the crutch, an instrument of torture which hasn’t changed in 10,000 years.147

The only people who cared to tackle these problems, according to Davidson, were the

members of a small profession called industrial design. Throughout the article,

Davidson’s tone vacillated between sarcastically critical and genuinely appreciative. In

reviewing the history of industrial design for his readers, he noted:

The country was embarking on that peculiar American mania for constant new models in everything we use. Frightened manufacturers began a stampede to modernize their products. They turned their backs on their own engineers and made wild grabs at the new geniuses, Loewy, Dreyfuss and Teague, like women in a bargain basement. Other designers like Harold Van Doren, Russel Wright, Ray Patten, John Vassos, Ben Nash and Thomas Lamb rushed to get their share of this pleasant mauling and within five years enough of them were operating to put the profession on a very solid• basis. • 148

The most noteworthy characteristic of this passage is not Davidson’s critical tone, which

plenty of his contemporaries (especially architects and engineers) shared, but his

inclusion of Lamb in his list. Davidson referenced the mid-1920s, at which time Lamb

would have been operating almost exclusively in textiles and other two-dimensional

146 I am not certain where or when the term “the big three” came to refer to Dreyfuss, Loewy and Teague. Davidson used it in his 1947 article as if the identities of the phrase’s antecedents were common knowledge.

147 Davidson, “You Buy Their Dreams,” 22.

148 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. home furnishings (towels, curtains, etc). This repertoire would hardly have qualified

Lamb as an industrial designer. Furthermore, few historians, if asked today to shortlist

American designers from the 1920s or 1930s, would consider Thomas Lamb. His name

probably would not even enter the pool of candidates. Therefore, Davidson’s inclusion of

Lamb, in 1947, on a list of only nine industrial designers signifies that Lamb had a much

higher status at that time than he does now. Written more than six months before his

exhibit at the Museum of Modem Art (see below), the article’s prominent use of Lamb

suggests that sales and publicity about his Lim-Rest crutch, Arflite luggage handles, and

Armaid top-of-stove ware alone had garnered him a strong reputation.

Although Davidson began his article by lampooning designers for their monetary

success in a profession that had scarcely existed twenty years before, he spent the last

two-thirds of his article discussing the valuable contributions that designers had made. He

noted, “Although the Big Three (and industrial design as a whole) are accused in many

expert quarters of being ballyhooed into a position beyond their actual importance in

industry, they have accomplished some extremely worth-while things.”149 Among the six

examples Davidson related were Lamb’s “worth-while” handles.

Without a doubt, the single biggest boon to the success of Wedge-lock handle,

and the recognition of Lamb’s earlier cmtch research, came in a phone call from Edgar

Kaufinann Jr., curator at the Museum of Modem Art. Kaufmann proposed a one man

149 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. show of Lamb’s handle designs called “A Handle to Fit the Hand.”150 (See figure 67.)

Naturally, Lamb cooperated with the prominent institution, and the show ran from

March 3 to May 16, 1948. The exhibit included many of Lamb’s sketches and examples

of his products. One wall of the exhibit, labeled “Potential Uses,” displayed Lamb’s Lim-

Rest crutch, Wedge-lock handled golf club, machete, hairbrush, paint roller, and pressure

cooker. In order to convey design concepts that Lamb had not yet completed, the exhibit

creators printed silhouettes of a hand drill, a coping saw, a shovel, an iron, and several

other tools on the wall. They then mounted Wedge-lock handles overtop, carefully lining

them up with drawings in order to suggest the application of the handle (see figure 68).

Another wall, labeled “In Production,” showcased those handles that were

currently being produced, including the Linde Air Products welding torch, several

Disston hand saws, top-of-stove ware and Arflite luggage from ARI, and a series of glass

coffee pots for Becher Corporation (see figure 69). The last section of the exhibit offered

visitors a hands-on experience. Labels above a series of handles mounted in various

orientations told museum-goers to “pull,” “push,” “twist,” and “carry” so that they could

feel the Wedge-lock handle in use.

It is unclear how many members of the industrial design community visited

Lamb’s exhibition. George Nelson, for one, wrote Lamb a congratulatory note in which

he apologized for being unable to attend the opening. Having heard from a colleague that

“many of the designers present were slightly green with envy” Nelson dismissed their

150 Edgar Kaufmann Jr., curator, “A Handle to Fit the Hand,” an exhibition of Lamb’s handle designs. New York: Museum of Modem Art, 3 March - 16 May, 1948.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. pettiness as “pretty silly.” He could not “imagine anything doing the profession more

good than outstanding performances by individual members.”151 His praise pleased Lamb

immensely. George Nelson was one of his idols, and Lamb had the utmost respect for his

designs and his opinions. Nelson’s note suggests that, at the very least, New York’s

designers were aware of Lamb’s exhibit and his handle work.

The media gave the exhibit substantial coverage, thanks in large part to the

reputation of the Museum of Modem Art. The museum put out a detailed press release

shortly before the show and also publicized it as an upcoming exhibition in its general

literature. Among others, Arts and Architecture, theNew Yorker, theArchitect’s Journal,

and Popular Science published comments and reviews of the show.152 In general, the art

and design world responded positively and without major criticism. Arts and Architecture

practically paraphrased MoMA’s own publicity saying, “the Lamb Wedge-lock handle ...

is an exceptionally clear example of the best modem approach to design; a careful

evaluation of human needs and capacities led the designer to a fine original form capable

of wide applications.”153 The same article also reported faithfully that “in tests, compared

to conventional handles of many types it [the Wedge-lock] shows great advantages in

151 George Nelson to Thomas Lamb, 10 Mar. 1948, Lamb Papers, Box 3a; Lamb to Nelson, 22 Mar. 1948, Lamb Papers, Box 3a.

152 Astragal. The Architect’s Journal, 15 Jul. 1948, 61; Talk of the Town, New Yorker, 13 March 1948, 23-4; “The Hand and the Handle,” Arts and Architecture 65 (1948): 32-3; “Handle Fits Your Hand,” Popular Science, June 1948, 105; “Museum Notes: Exhibitions,” The Museum o f Modern Art Bulletin vol. XV, no. 2 (January 1948).

153 “The Hand and the Handle,” Arts and Architecture, 32.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. firmness of grip and comfort; fatigue and strain are notably reduced.”154 The Architect’s

Journal, a British publication, also reported favorably on the exhibit and the handles

within. Unlike Arts and Architecture, however, Architect's Journal offered at least a

modicum of criticism: “though rather inflexible in concept—a tennis player, for instance,

likes to change his grip for different strokes—the Lamb-handle is the product of serious

research and analysis and has been found in some cases notably to reduce fatigue and

strain.”155

Of all reports on the exhibit, the New Yorker delivered the most unsympathetic

review. Although part of the sarcasm of the article may be attributed to the desire to

entertain the reader, the New Yorker was clearly not afraid to challenge the platitudes

supplied by the museum’s press release:

Seize any teapot, tennis racket, or oxyacetylene blowpipe, and what have you got? A plain handle. Your own marvelously curved digits are wrapped around an unmolded surface, stresses and strains all wrong, and the tea (or oxyacetylene gas) nothing but an awkward struggle. Happily this state of affairs is about to end. A man named Thomas Lamb has invented a handle consistent with American’s destiny.... We attended the unveiling of the Lamb handle last week in a small, white odorless Prest-Glass room in the Museum of Modem Art. The Modem has a rather dreadful knack of giving an oversoul to a ripsaw and imbuing the future with undigested beauty.156

The article went on to note that the Wedge-lock looked “like a handle that has softened in

the hot weather, been used, and then hardened again in the cold” (a comment that Lamb

154 Ibid.

155 Astragal. The Architect’s Journal, 61.

156 Talk of the Town, New Yorker, 23-4.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. certainly would have taken issue with given that he went out of his way to show that his

handle could not be formed simply by squeezing one’s hand around clay). In a final,

sarcastic (and very funny) jab, the author wrote, “We rode home, after the unveiling, in a

crosstown bus, wedged in and hanging fast to an old, unmolded metal strap. Our palm

resented every inch• of the journey. Hardly anyone in the bus seemed truly happy.” 1S7

Clearly responding to the uncritical and celebratory rhetoric espoused by the museum, the

New Yorker brought audience’s heads down from the clouds and reminded them that it

was, after all, only a handle.

Six years after the exhibit, in 1954, Lamb wrote a letter to Kaufmann in which he

thanked him again for the exhibit and emphasized that it had made a difference in his

career. Lamb noted that since the show he had designed about 250 new handles, and that

“Art, industry, the medical profession and the government” had all recognized his designs

partially as a result of the MoMA show. “Wherever I go,” noted Lamb, “throughout the

United States and Canada, I find that the exhibition by the Museum of Modem A rt...

resulted in increased respect and appreciation for my handle.” Lamb went on to mention

his appreciation for the museum’s Good Design seal, which he received in 1953. “I find

that the Museum’s seal of approval... is widely respected by all levels of society. Over

12,000 people now sell Lamb-handled products, and many of them tell me th a t... [the

seal] is an asset.”158

157 Ibid.

158 Thomas Lamb to Edgar J. Kaufmann, Jr., 1 April 1954, Lamb papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The MoMA show also proved to be a stepping stone for other exhibitions around

the country and in Europe. On at least two different occasions, curators from institutions

abroad contacted the museum regarding the Lamb exhibit. MoMA’s curatorial staff

passed these inquiries along to Lamb, who responded, whenever he could, by cooperating

with the exhibition sponsors. After all, exhibits offered Lamb free publicity. Shortly after

the “Handle to Fit the Hand” exhibit, the Wedge-lock traveled to both Detroit, Michigan

and Columbus, Ohio for major exhibitions.

In the fall of 1949, the Detroit Institute of Arts sponsored an exhibition called

“For Modem Living” that aimed to display designs from the first half of the twentieth

century that contributed to the “convenience and pleasure of modem living.”159 Lamb’s

handles were particularly well suited to the Detroit show, which celebrated the

relationship between design and technology in American culture. “As the cultural center

of a large industrial city,” announced a promotional brochure, “the Detroit Institute of Art

takes pride in providing a means of expression for this point of view.”160 In his initial

letter to Lamb, Alexander Girard, director of the exhibition, mentioned that he planned to

create a series of historical vignettes. One of these sequences would trace handle

development—starting with the European sickle, progressing to the early American

“curved snaithe,” and culminating with the Lamb Wedge-lock handle. The Wedge-lock’s

place at the apex of handle design would have reinforced its innovative character in the

minds of the public.

159 Announcement of upcoming exhibition, Detroit Institute of Fine Arts, 1949. Lamb Papers. The exhibition ran from 11 September to 20 November 1949.

160 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “Design in Plastics,” an exhibit at the Columbus Gallery of Fine Art from

February 2 to March 4, 1951, featured 160 plastic products by industrial designers

including Raymond Loewy, Harold Van Doren, George Nelson, Charles Eames, Egmont

Arens, and Thomas Lamb. Lamb sent three luggage handles made of polystyrene and

urea plastics, three cooking utensil handles of black Bakelite, and two hair brush

models.161 A few months later, Barbara Carlile, a representative from the Columbus

Gallery, wrote that the show had been a huge success. “Such a success in fact, that

several galleries [around the country] have asked to have it.”162 Lamb happily granted

permission for his handles to tour.

The publicity on his Wedge-lock handle in the form of magazine articles, product

sales, and exhibitions made Lamb into a celebrity among those interested in medical

devices, and they welcomed him to their discussions as an expert on hands. Lamb even

coined a name for his new dominion: manuskinetics, the science of the forces of the

hand at work. A journalist noted Lamb’s confidence that the field “[was] his alone, by

discovery and cultivation.”163 On March 23, 1949 Lamb spoke at a conference on

rehabilitation given by New York University’s College of Medicine. Lamb’s lecture on

the “Mechanics of the Hand” preceded “Plastic Surgery in Deformities of the Hand,” by

Dr. John Marquis Converse, Assistant Professor of Clinical Surgery (Plastic Surgery) at

NYU. During the following years, Lamb became a frequent lecturer at the NYU Medical

161 Thomas Lamb to Barbara Carlile, 10 January 1951, Lamb Papers.

162 Barbara Carlile (Mrs. Huntington Carlile) to Thomas Lamb, 20 March 1951; Lamb to Carlile, 31 March 1951, Lamb Papers.

163 “Tom Lamb the Handle Man,” 111.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. School, the Hospital for the Crippled and Disabled, and at other conferences around the

country.164 By 1954 he had given hundreds of lectures on hands and handles.165

Lamb also received recognition from his peers in the form of an honorary award

in 1950. The American Designers’ Institute gave Lamb its gold medal for design

achievement during 1949. (See figure 70). The front side of the medal featured the ADI

logo, designed in 1938 by John Vassos, and the back was engraved, “AMERICAN

DESIGNERS’ INSTITUTE / AWARD TO THOMAS LAMB / JANUARY 27,1950 /

FOR HIS INDUSTRIAL DESIGN ACHIEVEMENT, WHEREIN; MANS PHYSICAL

FACILITIES ARE EXTENDED AND FATIGUE LESSENED THROUGH THE LAMB

WEDGE-LOCK HANDLE.”

In mid 1950s, Lamb experienced another wave of publicity. His designs on Cutco

and Wear-Ever products had fared well since their appearances in 1950 and 1952. Cutco

and Wear-Ever used Lamb’s name and his physical image extensively in their publicity,

and their products appeared in many women’s magazines and in articles about domestic

life in general-interest publications.166 The products were also featured on several

164 Lamb Papers. After the presentations, Dr. Howard A. Rusk and Dr. George G. Deaver lead a discussion. Deaver had co-authored the pamphlet on crutch use that Lamb used during his initial research. Lamb also spoke at design conferences. In the early 1950s, he was also asked to provide the keynote lecture for a meeting of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Designer’s Institute.

165 Kahn, “Come Let Me Clutch Thee,” 33.

166 TheNew York Times Magazine featured Cutco knives at least twice during 1953: 13 Dec. 1953, second article in Lamb Papers, n.d.; Modern Bride , Fall 1953; Good Housekeeping, Nov. 1953.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. cooking and home economics television shows including “Kay’s Kitchen” in Pittsburgh

and NBC’s “home fumishings-quiz show, ‘Feather Your Nest.’”167

Two publications also put out major bibliographical articles about Thomas Lamb

in 1954. The first article, “Tom Lamb the Handle Man,” appeared in the inaugural issue

of Industrial Design magazine. The author painted a picture of a humble man, holed up in

a huge office “so darkly reminiscent of a basement wing of the American Museum of

Natural History that one is startled to look out a window and find sunlight in the streets

seventeen stories below.” Offsetting his somewhat somber surroundings, which included

rows of gray furniture and file cabinets filled with “oddly curved and twisted” models,

Lamb gave an impression of warmth. Wearing an apron and whittling away at his latest

handle, he looked “like a family doctor, or the great bluff farmer who comforts small

■I /TO animals with gentle hands.”

Thq Industrial Design article also shed light on some of Lamb’s idiosyncrasies.

The author noted Lamb’s unorthodox method of working on speculation.169 Although he

developed handles specifically at the request of clients, he continually experimented with

forms in new product categories. This habit explains the “potential uses” section of the

167 “Kay ‘okays’ Cutco as Thousands Watch Daily,” Cutco Blade 4, no. 6, (8 Feb. 1954) Lamb Papers, Box 5; Article about “Feather Your Nest,” Cutco Blade 21, no. 21, (23 May 1955), Lamb Papers, Box 5. “Kay’s Kitchen,” was “one of the most popular [daily] daytime television shows in metropolitan Pittsburgh.” The show displayed new devices and recipes, and Kay strongly advocated Cutco. “Hostess-decorator Janis Carter” from “Feather Your Nest” regularly featured Cutco knives as prizes on the show in “fulfillment of their goal to display the top products of American’s leading firms.”

168 “Tom Lamb Handle Man,” 111.

169 See note 79.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1948 MoMA exhibit, in which many of the objects were models that Lamb had created in

the hope of eventually finding a client. “If in any particular field, as for example paint

brushes, Mr. Lamb is unable to interest a company whose future interests him, he simply

postpones the project for while, in fullest confidence that someday, everything that comes

with a handle will come with a Lamb handle.”170 (See figure 71.)

From “Tom Lamb the Handle Man” we also learn about Lamb’s design

philosophy and aesthetic preferences. He attributed his success to “an old-fashioned

concept of the designer as workman,” which gives some validity to the Society of

Industrial Designers’ complaint that American Designers’ Institute members were too

closely linked to craft and craft-based industries. Lamb clearly enjoyed the craft aspect of

his job. Industrial Design noted that “his fondness for this role is plain to the visitor who

watches him, pink-cheeked, besmocked, and exuberant, filing away at his latest handle.”

Lamb did not eschew aesthetics, as it might appear from his scientifically based methods.

He considered his forms to have a timeless aesthetic that was better than any “modem”

design. He felt that nature was the real designer, noting that “a basic physical function

will produce its own form.” 171

TheIndustrial Design article did not elicit an exceptionally strong response from

readers. Although the design community certainly enjoyed the publication, they were

probably more absorbed in the production of the first issue of their special interest

170 “Tom Lamb the Handle Man,” 112.

171 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. magazine than by any one story within. The second article to appear in 1954, however,

generated a significant response from the general public.

On June 4, 1954 a man named Walter J. McMahon wrote to Lamb, “To put it

mildly, I am convinced that handles are goddam [sic] important and that perhaps it would

be better for the U.S. Congress to spend more time on them rather than the subjects which

occupy so much of their time.”172 Lamb had just been the subject of a lengthy, oddly-

titled biopic in The New Yorker. “Come Let Me Clutch Thee.”173 The title must have

suggested something unsavory to the casual reader in 1954, but as the modem reader

should realize by now, it was actually an innocuous and quite appropriate reference to

Lamb’s handle design work. “Come Let Me Clutch Thee,” stretched on for six pages of

densely-set type—giving Lamb considerable exposure to a national audience.

McMahon’s was one of dozens of letters that Lamb received in the months after

the article appeared. Every extant letter is favorable. Some professed themselves kindred

spirits and offered to work for Lamb if he would have them. Others simply enthused over

his concepts and thanked him for his important contributions. One woman commended

Lamb on the benefits that his work must be having on “heart patients.” The collective

comments reveal that the public had very different ideas of bodily efficiency and what

could and could not be achieved by handle design than we do today. They were certainly

quick to ascribe true medical benefits to something as simple as a new handle, assertions

that would not easily be accepted now without hard evidence. More importantly,

172 Walter J. McMahon to Thomas Lamb, 4 June 1954, Lamb Papers, Box 2: New Yorker Article Publicity folder.

173 Kahn, “Come Let me Clutch Thee,” 33-38.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. regardless of their naivete, those who wrote to Thomas Lamb expressed genuine

excitement about the Wedge-lock handle. No matter what we might say about the handle

in the present day, there is no denying that during the 1950s, the public found Lamb’s

design methods compelling and worthwhile.

In the late 1950s Lamb’s handles traveled to Europe in an exhibition sponsored by

the U.S. government and coordinated by Edgar Kaufmann Jr. The exhibit opened in Paris

in 1958 under the title “Artisans - Techniciens Aux Etats-Unis” and traveled to the

World’s Fair in Brussels later that year. Each of the thirteen American subjects received

equal attention in the form of modular exhibition units. Other designers in the show

included Charles Eames and George Nakashima, and corporate subjects included General

Electric, Sitterle Porcelain, and Revere Copper and Brass.174 (See figure 72.)

Out of all the publicity, the Wedge-lock handle proved to be its own best

advertisement. The organic shape intrigued viewers and brought about a desire to hold

the handle. A design critic writing in England from pictures of Lamb’s handles lamented

that he could not grasp them. He noted the difficulty in judging the success of a design

that he could not touch. Nevertheless, the handle’s image spoke to the critic of its

ergonomic origins: “It can, however, be seen that the curved shapes have the visual

purpose of indicating the manner of gripping and the direction of movement, and this is

truly ergonomic virtue.”175

174 Photographs and correspondence from the exhibition, Lamb Papers; letter Thomas Lamb to J.C. Hestwood, TACUCO, 30 Jul., 1957, Lamb Papers.

175 J. Christopher Jones, “Handles: An Ergonomic Approach,” Design 72 (1954): 36.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Conclusion

Despite having held a fairly prominent place in mid-twentieth-century American

culture, the Wedge-lock handle has largely disappeared from public consciousness.

Ergonomic theory and practice have changed over the years, and as the ideals of the

discipline have shifted, the Wedge-lock handle has fallen from the place of stardom it

once held. Popular nostalgia and scholarly interest in midcentury design history have

tended to focus on aesthetic icons or kitsch and have overlooked ergonomic designs from

the period. Nevertheless, Lamb’s handles and design methods were highly influential. In

an era of ambitious economic and technological development he sought a scientific

method to logically connect the human body to the physical world. He made ergonomic

design visible in ordinary consumer objects and piqued the interest of producers and

consumers alike. The Wedge-lock handle generated considerable commotion during its

first ten to fifteen years. Product manufacturers, medical professionals, designers, and the

general public all took note of the new design, and most embraced it with excitement and

anticipation for a brighter future.

The handle served interests as diverse as its many constituents. It began as the

personal project of a passionate man who was motivated to find ways to serve his fellow

human beings with his designs. Through extensive physical research, modeling and

testing, Lamb developed a handle that achieved his goals. To help the war effort, he set

out to solve problems of fatigue and pain associated with crutch use, but he very quickly

began to address the same issues on handles of all kinds. He certainly hoped to profit

from his designs, and he enjoyed the publicity that he received from his invention.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. However, the fact that he persevered for more than six years before ever seeing a

significant financial return demonstrates a very deep commitment. Had he been

motivated by profits alone, he surely would have given up after several years. Lamb’s

philosophical interests, personal curiosity, and his desire to create something worthwhile

inspired him much more than any monetary rewards.

Although he spent many hours holed up in his dark office, Lamb did not work in a

vacuum. He depended heavily on his life experiences and prior successes. The financial

security he achieved as a textile designer allowed him to delve full-time into ergonomic

research and develop unrivaled expertise about the human hand. His design strategies

also built on the work of others and reflected the scientific positivism of the 1940s and

1950s. He did not work directly with HFE experts, but he was well aware of the research

conducted by three decades of human engineers in workplace and military applications.

Directly or indirectly he drew on their combined knowledge and methods.

The American excitement about science and technology infected Lamb and fueled

his research, and the success of his handle was critically intertwined with technological

progress. Methods for plastics molding and mold-tooling were improving throughout the

1940s and 1950s, and companies like Du Pont were constantly turning out polymers with

exciting new properties. Lamb’s organically-shaped handles required top-notch mold

makers and materials, and he continually experimented with different options. Over the

course of five years, his handle production shifted from cast aluminum and magnesium

with synthetic rubber coatings to fiberglass, urea-based plastics, and phenolic resins.

Forms that were too expensive for him to produce in 1945 became affordable with the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. right plastic only a few years later. Along with other industrial designers of the time,

Lamb developed symbiotic relationships with the top plastics producers, and they

promoted each other’s products. Plastics technology made possible the Wedge-lock’s

organic look and feel. Its biomorphic curves implied innovation, and excited consumers

could not wait to wrap their hands around a handle. The complex shape proclaimed the

handle’s plasticity and therefore its modem spirit.

Playing up a product’s particular spirit became increasingly important in the late

1940s and 1950s. As returning soldiers set up households, the demand for consumer

goods skyrocketed. In the competitive marketplace, differentiating one’s product from the

masses of others became critical. Manufacturers continued to rely on artificial

obsolescence to convince consumers to buy new products before the old had worn out,

and designers continued to help with this process. However, consumers had grown

1 n c savvier and the market more saturated. Ergonomic design offered an exciting new

advertising angle that capitalized on the excitement about science in the post-war era.

The functionally-based arguments for ergonomic design appealed to

scientifically-minded Americans. Product claims suddenly sounded viable, even

certifiable, and they lacked the phony, ingratiating tones of many typical advertising

campaigns. Lamb and his clients offered products backed with “seven years” of scientific

research aimed at producing a more efficient handle. Mathematical formulas derived

from seven hundred pairs of hands had helped shape a handle that was safer and more

comfortable. It was a new argument, and it caught people’s attention.

176 Davidson’s “You Buy Their Dreams,” 22-23, 68-69.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In creating a product to enable the body, Lamb designated another constituency

for the Wedge-lock handle. Americans were not merely potential consumers', they were

also potential users whose needs were to be directly addressed. Through diligent testing

and research Lamb attempted to better serve his users’ physical needs. Although people

were not necessarily clamoring for new handles before Lamb came along, many

benefited from the improved designs and new ergonomic options. Some probably thought

of the Wedge-lock as only an interesting gadget, but others were profoundly affected by

its enabling qualities. Cutco salesmen reported that those with arthritis found the new

handle design to be extremely beneficial, and a visually impaired couple from Colorado

wrote movingly to Cutco in the early 1950s that the Lamb handle allowed them to use

knives with more ease and confidence in safety than any cutlery they had ever owned.177

Lamb’s designs also had a considerable impact on the design profession. As the

examples above demonstrate, his handles offered special relief to people with disabilities.

When the larger design community focused more closely on human factors in the late

1960s and 1970s, they aimed to enable all users. This universal design movement, as it

was called, embraced goals similar to those Lamb had established several decades before.

In his pioneering use of anthropometric data, he set an example for other designers

seeking to create forms that better fit the body. Niels Difffient, a former colleague of

Dreyfuss and founder of the ergonomic design firm Humanscale, confirms that Lamb

177 “Wear-Ever 25 Years Ahead of Competition,” Cutco Blade 49, no. 41 (13 Oct. 1950), Lamb Papers, Box 5; ‘“Safest and Most Practical Knives,’ says visually handicapped couple,” Cutco Blade 8, no. 21, (21 May 1956), Lamb Papers, Box 5. The Blade reprinted a letter that had been written to a Cutco administrator in a San Francisco distribution district.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “was, without a doubt, an important influence in both the handle designs and the

methodology of using human factors studies to guide form making.”178 Lamb provided a

functional model for those who came after him, and by example, his career suggested that

human factors should be a distinct specialty within industrial design. The specialty

continues to this day with design firms dedicated solely to human factors research.

Lamb’s work and the associated publicity also undoubtedly linked the field of

human engineering (previously a separate field and the semi-exclusive purview of

psychologists) to industrial design practice in the minds of many Americans. Long before

Henry Dreyfuss made a name for himself as a champion of human factors research as the

author of The Measure o f Man, Lamb’s name appeared in numerous advertisements and

articles that both described his research methods and labeled him an industrial designer.

Such interdisciplinary connections might seem trivial, but to a profession that was still

defining and validating itself in the mind of a critical public, the link between design and

science offered a tactical advantage to designers. One of the primary criticisms of

industrial designers was that they created products on a whim to suit their own tastes and

imposed their aesthetic values on the public. Establishing a scientific basis upon which

they could make decisions offered a strong counterargument for the usefulness and

validity of designers’ work.

Not everyone was happy with this new qualification. Connecting design to

science may have helped some designers establish themselves as trustworthy

178 Niels Diffnent, letter to the author, 2 March 2005. Difffient has made significant contributions to ergonomic design, especially in the field of office chairs. Among other things, he developed the gas piston/spring mechanism that allows chairs to be easily raised and lowered.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. professionals, rather than unpredictable artists, in the eyes of critics, but the benefits did

not come without costs. Many designers clung dearly to the designer-as-artist model. As

big government and big industry controlled increasingly large portions of research and

product development, some designers worried that their unique status as creative

consultants was under attack. In 1960, Dreyfuss suggested that over the past fifteen years,

“there ha[d] been so much human engineering talk that we [were] sometimes in danger of

forgetting that the industrial designer [was] still an artist.” Design1 VO historian Arthur J.

Pulos echoes Dreyfuss’ remarks, noting that by the 1950s:

The unique character of the independent designer in the United States was in danger of being transformed into an impersonal abstraction. Showmen like Brooks Stevens ... and Raymond Loewy... seemed about to be replaced by organization men, operational diagrams, statistical analyses, and other substitutes for human instinct and concern. So-called scientific planning posed a genuine threat to imagination, creativity, and a maturing aesthetic. When products began to lose their personality and designers 1 o/v their identity, design became a game that anyone could play.

In light of these remarks Lamb’s methods become more provocative. On the one hand, he

provided critical underpinnings for the modem design profession’s use of ergonomics.

On the other, his mainly scientific design process could have inadvertently discredited

designers’ aesthetic acumen. Luckily, as time went on, the design community managed to

strike a balance between their use of human factors and their artistic skills.

Human factors design practices that emerged in the 1960s (and continue to the

present day) began to employ ergonomics as a single tool within a larger kit. In this

179 Dreyfuss, “Tailoring the Product to Fit,” Industrial Design 7, no. 6 (June 1960): 69. 1 80 Pulos, The American Design Adventure, 270.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. model, ergonomic concerns were valuable, but they were to be balanced with aesthetic

issues, marketability, costs, material constraints, etc. Reflecting on the previous several

decades from his vantage point in 1964, psychologist and human factors expert Hugh M.

Bowen wrote that from the period of 1940 until about 1955 (Lamb’s formative period)

the driving idea behind human engineering was that “there had to be a biological

(psycho-physiological) compatibility across the interface between man and machine.” By

the 1960s, HFE practitioners had grown dissatisfied with this idea, not because it was

necessarily wrong, but because “the criterion of biological compatibility was too

narrow.”181

In retrospect, we can see that Lamb focused quite narrowly on hand-handle

interaction. Not only did he let this single criterion drive most of his formal decisions, he

also prescribed a distinct grip. He believed that his grip was perfect and took into account

the best interests of every muscle, tendon and bone in the hand. Nevertheless it

constrained the user by closely dictating hand position. A Wedge-lock handle that fits the

hand feels amazing, but if the scale is too large or small or the angle of a groove does not

quite match the hand, it feels incredibly awkward. Later theories of ergonomics began to

suggest that allowing the user flexibility was equally important to maintaining optimal

body positions. In fact, modem advice literature for industrial designers emphasizes that

“movement is critical. Despite the old school thought on the desirability of fixed

postures, the overwhelming evidence today shows that fixed postures are inherently

181 Hugh M. Bowen, “Rational Design 1: Human Engineering and Systems Concept,” Industrial Design 11, no. 2 (1964): 58.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. dangerous.”182 Certainly Lamb never meant to make his handle dangerous, and in

actuality, the benefits of his grip probably outweighed the danger of stasis. Many of the

items that he designed were only used for short intervals of time, compared to modem

products like office chairs and computers, which inspired most of the fixed-posture

concerns.

The narrow definition of product success (biological compatibility) also set up

opportunities for disappointment. If someone disliked a design for aesthetic reasons,

others could counter with claims of subjectivity and personal preference. However, a

purely-functional design that failed to deliver was an unequivocal failure. David Meister

notes the proclivity towards disappointment: “Although it is possible to construct a

theoretical and logical relationship between HFE research and the development of more

efficient physical systems, the reality is less likely to be convincing.”183 The story of the

Wedge-lock handle embodies this struggle with idealistic promise and less-than-earth-

shattering results.

The handle arrived in the United States of the late 1940s, in the midst of an

ideological search for Platonic order and systematized approaches to all facets of life

through science and technology. Through his design work, Lamb sought to offer his

fellow citizens such order in their physical environment. His methods would connect the

body to material culture, and perfect harmony between people and objects would result.

182 Tom Revelle, “Ergonomics 101 : Working Painlessly,” article from Interiors & Sources, June 2000, .

183 Meister, • The History o f Human Factors and Ergonomics, 155.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The cumulative relief from minor fatigue and strains of daily life would yield several

extra hours of leisure each week, and in this state of increased efficiency, Americans

would find true happiness.

In reality, the effects of the handle were less profound than Lamb imagined but

important nevertheless. His work was decidedly quirky and less nuanced than that of

some other industrial designers. But these very features—which have tended make the

Wedge-lock handle less interesting to art and design historians—have made it more

accessible to material culture scholars and to the general public. The candidly ergonomic

character of the handle exposes function unencumbered by aesthetics, style, or client

preferences. With its honest form, Lamb’s handle gave many 1950s consumers their first

experiences with ergonomic design, a force that would be well-recognized and valued by

the next generation of Americans.

Because he specialized so closely on handles, Lamb left a complicated legacy. His

career is fascinating and revealing in its depth. His extreme focus for more than thirty

years won him an important spot in the history of human factors and ergonomics, but it

cost him a position in the more popular historical arena of twentieth-century design

aesthetics. Lamb would probably have been content to find his work relegated to this

lesser-studied area. He saw ergonomic design as a higher calling—above the artful

designs and superficial styles that have received so much historical attention. As Lamb’s

friend, and president of ADI, Ben Nash noted in 1949, Lamb’s handle design work

“serve[d] to set a goal and objective far beyond appearances and performance which

[then] constitute^] the concept of industrial design.” His handles demonstrated that

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. industrial design could “be looked to for adding human benefits to daily living” and made

the “design profession better recognize its real responsibility to humanity.”184

Since its inception, the design profession has walked a tightrope, balancing its

obligations to producers and consumers. Designers have undoubtedly contributed to the

modem American culture of excess and disposability, but they have also introduced

genuine functional improvements. By making comfort and efficiency his primary goals,

Thomas Lamb designed virtuously. The Wedge-lock handle was not without flaws, but

its mission to enable the body should stand as a model for all time.

184 Ben Nash, ADI Award Recommendation to the Board of Trustees, 1949, Lamb Papers, Box 1, Folder ADI.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 1 File cabinet drawers full of handles in Thomas Lamb's office, c.1958 Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Figure 2 Portrait of Thomas Lamb, c. 1954 Photo by Charles Kanarian, N.Y. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 3 Design for screen-printed handkerchief by Thomas Lamb, 1941 Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 4 Printed cotton handkerchief for child, designed by Thomas Lamb, n.d. Photograph by the author, Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. F ig . 2 4

Figure 5 Chronocyclegraphs of the motion and fatigue study of bricklaying (22), drill press (23), and typesetting (24). Images from Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Fatigue Study, (New York: Sturgis & Walton Company, 1916). University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. HAND MEASUREMENTS OF MEN .WOMEN AND CHILDREN

RIG H T HAND HAND POSITIONS - AVERA6E MAN AV. MAN ,-increase 14% when bent MAX. REACH

mi n. open 1.02-s. M. p ro te c te d 1.17 -AV.M. b u tto n s 1.31 -CM. profile of .93 0. heavy winter gloves A.A.F , 4.5 3 “ finger Ig

A ,850V. 1.03 m ax 875 max p refer to 2.25 X 4" hole o p e ra te or 3.5*sg.hole push buttons I min.occess for by finger pads! em p ty h a n d

d o rsu m Ig FINGER GRIP 4.2 palm Ig angle of mox. 14% increase force and hand ig 4 lunate resting angle

RIGHT HAND finger nails vary AV. WOMAN K 16 LB. m o x .fo rc e max. hole for s.8% decrease m finger exclusion hond ig

4 hond grip HAND GRASP fist circum 10.4 -S.M 11.6 -AV.M 2.75 mox.sphere 1.5 ODt 1 2 .7 - L.M

1.8 m ax.cyl 2.1 I touch PT. i lu n a te .75 mox.handrail dia. t.5 mox. rung dia. .75 min.rung dia.

m e n WOMEN CHILDREN HAND DATA 2.5% tile 5 0 .% ti!e 97.5%til« 2.5% tile s o .% tile 97.5 %*H« 6 yr. 8 yr. (I yr. 14 yr, hond length 6.8 7.5 8.2 62 6.9 7.5 5.1 5,6 6.3 7.0 hand breadth 3.2 3.5 3.8 2.6 2.9 3.1 2.3 2.5 2.8 3^'finger ig. 4.0 4.5 5,0 3.6 4,0 4.4 2.9 3.2 3.5 4.0 dorsum Ig. 2.8 3.0 3.2 2.6 2.9 3.1 2.2 2.4 2.8 3.0 thumb length 2.4 2.7 3.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 1.8 2.0 2.2 2.4

Figure 6 Hand Measurements of Men, Women and Children Anthropometric chart reproduced by permission of the publisher from Henry Dreyfuss, The Measure of Man: Human Factors in Design (New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1960), illustration E.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Percent of Total Handle Development Hours Spent on Various Types of Products, 1945-1958

miscellaneous 1% carrier handles 5%

-crutches* 1%

tools 21 % cutlery 18%

toiletries & grooming 3% firearms 3% surgical instruments 3% household items 2%

sport& recreational 11%

kitchen wares 20% office supply 1%

military items 11%

* crutches represent only 1% of work after 1945 but comprised more than four years of constant work and development between 1941 and 1945

Figure 7 Percent of Total Handle Development Hours Spent on Various Types of Products, 1945-1958. Based on Thomas Lamb's handle development notebooks (see Appendix A), Illustration by the author

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 8 Pneumatic cratch pad, US Patent 1,980,044, Clarence M. Fallon, 1934 While Lamb explored ways to get users' weight off the armrests by creating a better handle, most inventors in the second quarter of the twentieth century plodded along the dead-end road of creating new versions of the cushioned armrest.

Figure 9 Spring-filled armrest, US Patent 2,364,053, James Bourne, 1944

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MOL %-Nip£(b^^ |vr U>Q. "JLq

mxtvr 4 4 f 'y

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Figure 10 Two of Lamb's hand studies, 1941-1943 Note the demarcation of knuckles (right) and the arched line showing the padded area at the base of the thumb, the part of the hand that Lamb determined was capable of bearing the most weight. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. VJ- ■

V ’VS

£ «

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Figure 11 A sketch of Lamb’s cratch armrest, dated Nov. 28, 1942. The diagram in the lower right hand corner represents a horizontal cross section of the body through the chest and shows an exaggerated version of the "S"-curved armrest, which curves away from the front of the body to avoid pinching the pec toral muscles or breasts. The body depicted here would be facing the top of the page. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library.

100

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Nov. 14, 1944. T. LAMB 2,362,642

ASM REST FOB CRUTCHES

Filed July 10, 1943

i a 3 3 3

—mi pmm «■*■* Ua . JEEh,

INVENTOR-

ATTORNEYS

Figure 12 Armrest for crutches, US Patent 2,362,642, Thomas Lamb, 1944

101

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 13 Handle, US Patent 2,390,544, Thomas Lamb, 1945

102

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 14 Back and side views of the Grip-Hold handle on the cane/crutch combination from Lamb's sketchbook, Jan. 15, 1945, Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

-f/«H

Figure 15 A top view of the Grip-Hold handle, from Lamb's sketches, Dec. 28, 1943, Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

103

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 16 Drawing depicting the 10 - 20 degree angle (off perpendicular) of the human hand to the extended arm, Thomas Lamb, n.d., courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

.-■py * i'st? Figure 17 The Lamb Natural Crutch as it appeared in a sketch on Dec. 28, 1943 In the drawing Lamb noted possible materials for the vertical shaft of the crutch, including Plexiglas, aluminum and magnesium, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

104

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Crutch, US Crutch, US Patent 2,409,365, Thomas 1946 Lamb, Figure Figure 18

105

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 19 Photo of the all aluminum Lim-Rest Cane-Crutch, Tumpane Co., 1946 Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

'I»t

. . . Sts nolw al contour* of hand and . ... is a cone us wolf as o cwteh! ...eooperotes withths-r natural functions Accommodates varying degrees , , . fflW Mixt discomfort, rmjssfe and ne*v« of disability and convalescence. tension, thereby lessoning fatigue one improving mental attitude o! pcmnot, ... m inim ises pain —relieve* iA) TM£ HANDlt-'W ftich suppern U of armpit pressure! Cone support* body weight-- coordinates themechaniim *•» of body weight) and fundion a t head; farce* han d to mwn- , . does not slip from under arm! fain correct

(8! THE ARMREST - cjfvod t« the orrrtplt, - ■ . eliminates hunching! does not impair ciic.niotiunr protects ten- . . is easy to adjust! Con be oi- pinching,- aces .not dip f»«m semblod in the dark. ond plumule* easy* cernforlablrs c ...fits anyone between 4’8" and d'2''-~a ''family Item"!

... is easy to tb**«mbi* in cor*, theatres, etc.!

inch edjudnwmi equals 1 inch in heigh;.} . ,. is durable, inconspicuous and Next, tighten kmtrfed washer (2) against stylish) Eliminate* »»tt-con$eiouj-

Afaou/ovfurer: 'lull crutch part )o te n u , remove rub- THf TUMPANE COMPANY coffer t4) ot iowsr par; of crutch up shaft long Nismd City, New York of «*»«. Spaced holes (5) on crotch pint

m erit.; Jofn crutch to conn fey msHitic.g Stump screw ;*; tfuoogh liole.iivcrutcbpaf! o nps-n -ig ir. cane f-aidie r.y/i!.-,j rTenfy.

. IMPORTANT; Tc give maximum support end cemfoi i, THE 1.AM8 lIM-RtSi mod fen {AJ:M/Aia/y p Wt>.,s$us.

Figure 20 Lamb Lim-Rest brochure, R.H. Macy’s, 1946 The figure using the Lim-Rest looks like he is only using canes Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

106

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ™ r H j i a m / r I " i f -REST

'HE MODERN CANE-CRUTCH COMBINATION

★ EXCLUSIVE with m AQY’S ★

JB w llli

Figure 21 Display window at R.H. Macy's, 1946, advertising the new Lim-Rest Crutch Photograph by Worsinger Photo, New York, N. Y. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

107

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 22 Photograph showing slip- and sweat-resistant handle and armrest coatings, taken by Charles Kanarian, New York, N.Y., September 1947. Lamb supplied this image to the December 1947 issue of Interiors for an article about notable new designs. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

108

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. HEEL OF THE HAND

Figure 23 Sketches showing various curves of the hand, from Lamb's Grip-hold notebook (see Appendix B), Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

109

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ’"I:'.: r i ;ht hand {closed) assienes these curves' *)). left* hand (closed) assumes thwse curves ((+ l.either set a t curves fits the opg.osit;e.;. hand.

The-, invsritor, therefore, used these two reversely symmetrica^

TiMrhstttBide .curves; make;: fMe ioe.rifcr'a i : d we d f-ie.

ffie- Insided curve's form the c o n v e x ; : r e s t i n g su rfa ce, and the tv /o d i v e r g i n g su rfaces curve forwardly and downwardly*

Figure 24 Lamb uses the curves of the hand to determine the shape of the handle, from Lamb's Grip-hold notebook (see Appendix B), Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

110

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 25 Lamb shows the ideal workload for each digit of the hand, from Lamb's Grip-hold notebook (see Appendix B), Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

111

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. WING SO.HFRteS

Figure 26 Wing surfaces enable the thumb and forefinger, sketch from Lamb's Grip-hold notebook (see Appendix B), Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Figure 27 Two-part plaster mold of Lamb's original Wedge-lock handle model, 1943 Photograph by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

112

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 28 Interior of two-part plaster mold depicted in figure 27 Note that Lamb has labeled this handle model #1 in the upper image Photographs by the author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

113

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission...... m jM ...... “*'v?l°"Lzi zrMllfzzzzzzzzz 5UYI-W l- MtKIMl *■! ; : , , „

Figure 29 Wedge-lock handle design no. 2 left, handle study for baggage carrier, sketch of design no. 2 right, model no. 2, carrier, cast plaster Photographs by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

S i a o : : ;

Figure 30 Wedge-lock handle design no. 3 left, handle study for larger, longer carrier, sketch of design no. 3 right, model no. 3, carrier, cast plaster Photographs by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

114

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission Figure 31 Wedge-lock handle design no. 4 left, handle study for carrier, sketch of design no. 4 right, model no. 4, carrier, cast metal (probably lead) Photographs by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

115

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. <»*«-, Figure 32 a Z.~* Xot.Wo..f‘?Sfi- fX? ...... ‘(FaTOn~ Wedge-lock handle design no. 5, possibly for hand tool, sketch of design no. 5, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Figure 32 b Wedge-lock handle design no. 5, model no. 5, wood The functional part of the Wedge-lock handle can be seen here with small protrusions at both ends for holding the handle while carving. Lamb adjusted the orientation and connection points of his handle, but this basic functional core barely changed from product to product. Photograph by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

116

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 33 Generic luggage handles for comparison and research Photograph by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

117

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SUBilSCT ? l.».nn » ' H B tl' lUi IIIII (UJIHCIH tlMltf, 8 LUUUE ST1UII1 HIIIC tl

Figure 34 Sketch of loose swinging carrier handle for Standard Handle Company, design no. 100, Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Figure 35 Handles produced by Standard Handle Company for ARI's Arflite Luggage, designed by Thomas Lamb, 1946. Photograph by Charles Kanarian, N.Y. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

118

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 36 Assorted wooden sketch models of knife handles Photograph by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Figure 37 Model no. 305, knife handle with block and screw attached for lathe work Photograph by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

119

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . 0:10 .>&;>»-H'iM :iw

.Qi5 t |

«A m.UAAMAWl/

Figure 38 Sketch of Disston’s original saw handle design Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

120

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. II

G ed c« "3)*2 cdG -a cdG X3 3»-< bo .S ' IGcd 3 T3 JJ 3C 3o 3 ffi >4 a> 3 6J3 M4) O 00 U

121

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. m

"\A

Figure 40 Sketch of potential Disston saw handle, design no. 201 Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Figure 41 Sketch of potential Disston saw handle, design no. 211 Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

122

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 42 Sketch model of Disston saw handle design, wood Photograph by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

123

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 43 Mock-up of iron base for testing handle models Photograph by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Figure 44 Model no. 284 A, knife handle, split bi-laterally to allow insertion of blade for testing. Small bolts would have held the blade in place. Photograph by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

124

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 45 Original Disston saw handle, being prepared for insertion of a Wedge-lock handle grip. Photographs by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Figure 46 Presentation model of Disston saw handle with Wedge-lock grip inserted Photograph by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

125

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CRIp m o i -p

CONNECTING ENOS

Figure 47 Drawings from Lamb's Grip-hold notebook, which isolate the functional part of the handle from its connecting ends. In the top image, the dotted arcs show the potential outline of different connecting points. In the lower image, the functional "Grip-hold" is colored white, while the connecting ends are shaded. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

126

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. •IX

Figure 48 Loose sketches of handle designs for knives and top-of-stove ware, Thomas Lamb, various dates. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

127

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 49 Figure 50 Loose sketches of handle concepts for a household steam ' Refined sketches of handle concepts for a household Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library steam iron, design no. 119/162 and no. 49 Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library Figure 51 Model no. 119/162, steam iron, painted wood Photographs by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Figure 52 Model no. 49, steam iron, painted wood Photographs by author, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

129

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission ,„0« In ORSATiR to * • TRAVEL : la m b COMFORT Iwm m l o c k m » t i RRFLITE offers 4 * Light basswood »*rteer construction. * DowH» itH dw l bindings. * Attractive canvas coverings, * Quoted cel«n«s» linings. fatw Wwg# on «i sows mem fS inches for ex tra strensA. ^ * n«ii

il - ttilliTED If WiTn IKE EtCLUSIVE ArriU A ItU k & IAIL E fi S INC LAM* WtOGf LOCK »*llI K I M HAN ......

Figure 53 Tag from Arflite luggage for ARI, featuring the Wedge-lock Handle, 1947 Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

Figure 54 Top-of-stove ware for ARI, featuring the Wedge-lock Handle, 1947. Photo by Charles Kanarian, N. Y. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

130

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Page Six W CON FIDEN XI,VL Oetabei' 27, 18»0 r

a* tb« N«w Ad f mttMar? ya*tM Omjpt by WWfivrr dtsrinsf Sifpervw ^f* in PUtiUMM-gh b of fe»M«h ** c T™”* 1 r i x % AuguU. . a fiftieth anniversary feature Th« m* * •i!ia (..vejii in the Wcar-Evcr Specialty business handle can't slip, roil tr slide in the hand. Fitting either since 41m > > u ' *he New Method of Cooking is the hand perfectly, h p< c < i inch fingers, The handle H e r e A l a a f * t In s pprop.ri&L«l? introduced in this ourlifts and moves *t I rr« n it I limn ordinary handles <' hi. >' i * i and leaves the hand t.. s Ues Kino m rnbU " < i { r i d 1 5 k < » '*y of ’ in ih*a Mr, Lamb ha «on h< i it u in Designers' Institute , . * pu > l 11 -v i t * i f eon. ... » Special Medal Award for industrial design achievement. t u t i » 1 b 1 urr I i e cows » Catching The Ihiblie’s Eye its go > oof’ ! kb. h, straight sides, round cor Although the New Ach u k o Design has been on the ners, in< 1 s I, fcoitom, thick metal sides and bottom, anti market only a month, Sp»<«*h' Distributors are reporting br&Me-wmtim nmmxv attachment. wonderful results with tills «aU void"' in cooking utensils. New Method utensils also have Use revolutionary Lamb Supplementing- NAD is aut < lu.tiucfclou Cook Book, pre wedge-lock handle, exclusive with Wcar-Ever, This i* the first pared by We&r-Ever Spem ltv ,.»u«s promotion, the Wear- handle seiemhkahy designed to f.t the hand- The new Ever Kitchens, and. our adroit mi o a iency.

Figure 55 Wear-Ever's new pots and pans with Wedge-lock handles are announced in a company newsletter, the W-E Confidential, 27 Oct. 1950, 6, Lamb Papers, Hagley Museum and Library. Reproduced by permission from Vector Marketing Corporation.

131

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 56 Cover of the Wear-Ever News 49, no. 41, (13 Oct. 1950), Lamb Papers, Hagley Museum and Library. Reproduced by permission from Vector Marketing Corporation.

132

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. hostess s i: k v n : E

.PORK TRAY

KNifE HUY

KOiVO 'JH&PiNfK

Figure 57 An array of Cutco knives with Lamb Handles, c. 1952. This brochure and others displayed the various sets of knives available to consumers. Lamb Papers, Hagley Museum and Library. Reproduced by permission from Vector Marketing Corporation.

133

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Modern Cutlery for today's modern kitchens

CUTCO CUTIERY give* n ew tat*ty and cutting ability through it* exclusiv* lamb W«dg*4ock handlot and blodoi.

T h e d ev elo p m en t o f th e W<*dg«?-lock h an d le fttq u tm l six years of AND N O W ... intensive laboratory work by- industrial designer Thomas Lamb. the araeeful flawing lines, fh« During that, time over 70© pairs of hands were studied. The result eye-appealing, feel-appealing

is a handle that fully utilises the leverage of the strong thumb ami Wedge-lock handle is an

forefinger muscles, instead of making the last three fingers do most

of the work. The Cutco Wedge-lock handle gives pinpoint control

of the blade with a reduction in muscular fatigue. A Cuteo knife The always locks in your band in the correct position for best Cutting,

whether you're left or right-banded, and regardless of the size or Terrific

shape of your band. CUTCO Steak Knife

P a g e F o u r

Figure 58 "Modern cutlery for today's modern kitchens," the Cutco Blade 7, no. 14, (4 Apr. 1955), Lamb Papers, Hagley Museum and Library. The text of the advertisement focuses on Lamb's handle. Reproduced by permission from Vector Marketing Corporation.

134

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

t«ttipir»rrt 0«*t*r'»i fcnive* or- rfisptoy ot or- fcnive* A stoei*pacta! faloCe S At'Mnut><:ftUv ;at»■ too «;<>»■ hx-b >‘1 man & Lit <..o»l«>p>s« <..o»l«>p>s« Lit U Vil'JM tt'iOCX " - a n «««*• «««*• ,:,f (}>!■< Asa.itldr "{ f'oii-'trength •}«' distribute a.-raitY1* v. ft> *»:<-t grofttor vide* -until »t. put* lair-iu taadtimf. M nk i t m>5* if if nk M t m>5* i taadtimf. r^i ‘ni tv, fiiatioo to ihr ioi» to Ik- dentc, it dentc, Ik- to pro to ihr ioi» fiiatioo Fatigue. coittrn} Lor lax it ngl-t -ukI -ukI ngl-t it lax Lor coittrn} narsui' the Lamb ettllerv. of pmse*nf « full r and it--- ,-as>- f roaii/*; « utt or utt r km i * a i at Emm i: u at i Emm *u< *u< > cki ftot » i L i inalU‘''tEt?«-rat!‘i!<»r part of few tira-5 -mating me;-!-'’ s»v* s»v* me;-!-'’ -mating tira-5 few of - new part Wear-Ever ji-sofL »nsj«>r {x-opjo lawman ;< Cutlery, (ii<- withor- v c-jx-sjfL patentedamtKvri' twm— Mr. handle txiSUOff. ;SR»f ii<>!le ;uti. "" -"■•}<(«• rr.ilkr.'1 strain h.irni of amount. the ciali

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. modern cutlery for modern homemakers

H 1 of cutlery that's os u lur .s I ' f ! t I It < Culco Cutlery .^cieiil tht dh dc ml n l ; ) I a w a r d e d t h e “ G o o d !)«. ig n ■.< i 1 ' fit M l M I -n A H . CulcoT patented W edge-lock handle w;<~. developed by m~ dnal.riai designer Tom Lnmb niter six year- of research, AVitIt this handle. a knife always locks info your hand (cither right or loft) In exactly the correct position for cosy, controlled cutting, Cut ‘h i I<- ;-f a special, high-carbon, stain-re.-vista. 1 lit! and holds a rnxor-siuup

e d g e . M oon I -arc ground, lito type grind f o u n d o n ly « I I tl The niinu Cutco yen’ll Jiuvi Hud food preparation it i< ) or, and that you nuiokiy be come art exj f < t v the world's lined cnllery designed for t I I mg.

THE CONVftNliNCe OF VOUft HOME

;u rc o CUTLPWV vision of WKAR-evun Coo^inq UV«*n*>n Com?ia«y Inc.

Figure 60 "At last.. .modern cutlery for modern homemakers." Living for Young Homemakers, (June 1955). Another ad references Thomas Lamb and the Good Design seal from MoMA. Lamb Papers. Reproduced by permission from Vector Marketing Corporation.

136

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. JULY 2,1956

Figure 61 Cutco Blade special report on Thomas Lamb, Lamb Papers. Cutco and Wear-Ever made serious efforts to educate their sales force about Lamb. On numerous occasions they invited him to give lectures, and the company newsletters often featured stories about the latest designs that Lamb had produced. This four-page special report detailed the entire design and production process. Reproduced by permission from Vector Marketing Corporation.

137

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. * B lade

Vol. U , No. 30 NEW KENSINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA July 27, 1959

Sportsman’s Knife Lifesaver in Baffle With Octupus “It was a moment of terror,” reports fisherman Ben ■ Fiske, of Port Angeles, Washington, "but thanks to the j superior cutting edge on mv Cutco Sportsman's Knile and the fact, that 1 was able to maintain a firm grip on tire knife because of the handle desistn. .1 am alive to tell about1 it to d a y ] ” Beit’s gripping story of his brush with death was recently told to Cutco National Sales Manager H. C. Gardner who was visiting the Port Angeles area while attending Cuteo’s 20 Grand meeting. It seems that Ben had located and caught on to a huge 100 pound octopus. In Ben's struggle to gel: this ‘‘monster of tiie deep” aboard his vessel, one of the tentacles slipped around Ben’s forearm in a viselike g rip. The beast was also able to maneuver several tentacles around the bottom of the boat so as to be in a position to exert sufficient pressure to pull Ben overboard. Only a few moments remained for Ben to spring into action to prevent the giant monster from carrying him to the depths of the ocean. Remembering his Cutco Sports m an’s Knife in the convenient sheath attached to his belt, he whipped it: out and was able to slash through the tough tentacles and free his arm. Ben thanks lus lucky star for the day he invested in his #%<■) Sportsman's Knife and he appreciates its tine quality and design. Incidentally, Ben Fiske holds the distinction of having one of the world's most unusual and dangerous occupations — that of an octopus fisherman. It was because of this "occupation rarity” that Ben was selected to appear on TV s award winning panel show “W hat’s My Line,”

Figure 62 "Sportsman's Knife Lifesaver in Battle with Octopus," Cutco Blade 11, no. 30, (27 July 1959), Lamb Papers. Cutco and Wear-Ever newsletters also printed feedback from customers. In this article a fisherman credits the Cutco handle with saving his life in a fight with an octopus. Reproduced by permission from Vector Marketing Corporation.

138

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Volume 55, Numbftr 2-M JULY 31, t 956

Figure 63 Wear-Ever top-of-stove ware salesman showing his products to a mother and daughter. He has opened a brochure, much like the one the Cutco salesmen would have used to point out the picture of Thomas Lamb. Lamb's Wedge-lock handles are visible on the pans that sit on the coffee table. Image from Panorama 55, no. 2-M, (31 July 1956), Lamb Papers. Reproduced by permission from Vector Marketing Corporation.

139

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. plastic handle model of similar design. Photograph by author, courtesy of Right, IXVENTOfL 1953 4. T . LA M B Filed Dec. , US Design, Patent 173,115, 1954. Hagley Museum and Library Early manifestations ofWedge-lock principles on Cutco knives, mid-1950s (based on Lamb's utility patent 2,390,544, 1945). Figure 64 Left

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. plastic handle model ofsimilar design. Photograph by author, courtesy of FIG.3 Right, FIG4 FIG.6

FIG.5

—03 D8 03; FIG. 2 230,940 Lamb, 42Matiomi Road, Term o!patent 14 years Int. D7—CL HANDLE FOR CUTLERY New Canaan, Conn, 06846 Thomas Tiled July 7, 1972. Ser. No. 269,599 FIG. I U.S. CL D7— 152 US Design Patent 230,940, 1974. United States Patent Office Figure 65 The Wedge-lock”"Universal Cutco design from the mid-1970s (based on Lamb's utility patent, 3,122,774, 1964). Left, Hagley Museum and Library

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 66 Cutco knife handles in 2005, note that they have changed very little since Lamb's 1974 redesign. Image reproduced by permission from Vector Marketing Corporation.

142

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. a handle t o f i t t h e h a n d

d M

■ H I H H i

T O FIT THE HAND E

Figure 67 Introductory panel for "A Handle to Fit the Hand," exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, 3 March - 16 May 1948, curated by Edgar J. Kaufmann Jr. Top, photograph by Soichi Sunami for the Museum of Modern Art, Bottom, photograph by William Leftwich, N.Y. Both images courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

143

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 68 "Potential Uses" panel from the MoMA exhibition. Several objects depicted here, including the machete, soldering iron, tennis racket, box cutter, carving knife, telephone, Lim-rest crutch, and pressure cooker are three-dimensional models or products. Other examples rely on drawn or painted outlines on the wall combined with a 3-D Wedge-lock handle model from Lamb's office. These include (from upper left, in columns from top to bottom) a hand drill, shovel, coping saw, machinist's hammer, a fishing rod, and a steam iron. Photograph by Soichi Sunami for the Museum of Modem Art, courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library

144

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 69 Lamb stands proudly in front of the "In Production" panel from the MoMA exhibit. Items on this wall were already in production by Lamb and his clients. On the wall: Linde Air oxyacetylene welding torch and Disston hand saws. On the counter: Armaid sauce pans and skillet for ARI, glass coffee pots by Becher Corporation On the floor: Arflite luggage for ARI. Photograph by William Leftwich, N.Y., courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library.

145

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 70 Medal awarded to Lamb in 1950 by the American Designers' Institute for achievement in industrial design on the Wedge-lock handle. Left, front of medal with ADI logo that was designed by John Vassos in 1938. Right, back side of medal with inscription. Photographs courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library.

146

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. a f t111 a t i a n t l n n rufj SY„ 7-“T“ -SUBJECT,, SHEET NO.. OF . £ «I V * 8 t£ It 1 HT t £ V flit TIKI 2) C H K O . BY DATE { J O B N O . o h i n s m s'sm n 51 i Nl 20$ y 206

UF1 IT P £

22 S 22S

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FUMCfl 20S US

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U I1E1 f 11 LI t tu rn ituf f f tit TIB I m il yjAiis HI. a £ r t. r7 V

Figure 71 Future applications for the Wedge-lock handle, as imagined by Lamb in 1949 Image courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library

147

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ►

Figure 72 The Tom Lamb display at the "Artisans-Techniciens Aux Etats-Unis" exhibition in Paris in 1957, sponsored by the U.S. government. Photograph by G. Barrows, courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library

148

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Unpublished Materials

Lamb, Thomas. Papers, 1916-1988. Col. 2181. Hagley Museum and Library, Greenville, Delaware.

Periodicals1

Astragal, Architect’s Journal 15 July 1948: 61. Lamb Papers.

Bello, Francis. “Fitting the Man to the Machine.” Fortune, November 1954,134-7,148, 152-8.

Berkwitt, George. “The Inevitable Science of Human Engineering.” D un’s Review, October 1965, 45-7, 133, 136,138.

“Biomechanics.” Industrial Design 18, no. 3 (April 1971): 36-41.

Bowen, Hugh M. et al. “Rational Design 1: Human Engineering and Systems Concept.” Industrial Design 11, no. 2 (February 1964): 58-61.

. “New Directions in Human Engineering.” Industrial Design 12 (September 1965): 128-9.

. “Two Designers Look on the Light Side of human Factors and the Joy of Lingo.” Industrial Design Magazine (Mar./Apr. 1980): 18.

“Catching up with the Industrial Revolution: New Twists for Old Tools.” Life 26 June 1970, 73-4.

Charash, Ruth. “Tools Need Not Harm the Hands that Use Them.”Industrial Design Magazine 29 (Nov./Dec. 1982): 42-5.

1 Copies of several periodicals referenced are filed with the Lamb Papers at Hagley. For these items I have included the notation “Lamb Papers” after the full citation.

149

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chong, Ian and Andrew McDonough. “Is a Tool-Caused Backache a Designer’s Problem!” Industrial Design Magazine 29 (Sep./Oct. 1982): 30-1.

Comment. “Human Engineering.” Design 135 (March 1960): 23.

Contini, Renato. “Human Factors Engineering in Product Development.” Industrial Design 7, no. 1 (January 1960): 55-6.

Davidson, Bill. “You Buy Their Dreams.” Colliers, 2 August 1947, 22-23; 68-69. Lamb Papers.

“Design and People 1.” Design 136 (April 1960): 50-4.

“Design and People 2.” Design 139 (July 1960): 53-5.

“Designers Pledge Their Aid,” Retailing: Home Furnishings (New York, NY) 13, no. 40, 6 Oct. 1941. Lamb Papers.

“The Designer’s Role in Humanizing Products: Man in the Middle.” Industrial Design (Jul./Aug. 1975): 61-2.

“Designs from Abroad.” Industrial Design 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1954): 66-7.

Diffrient, Niels. “The Human Scale.” Industrial Design 20 (June 1973): 54-7.

Dreyfuss, Henry. “Tailoring the Product to Fit.” Industrial Design 7, no. 6 (June 1960): 68-81.

Ellingson, David G. “Honeywell: Designing on a Foundation of Human Factors.” Industrial Design Magazine (Mar./Apr. 1980): 28-31.

Finley, George T. Editorial. “People Come in Assorted Sizes.” Industrial Design 24 (July/Aug. 1977): 25.

. Editorial. “The Humor Factor vs. the Human Factor.” Industrial Design 25 (Mar./Apr. 1978): 23.

Fitch, Stephane. “The Chair Men.”Forbes Magazine, 29 March 2004.

“Five Years of Good Design.” Interview with Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. Industrial Design 1, (August 1954): 23-9.

Frontlines. “Arrogant Designers Ignore Data.” Design 355 (July 1978): 14.

150

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “Getting to the Problem of the Bottom.”Industrial Design (May/June 1975): 30-3.

“The Hand and the Handle.” Arts and Architecture 65 (1948): 32-3. Lamb Papers.

“Handle Fits Your Hand.” Popular Science, June 1948, 105. Lamb Papers.

Housey, Gary. “Mr. Lamb: Inventor/Philosopher.” Olean Times Herald, Olean, New York, 28 July 1984, 3. Lamb Papers.

Interiors, December 1947. Lamb Papers.

Jones, J. Christopher. “Ergonomics: Human Data for Design.” Design 66 (June 1954): 13-7.

. “Fitting for Action IT Design 135 (March 1960): 38-42.

. “Fitting for Action I.” Design 137 (May 1960): 49-52.

Kahn Jr., E.J. “Profiles: Come Let Me Clutch Thee.”New Yorker, 29 May 1954, 33-38. Lamb Papers.

Kaplan, Archie. “Coming to Grips.” Industrial Design 15 (April 1968): 34-9.

. “How to Provide More Power to the User.” Industrial Design 24 (Mar./Apr. 1977): 42-4.

. “A Race With Time.”Industrial Design 15, no. 7 (Sep. 1968): 36-7.

. “The Significance of Anthropometries.” Review of Humanscale 1/2/3, by Niels Diffident, Alvin Tilley, and Joan Bardagiy. Industrial Design 22 (Nov./Dec. 1975): 51-3.

Koepf, Rudolph H. “The Design Process in Modem Industry.” Industrial Design 12 (Sept. 1965): 124-7.

Leader. “Ergonomics Theory Faces Question of Purpose.” Design 355 (July 1978): 14.

Lippincott, J. Gordon. “Industrial Design as a Profession.” College Art Journal 4, no. 3 (March 1945): 149-52.

Llewelyn-Davies, Richard. “Human Sciences.” Architectural Review 111, no. 757 (March 1960): 188-90.

Luggage and Leather Goods, December 1947. Lamb Papers.

151

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. McClellan, I. “Forget the Answers it’s the Questions that Count.” Design 387 (March 1981): 59.

“Medical Equipment: More Human Attitudes to Design are required in Meeting the Needs of Patients and Doctors.” Design 136 (April 1960): 36-8.

Morrison, Harriet. New York Herald Tribune, 29 February 1948, Sec. VIII. Lamb Papers.

Mueller, James. “Toward Universal Design: an Ongoing Project on the Ergonomics of Disability.” American Rehabilitation 16, no. 2 (1990): 15-21.

Nelson, George. “The Humane Designer.” Industrial Design 20 (June 1973): 51-3.

Neutra, Richard. “Design: Means for Survival.” Industrial Design 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1954): 46-50.

“New Class for a Classic.” Industrial Design 7, no. 6 (June 1960): 62-3.

News, “I.D.I. Cites Manufacturer, Publisher.” Industrial Design 1, no. 2 (April 1954): 12.

“The Other Side of Human Engineering.” Industrial Design 12 (Feb. 1965): 58-61.

Papanek, Victor. “Five Ways to Bring Design to the People.” Design 387 (March 1981): 58-9.

Pirkl, James. J. “Design is Seen Entering a New ‘Humanic’ Stage.” Industrial Design 25 (July/Aug. 1978): 59.

Revelle, Tom. “Ergonomics 101 : Working Painlessly,” article from Interiors & Sources, June 2000, http://www.humanscale.com/ergo_info/index.cfin.

Rohde, Gilbert. “Aptitudes and Training for Industrial Design.” Parnassus 13, no. 2 (Feb. 1941): 60-4.

Seabrook, William. “What Are You Fit For?” Forum 100 (1938): 63-8.

Schack, William. “Molding a Universal Handle,” Plastics, January 1948. Lamb Papers.

“Shortage Feared in Aluminum Ware.” New York Times, 9 September 1948.

Sinaiko, H. Wallace. “Progress: Industry Finds New Uses for Human Engineering.” Nation’s Business, January 1957, 14-15, 91.

152

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Steventon, J. et al. “Why Women at Work Get a Raw Design Deal.”D esign 407 (Nov. 1982): 65.

Talk of the Town. New Yorker, 13 March 1948, 23-4. Lamb Papers.

“Tom Lamb the Handle Man,” Industrial Design 1 (1954): 111-113. Lamb Papers.

Trachtenberg, Jeffrey A. “How Do We Confuse Thee? Let Us Count the Ways.” Forbes 141.6(1988): 156-59.

Van Deusen, Edmund L. “They’re Redesigning Your Life.” Colliers, 30 October 1953, 34-6.

“What They Say about Plastic Tooling.” Industrial Design 1, no. 5 (Oct. 1954): 88-93.

“What’s So Special About Plastics?” Industrial Design l,no. 1 (Feb. 1954): 57-65.

Whitfield, D. “Putting Ergonomics Into Standards.” Design 288 (Dec. 1972): 52-3.

Woudhuysen, James. “Ergonomics: People Aren’t as Simple as Machines.” Design 340 (April 1977): 53-5.

. “Things They Love to Hate.” Design 349 (Jan. 1978): 54-7.

Books

Buchanan, Richard, and Victor Margolin, eds. Discovering Design: Explorations in Design Studies. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Beecher, Catharine Esther.A Treatise on Domestic Economy, for the use o f young ladies at home, and at school. Revised third edition, with numerous additions and illustrative engravings. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1858. c.1842.

Cagan, Jonathan and Craig Vogel. Creating Breakthrough Products: Innovation from Product Planning to Program Approval. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.

Deaver, George, and Mary Eleanor Brown. The Challenge o f Crutches. New York: Institute for the Crippled and Disabled, 1945. Lamb Papers.

Dilnot, Clive. “The State of Design History Part I: Mapping the Field.” Design Discourse, ed. Victor Margolin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. 213-232.

153

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . “The State o f Design History Part II: Problems and Possibilities.”D esign Discourse, ed. Victor Margolin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. 233- 250.

Deaver, George and Mary Eleanor Brown. The Challenge o f Crutches. New York: Institute for the Crippled and Disabled, 1945.

Dreyfuss, Henry. Designing for People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955.

. Designing for People. New York: Allworth Press, 2003.

. The Measure o f Man; Human Factors in Design, 2nd ed. New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1960.

Flinchum, Russell. Henry Dreyfuss: Industrial Designer. New York: The Smithsonian, 1997.

Gilbreth, Frank Bunker. Fatigue Study, the Elimination o f Humanity's Greatest Unnecessary Waste; a First Step in Motion Study. New York: Sturgis & Walton Company, 1916.

Heskett, John. Industrial Design. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980.

Hrdlicka, Ales. Anthropometry. Philadelphia: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, 1920.

Julier, Guy. The Culture o f Design. London: SAGE Publications, 2000.

Loewy, Raymond. Never Leave Well Enough Alone. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951.

Mandel, Mike. Making Good Time: Scientific Management, the Gilbreths, Photography and Motion, Futurism. Santa Cruz, California: M. Mandel, in association with California Museum of Photography, 1989.

Marcus, George H. Functionalist Design: an Ongoing History. New York: Prestel, 1995.

Margolin, Victor. The Politics o f the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. See esp. chap. 11, “Design History and Design Studies.”

Meikle, Jeffrey L. American Plastic: A Cultural History. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1997.

154

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1939, 2nd edition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.

Meister, David. The History o f Human Factors and Ergonomics. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., 1999.

Papanek, Victor. Design for Human Scale. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company Inc., 1983. See esp. chap. 2, “Design Participation.”

Pulos, Arthur J. American Design Adventure: 1940-1975. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1988.

. American Design Ethic: A History o f Industrial Design to 1940. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1983. See esp. chap. 7, “The Design Decade,” and the epilogue, “From Affluence to Conscience.”

Schlereth, Thomas J.Victorian America: Transformations o f Everyday Life, 1876-1915. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.

Society of Industrial Designers. Industrial Design in America 1954. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Young, 1954.

Stanton, Neville. “Product Design with People in Mind.” Chapter 1 in Human Factors in Consumer Products. Ed. Neville Stanton. London: Taylor & Francis, 1998.

Taylor, Frederick Winslow. The Principles o f Scientific Management. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1911. Reprint, New York: Dover, 1998. Page numbers refer to reprint.

US Patents

Bourne, James. 1943. Crutch. US Patent 2,364,053, filed Nov. 23, 1943, and issued Dec. 5, 1944.

Fallon, Clarence M. 1934. Pneumatic Crutch Pad. US Patent 1,980,044, filed Jan. 29, 1934, and issued Nov. 6, 1934.

Foltz, Carl, et. al. Knife and Methods of Manufacture Thereof. US Patent 2,382,304, filed Mar. 24, 1941, and issued Aug. 14, 1945.

Kupfer, Albert I. 1941. Handle Guard. US Patent 2,239,180, filed Dec. 26, 1940, and issued Apr. 22, 1941.

155

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Lamb, Thomas. 1944. Armrest for crutches. US Patent 2,362,642, filed Jul. 10,1943, and issued Nov. 14, 1944.

. 1945. Handle. US Patent 2,390,544, filed Jan. 1, 1944, and issued Dec. 11, 1945.

. 1946. Crutch. US Patent 2,409,365, filed June 23, 1945, and issued Oct. 15, 1946.

. 1947. Handle. US Patent 2,493,764, filed Jan. 22, 1947, and issued Jan. 10, 1950.

. 1947. WEDGE-LOCK. US Patent, Certification Mark, Registration Number 536,297, filed Oct. 1, 1947, and registered Jan. 9, 1951.

. 1949. Saw Handle. US Design Patent Des. 152,890, filed May 26, 1948, and issued Mar. 1, 1949.

. 1953. Handle for safety razor. US Design Patent Des. 169,147, filed Nov. 20, 1952, and issued Mar. 31, 1953.

. 1954. Handle for cutlery or the like. US Design Patent Des. 173,115, filed Dec. 4, 1953, and issued Sept. 28, 1954.

. 1954. Handle for cutlery or the like. US Design Patent Des. 173,116, filed Dec. 4, 1953, and issued Sept. 28, 1954.

. 1954. Handle for cutlery or the like. US Design Patent Des. 173,117, filed Dec. 4, 1953, and issued Sept. 28, 1954.

. 1954. Handle for a fork or the like. US Design Patent Des. 173,118, filed Dec. 4, 1953, and issued Sept. 28, 1954.

. 1958. Handle for cutlery or the like. US Design Patent Des. 182,291, filed Sept. 19, 1955, and issued Mar. 11, 1958.

. 1960. Surgical Instrument Handle. US Design Patent Des. 188,788, filed Oct. 1, 1959, and issued Sept. 13, 1960.

------. 1963. US Design Patent Des. 196,268, filed May 24, 1962, and issued Sept. 10, 1963.

. 1964. Handle. US Patent 3,122,774, filed Aug. 8,1961 and issued Mar. 3,1964.

156

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . 1965. US Design Patent Des. 200,589, filed Jul. 16,1964, and issued Mar. 16, 1965.

. 1974. Handle for steak knives. US Design Patent Des. 230,938, filed July 7, 1972, and issued Mar. 26,1974.

. 1974. Handle for a kitchen tool or similar article. US Design Patent Des. 230,939, filed July 7, 1972, and issued Mar. 26, 1974.

. 1974. Handle for Cutlery. US Design Patent Des. 230,940, filed July 7, 1972, and issued Mar. 26, 1974.

McGowan, Henri C. 1947. Crutch Armrest. US Patent 2,417,171, filed Mar. 12,1945, and issued Mar. 11, 1947.

Redcliffe, Frederick J. 1946. Crutch. US Patent 2, 398, 247, filed Nov. 22, 1944, and issued April 9, 1946.

Rosenberg, Abraham. 1938. Adjustable Arm Support. US Patent 2,172,178, filed Oct. 11, 1938, and issued Sept. 5, 1939.

Schroeder, F.H. 1941. Adjustable Crutch. US Patent 2,241,481, filed Aug. 10, 1939, and issued May 13, 1941.

Smith, Alfred A. 1966. Combined Handle and Hand Grip for Crutches. US Patent 3,269,399, filed Aug., 3, 1964, and issued Aug. 30, 1966.

Public Documents

U.S. Census. 1900. New York, New York. Manhattan, District 701.

U.S. Census. 1910. New York, New York. Wd 12, Manhattan, District 607.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX A

Lamb's Wedge-lock Model Notebook, 1945-1958

158

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. GUIDE TO APPENDIX A

Transcribed by Rachel Delphia from Lamb’s hand-written ledger, 2005

Field: Description

Line #: I have transcribed lines in the order that they appeared in Lamb’s ledger.

Category: These correspond to thirteen categories of my creation. They are the same divisions used for figure 7 in the text.

Project: The name of the project as Lamb recorded it. Sometimes this field also contains single numbers or letters (see note below).

M odel #: The number that Lamb assigned to each model. These are often painted on the handles themselves as “no. 282.” The model numbers in this table can be used to identify labeled handles in the object collection. If the number is not in this notebook, the handle was probably not produced under the Wedge-lock name and patent number 2,390,544 between 1945 and 1958. It likely falls under one of Lamb’s other types of handles (Torque, Universal Wedge-lock, writing instrument, etc.).

Client: The client for which Lamb created the model. Not all handles modeled were produced. “T.L. Office” and “R & D” both designate that Lamb developed the handle for himself without an outside client.

Start Date: The date the office started working on the modeling project.

Finish Date: The date the office finished working on the modeling project. Sometimes there is a lag time of several months or even years between the finish date in the notebook and that date that a product arrived on the consumer market.

Thomas Lamb Hours: The number of hours Lamb personally spent on the project, recorded in quarter- hour increments.

Total Hours: The total number of hours spent by Lamb AND his staff on the project, recorded in quarter-hour increments. In some cases, a project may have an entry of “0” hours. This is usually because its hours are included with a handle for the same client in the next line. For example, see lines 225 and 226. Lamb created two versions of a handle for a Skilsaw belt sander. The total hours for both models are listed in line number 226. Lamb’s ledger listed both subtotals and totals, but in order to simplify my database I adopted this strategy. If an item has no hours entered and is not followed by another model for the same client, then the hours were omitted in the original notebook.

159

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. General notes: The presence of “?” within a field designates that Lamb’s handwriting was illegible, and I was not sure of my transcription.

Lamb left lines blank in his book, and I have preserved this by organizing the table by line number rather than model numbers. Blank project fields or fields that say V, T, or C seem to be place holders for model numbers in other notebooks. In other words, Lamb might have used the number 45 or 46 for a “Torque handle” and recorded it in a Torque handle notebook. Since the notebook transcribed here was exclusively for Wedge-lock handles, he left the line blank.

Numbers listed in the project field are often cross references to another model in the notebook. For example, model #199 references #155. Both are for saws, suggesting that Lamb used the earlier model as a prototype for a later design.

Notes on Clients: The Standard Handle Company was a partnership that Lamb formed with two colleagues to promote and distribute his handles. The company was supposed to work especially on government contracts, but it seems to have dissolved rather quickly.

Al. Gds. Ltd. (Aluminum Goods Limited) was a division of the Canadian company ALCAN, to which lamb sold many handles for top-of-stove ware concurrently with his ARI and Wear-Ever lines in the U.S. Many of the pots and pans in the object collections are actually models for Aluminum Goods Limited.

P.P. Gl. Co. is Pittsburgh Plate Glass for which Lamb made paint brushes and rollers.

160

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177 Total Hours 0 0 0000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 19.75 19.75 85.25 126 79.25 158 276.5 385.75 237.25 413.75 31-Jul-46 23 -O ct-46 23 -O ct-45 07-D ec-45 2 7 -D ec-45 07-D ec-45 27-M ar-46 Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours 29-Jan-4625-Jun-45 23-Oct-46 ll-A u g A 5 ll-AugA511-A ug-45 07-Dec-4504-A pr-46 0 0 25-A ug-46 Start Date Standard Handle Co.. Co. 01-Aug-46 28-Aug-46 121 Standard Handle Co.. Co.Standard Handle Co.. Co. 04-Feb-46 Client C o m in g G l.C o m in g G l. -A 11 ug^t5 Tumpane Co. T L office 14 10 10/11 12 16 T um pane C o. l T L office 5 T L office 89 Coming Gl. Coming Gl. 3 T L office 0 T L office 24 T L office T L office sport G o lfC lub H 19 sportsport GolfClub H. 16 F sport GolfClub H 15 Tumpane Co. 18 Tumpane Co. crutch LIMREST - C- Handle 17 carrier 14-A,B,C, D carrier carriers. (Bq) carrier (12A) (12B) (12 G) carrier 13 A 13 Standard Handle Co.. Co. kitchen Glass Tea Pot kitchenkitchen Glass Coffee pots Glass Coffee pots 12 3 4 kitchen Glass Water Container 7 research 6 research " BG - C research " B G - C research Original clay research " B G - C researchresearch " B G - C Original Category Project Model # 1 8 3 5 6 7 9 2 4 15 10 14 12 11 13 16 17 19 18 # 20 Appendix A: A: Appendix Wedge-lockModel Notebook, Lamb's 1945-1958

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 0 Total Hours 0 000 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 52 76.75 139 281.25 125 226.5 104.5 194.5 29.25 45.25 194.25 396.75 173.25 227.75 164.75 237.5 Thomas Lamb Hours 19-Jul-46 19-Jul-46 19-Jul-46 11-A pr-48 22-Jun-46 25 -Jun-47 13-A ug-46 09-Sep-47 30-D ec-46 15-M ay-46 15-M ay-46 26-M ar-46 26-M ar-46 26-M ar-46 30-M ay-46 06-M ay-46 04-Jan-46 11-A pr-46 04-Jan-46 22-Jan-46 23-Jan-46 29-Jan-4706-Jan-48 30-Jul-47 0 0 01-Feb-46 01-Feb-46 01-F eb^l6 13-M ay-46 14-M ay-47 08-M ay-46 Start Date Finish Date W ilson W ilson C hicago PT C hicago PT Dow PTG 22-Jan^l6 Colt Mfg Co Model # Client 25 D ow PT G 3738 Spalding W ilson 09-Sep-47 35 Spalding 33 20 Spalding Wilson 2123 Pederson W ilson 36 Spalding 26 34 29 Chicago PT GolfClub H 4E/5 E-L 24 Shotgun 31 Remington Co. GolfClub H Tennis R ack et H L 22 tools Pneumatic H # 8 28 sport sport sport Tennis Racket (Budge?) tools Pneumatic Tool sport tools ‘Pneumatic Tooltools Pneumatic Tool 24 Dow PTG 22-Jan^46 sportsport GolfClub H Tennis Racket tools Portable Elect Drill 27 sport GolfClub H tools Pneumatic H tools Elec Drill 1/2 " 29A Black & Decker 22-Mar-46 sport sport GolfClub H firearms Hand Gun Stocks 32 HS NY Co? firearms firearmsfirearms Colt handgun 45 C Colt handgun 45 C 30 30A Colt Mfg Co 0 Category Project 25 37 32 21 23 22 24 27 26 29 38 39 36 35 30 31 33 34 28 40 41 42 :#

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 62.5 25.5 147.5 151.5 99.75 60.75 163.25 135.75 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 14.5 53.25 42.75 40.75 104.75 14-Jun-46 11-A pr-48 11-A pr-48 11-A pr-48 15-Sep-46 04-O ct-47 04-O ct-47 24-Sep-46 2 3 -D ec-46 0 0 1 -Jul-46 11-Jun-46 01-Jul-46 15-Sep-46 0 06-Jan-48 06-Jan-48 06-Jan-48 29-Jun-47 29-Jun-47 09-Oct-46 25-Dec-46 243.75 0 1 -O ct-46 05-M ay-46 StartDate Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours S palding S palding S palding Nat Cartide 51 45 46 47 48 404142 S palding S palding 44 VP 50 Elect Iron H 52 A 52open Silex Corp openopenopen 56 57 58 59 sport A.B.C.sportsport A.B.C. sport Ping Pong Paddle Ping Pong Paddle 39 43 sport A.B.C. household Elect Iron Hhousehold 49 Portable Prd. household Electr Flash light householdhousehold eagle iron 53 Bhousehold 53 Silex Corp 54 55 Silex Corp Silex Corp Category Project Model # Client 43 45 46 47 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 44 48 49 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 ! # !

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 97 212 60.5 70.75 55.75 270.5 40.75 101.25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 39 43 110 55.5 51.25 22.75 23.75 158.75 12-Sep-46 12-Sep-46 09-Sep-46 30-D ec-46 26-D ec-46 26-D ec-46 06-N ov-46 06-N ov-46 06-N ov-46 12-Jun-46 12-Jun-46 03 -Jun-46 03-O ct-46 03 -O ct-46 03-O ct-46 18-N ov^l6 06-Sep-46 09-D ec-46 Client StartDate Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Tech Hughes Colt Mfg Co Colt Mfg Co Remington Co. Empers B. Co. Empers B. Co. Empers B. Co. F u ller B rush Co. Tech Hughes 62 63 64 67 68 69 72 73 74 60 65 66 S hot G un # 3 4 -1 4 4 Shoe D au b er (?) 75 Brush (L) 70Aopen 70 Hair Bmsh 71 180 (degree symb 76 Colt Hand Gun #30.30A 61 Hair Bruch 360 77 C olt H and G un 5A Brushes (M) Hair 79 firearm s firearm s firearm s toiletries toiletries toiletries Brushes (M) Hair 78 toiletries toiletries toiletries 68 67 82 83 84 69 70 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 85 86 66 71 72 65 Line # Category Project Model #

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. without prohibited reproduction Further owner. copyright the of permission with Reproduced

Line it Category Project Model # Client Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours < vo tu o S3 oo a W) H I’ v© Si CQ oo 00 o o 2 00 ON N ON ^ ON o ON CN O m n ON ON IT) ON VO -3 VO -3 U I ON - r bfl o 165 ON 00 ON ON O O O (N o o m o in N — — ON on o o VO © o E *E ’E oa cn •p u © © X < T3 X o 00 3 bo 0 0 0 0 0 63 36 82.5 92.5 99.5 84.5 54.5 66.5 28.5 155.5 31.75 54.75 151.75 160.75 129.75 0 0 18.5 18-Feb-47 34.5 16-D ec-4716-Dec-47 0 71.25 15-Mar-48 48 19-A ug-47 0 26-Dec-4626-Dec-46 68.5 48 10-Jan-47 13-May-48 11-Oct-48 98 07-Nov-47 20-Oct-47 52.25 Client StartDate Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Stainless Steel Corp. ofA 03-Oct-47 17-Oct-47 15 Standard Handle Co. Standard Handle Co. Standard Handle Co. 14-Jul-47 Stanley wksS tanley w ks 02-Jan-48 02-Jan^J8 15-Mar-48 61.5 Becher Corp.Becher Corp.Becher Corp.Becher Corp. 16-Jan-47 Becher 16-Jan-47 Corp. 16-Jan-47Tech 16-Jan-47 16-Dec-47 Hughes 16-Dec-47 16-Dec-47A & F G erber 62.5 54.5 46.5 Becher Corp. 16-Jan-47 Affiliated Retailers 24-Feb-47 05-Mar-47 31.5 Tech HughesT ech H ughes 18-Nov-46 18-N ov-46 A&F Gerber 03-Mar-46 12-Nov-46 102 113 S aw Set 116 P aper B o ard K nife 117 C ircu larB rushesC ircular B rushes(L) CircularBrushes 111 112 tools sport Hunting Knife al model 114 tools sport hunting knife (Last 115 carrier B ag g ag e H 4 1/2carrier " Baggage H 5 1/2 " 101 103 carrier Baggage H 5 1/4 " cutlery carving knife 118 kitchen 107A kitchen Fry PanH 107 110 kitchenkitchen 1&2kitchen 109kitchen 105 106 108 109 kitchen CofferMaker 104 toiletries toiletries toiletries 113 115 119 109 111 112 114 116 117 118 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 110 Line # Category Project Model #

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 107.5 162.25 367.25 313.25 Total Hours 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 22.5 26.5 58.5 181.5 472.75 210.75 15-Jan-47 0 5 -Jul-47 05-Jul-47 0 5 -M -4 7 15-Sep-46 0 5-Jul-47 09-O ct-46 30-Sep-47 0 9 -O ct-46 25-M ar-47 25-M ar-47 2 3 -A u g ^l6 Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours 16-Sep-46 04-Feb-47 04-Feb^47 Client Start Date Linde A. P.Affiliated Retailers 03-Jan-47 09-Jan-47 Montgomery Ward 18-Jun-47 Linde A. P. 03-Jan-47 Affiliated Retailers G C R.H. MacyAdvance Aluminum Co. 04-Feb-47 04-Feb-47 W. Ward 23-Oct-47 02-Dec-47 0 0 Linde A. P. 03-Jan-47 25-Mar-47 Prides (?) & Co. 10-Feb-46Linde A. P. 28-M-46Linde A. P. 02-Sep-46 67.75 03-Jan-47 25-Mar-47 114.5 0 Linde A. P.Linde A. P. 15-Aug-46 26-Aug-46 30-Aug-46 Disston 30-Oct-48 05-Dec-48 63.25 71.5 Linde A. P. 03-Mar-46Linde 19-Mar-46 A. P. 25-Oct-46 Linde A. P. 12-Aug-46 14-Aug-46 130 129 133 135136 R.H. Macy 139 128 119 127 131 126 121 Project Model # A. Gas Torches 120 Ecko T ofStone Ware 132 advance Al. Pressure Cooker T.Cooking Utensil 137 138 Affiliated Retailers 23-Oct-47 02-Dec-47 0 0 C ooking utensil 134 A. Gas TorchesAircraft Blow Pipe 124 125 Linde A. P. A. Gas TorchesA. Gas Torches 122 123 tools 2 sizes 4 in 1 tools tools tools tools tools tools Sheet Metal & utility toolstools A. Gas TorchesA.tools Gas Torch tools tools SawH. 131 A kitchen kitchen kitchen kitchen kitchen kitchen Cooking Utensil kitchen kitchen household elect sack (?) iron Category 142 152 141 147 148 140 131 136 137 133 134 135 132 143 144 145 146 149 150 151 139 138 e #

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 0 0 0 76 329 216 10.5 94.5 27.5 98.75 88.75 71.75 45.25 299.5 201.75 0 00 0 0 18 26 83 125.25 173 113 10.5 65.5 36.5 52.26 36.75 61.75 24.75 62.5 121.75 19-Jul-47 10-Oct-47 07-Jul-48 07-Jul-48 19-Jun-47 16-Jun-47 17-Jun-48 15-Dec-47 07-Jun-47 30-D ec-47 02-D ec-47 06-M ar-48 0 1 -Jul-47 17-Feb-48 07-Jan-47 28-Feb-48 0 6-N ov-47 Stainless Steel Corp. ofA 24-Nov-47 ClientAffiliated Retailers StartDate 23-Oct-47 Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Affiliated Retailers 30-Jul-47 R em ington Co. LofstrandR&D 18-Mar-47 R&D 01-Jun-54 01-Sep-54 17-Jun-54 26-Jan-55 54 TL officeTL office 18-Feb-48 06-Mar-48 43 Lofstrand Al. Gds. Ltd. HSMTL office 06-Nov^l7 06-Jun-47 TL office Drake (?) Elect A.G. Spalding Mr. RichardsDr. HardyD r. H ardyDr. HardyLofstrand 05-May-47 06-Nov-47 31-Dec-47 16-Mar-48 221 0 0 0 0 160 142 147 148 149 140 141 shotgun stock 144 Stainless Ware FP telephone receiver telephone receiver (clay mp) soldering iron C ooking U tensil under handle DrillPutty Knife 158 Hand Saw A-B 155 tools tools sportsport tennis racket #sport 5-6 tennis racket #sport 7 tennis racket # 8 tennis 150 racket #tools 9 151 tools 152 tools D Felling Saw 153 tools KeyHole Sawtools #101 #2-140 Ball Piecetools H.H. 156 157 Putty Scraper 159 161 sport tennis racket# 10 154 kitchen kitchenkitchen Ecko Product kitchen 140 revisit 143 firearm s firearmsfirearms high standard Hand gun stock 145 146 household household 161 182 183 184 157 153 154 155 156 180 181 158 159 160 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 Line # Category Project Model #

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 39 14.5 57.5 27.5 10.25 100.75 109.25 204.25 0 0 13 13 36 95 4824 134 74 43 101 124.25 14.5 56.5 92 60.5 27.5 18.25 27.5 118.5 10.25 39.75 104 23.25 56.25 97.75 17-Jun-48 17-Jun-4820-Jul-48 118.5 31.75 204.25 64.5 15-Feb-48 30-Jan-48 81.25 103.75 30-Jun-49 24-Aug-48 56.5 28-A ug-48 17-Jan-48 30-Dec-48 17-Jan-48 30-Dec-48 17-Jan-48 30-Dec-48 17-Jan-48 30-Dec-48 10-Feb-48 12-Dec-4607-Jan-48 17-Dec-46 09-Jun-48 03-Feb-4811-Mar-48 02-Aug-48 23-Mar-48 20-O ct-48 18-Mar-48 15-Apr-48 Ol-Feb-4820-O ct-48 08-Feb-48 20-Oct-48 17-Jun-48 28-Apr-48 18-May-48 09-M ar-48 09-Mar-48 24-Aug-48 09-M ar-48 Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Client Skill Tools Skill Tools Al. Gds. Ltd. Al. Gds. Ltd. T L O ffice T L office C ollins E dstraub T ek H ughes Al. Gds. Ltd. Skill Tools T ek H ughes T ek H ughes TL office 18-Jun-49 Al. Gds. Ltd. Al. Gds. Ltd. Winslest (?) Hardware T ek H ughes T L office T L office # 170 171 164 174 179 soldering Iron C #2Spatula (sweden?) 165 168 M achette #23 163 Press Fry Pans Elect Sash Iron 162 P & P ans # 14 0P & P ans # 132P & Pans Grill Feet (?) 166 167 169 Spatula (red) short H 173 Spatula (Long H) T Parker G 178 Stationary Radial 175 Hair Brush - HFishing Reel 172 Saw (radial)T ooth 177 B rush S tudy 181 L inoleum K #1 0 0 182 tools tools tools sport tools tools tools S aw (R adial) 176 cutlery kitchen kitchen Spatula (Long) H. kitchen kitchen kitchen kitchen kitchen kitchen toiletries toiletries Lucite Hair Brush toiletriestoiletries Lucite HairBrush (new) 180 toiletries Dutch Oven S. H. (48) 183 household 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 201 200 202 203 204 205 210 206 209 211 212 207 208 213 214 Line # Category Project Model

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 0 0 77 35 22 63 24.5 181.5 35.25 32.25 21.25 79.75 84.75 68.25 31.25 321.5 0 0 0 22 128 89.5 143 36.5 56.75 16.75 53.75 62.25 84.5 20.25 25.25 101.5 17-N ov-47 04-Oct-4827-Sep-48 190.5 02-D ec^t8 28-M ay-53 17-Jan-48 30-Dec-48 07-Jul-48 19-Aug-48 60.25 05-Jan-48 10-Oct-48 07-Jan-47 08-Jun-47 47.5 18-Nov-48 17-Dec-48 10-Aug-47 17-Aug-47 18-N ov-48 18-Aug^l8 28-Aug-48 22.75 27-Apr-48 21-Oct-48 40.75 01-Nov-48 17-Dec^l8 0 25-Aug-48 10-Sep-4824-Aug-48 30-Dec-48 49.75 Standard Handle Co. 29-Aug-50 13-Dec-50 0 ClientS tandard H andle Co. Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Standard Handle Co. 18-Mar-53 SkilsawIBM 02-Sep^l8 18-Aug-48 Al. Gds. Ltd. 04-Aug-47 Al. Gds. Ltd. Al. Gds. Ltd. T.A.C.U.Co. T.A.C.U.Co. Ferris TLFerris TLS kilsaw A usonia 03-Sep-48 12-Jan-48 08-Sep-48A usonia 03-Jun-48D isston 31.25 Al. Gds. Ltd. 35.25 D isston G oldblatt D isston 184 184 186 187 187A 197 198 200 Saw H andle (B) 201 S alm on R d 191 Baggage (Strength?) Top ofStove Ware H Saw Handle (#155) 199 Saw H andleTop ofStove Ware 201 202 Baggage (Strength?) Baggage (sides)T op o fStove W are H Top ofStove Ware H 185 Top ofStove Ware HTop ofStove Ware HFly Casting Rod H 188 189 190 Trowel HType H Swing T (?) 195 C 193 C tools tools tools tools sport toolstools 3" sander (belt)tools 3" sander (belt)toolstools 192 Cement Trowel (37H) 194 Putty K Scraper 196 sport tools carrier carrier carrier carrier kitchen kitchen kitchen kitchen kitchen kitchen 234 235 236 227 230 231 223 233 215 216 218 219 220 221 222 224 225 226 228 229 232 217 Line# Category Project Model#

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 205 249 32.75 51.25 85.25 37.25 136.75 0 0 0 0 0 0 32.595.5 67.75 26.5 45.5 31.75 49.75 87.25 140.75 34.25 49.5 16-Feb-49 10-M ar-49 21-Apr-49 02-D ec-48 17-Jan-48 08-Apr-49 09-Jan-49 14-Jul-49 147.5 154 03-Feb-49 06-Jul-49 04-Apr-49 14-Apr-49 71.5 Client StartDate Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours DisstonDisston 03-Feb9 03-Feb-49 24-Mar-49 03-Jun-49 35.25 149.5 Disston 01-Nov-48 08-Feb-49 136 Al. Gds. Ltd. 18-Nov-48 EdstraubEdstraubDisston 16-Nov-48 16-Nov-48 Disston 10-Mar-49TL officeC utco C o. 04-Feb^f9Cutco Co.Al. Gds. Ltd. 07-Jan-49 09-Mar-49Al. Gds. Ltd. 02-May-49 09-Jan-49 0 01-Jul-49 18-Nov-49C utco Co. 18-Nov-49 14-Jul-49Al. 22-Jul-49 Gds. Ltd. Al. 22-Jul-49 0 Gds. Ltd, 27Cutco Co. 22.75 32 14-Apr-49 161.25 37.5 09-Apr-49 52.75 06-Jul-49 51.75 45.75 74 19.75 Edstraub 207 208 211 212 214 217 218 219 205 209 210 213 216 220 206 188-187 1/3 Sm aller C h an g e 203 V Cutlery Carry K V 204 V H and Saw Top ofStove Ware 215 Top ofStove ware (#118) (A) 222 C Bicycle H #1 Bicycle H #2 (A) 206 tools Hand Saw tools tools Hand Saw sport tools Hand Saw H tools Hand Saw H sport carrier Baggage Carrier #101 W cutlery cutlery C utlery P 223 cutlerycutlery Cutlery K. (#115) CK cutlery Cutlery Par (?) kitchen kitchen kitchen kitchen Top ofStove Ware 216 A kitchen Top ofStove ware (#118) (A) 221 uncertain Mud Fork H 257 258 252 253 254 237 245 246 249 250 251 256 255 241 242 243 247 248 238 239 240 244 Line # Category Project Model #

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 10O 54.5 84.5 0 0 0 0 32 37.25 51 69.25 85 21 24.5 118 118 232 255 14.5 25 13.5 15.5 10.25 14.75 84.7535.25 104.5 46.75 181.25 260.25 13-M-49 26 30 13-Jun-49 06-Jul-4908-Jul-4918-Jun-49 49.5 62.75 63.25 76.75 11-A pr-49 30-O ct-49 19-M ay-50 17-May-50 59.75 30-A ug-49 30-A ug-49 06-M ay-50 06-M ay-50 28-Jul-49 09-Sep-49 11-Feb-49 13-Feb-49 14-Jul-49 37.75 67.5 28-Jun-49 19-Aug-49 15-May-49 13-Jul-49 32.5 59 04-Dec-49 30-Mar-50 12-M ay-49 02-Aug^f9 16-Aug-49 58.375 02-Aug-49 16-AugA9 32.25 29-M ay-49 29-May-49 08-Jul-49 03-May-49 06-May-49 Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Client Stanford 17-May-49 Standard Handle Co. D isston C utco Co. A & F G erber P. P. Gl. Co. 15-May-50 G erber LB T L office Al. Gds. Ltd. Collins 15-Jun-49P. P. Gl. Co. Al. Gds. Ltd.Al. Gds. Ltd.P. P. Gl. Co. 14-Apr-49 14-May-49P. P. Gl. Co. 05-May-50 09-May-50 P. P. Gl. Co. 05-May-50P. P. Gl. Co. 08-Jul-49 Cutco Co. 27-May-49 Visdware (?) Visdware (?) C utco Co. C utco Co. 242 227 231 236 239 240 241 245 233 Ski Pole Cutlery Hunting Knifecutlery m achete 229 230 dutch O ven# 183, 179 Top ofStove Ware paint brushes Machette 238 tools tools Hand Saw 224 tools 215-216 tools sickle 235 toolstools change 253 totools 243 243 244 toolstools Paint Brush P ain t B rush 226 tools sport sport Hunting & Sk K. 234 cutlerycutlery cutlery ck 228 cutlery cutlery cutlerybk cutlery 232 cutlery Cutlery C.S. 237 cutlery Pat. Cutlery 225 cutlery cultery ck kitchen kitchen 275 276 277 271 274 278 279 280 259 263 264 265 267 268 272 273 269 270 260 261 262 266 Line # Category Project Model #

Line # Category Project Model # Client Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours o n n i so 00 'O - r s U Ld CL in NC CN CN CN o *—i fN in fN u d nin in 2 S c3 JSL2 r-C VO O NCO fN fN fN J ( in fN d d 00 - r o NfN fN d fN n

Line # Category Project Model # Client Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours U 5 < CL a oON oo N- © t c f P 5ft 5tfc CN CN NO CN NO 03 o o CO OC CO CO CO o 2 ;C LCL CL CL .;

cj a n i CN CN CN CL (§ Or-00 0 - r NO o OCO CO O 00 CJ CJ NC CN CN CN CN c/i - r r-» U H tL 3 3 3 © O o o o o a o O o 3 b bbbbbb U CJ n i m CN NO -in N- m J I I I I OCO © CO © o o o o o o U JCJ CJ — - r O o n m * T T <*> T CJ NCN CN n i r-^ r-- <3 © - H1H1H1-H 1-H CO 1-H CO ^H CO 1-H 3 o 7 3 3 57 C o l — P NO N- cj CJ rf -r-r- r - r C- 3 3 ,-H o CN rf CJ CJ NC CN CN 00 CN r-~ ■c u- CQ CN o o 0 0 © CO OCO CO 174 A n < © t m tn © i r > ^ h O c« § © © © © © 00 © © © © © O ’S b b S b b b b H Om>n m NO u L- H C0 CL "3 O ji, O O i b n r Nc in CN cn CN CN - 1-H 1-H 3 £ ^ ^ s £ 2 3* n r m 3 3 0 GO o o o c l n > S3 E 2 > > cl © NCN CN 00 o JD fN © Z Z 9 Z Z Z; Z < rf- O OC OC OCO CO CO CO CO CO i-H 3 o o « o o o o >>>>.£ b )

n NCN CN NO cj c - o 00 000 00 00 00 u < CN rf © NCN CN 3 b 0.^2 NC CN CN CN NO C/3 r—, -Kji 31 *E © s a u CO O r- - 00 r-> CN CN s

n i CN — C/3 © H CO NCN CN ** 00 3 00 CN O n 116 100 114 248 119.5 134.5 340.75 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 37 50.75 53 478 676 62.5 115 91.75 110.5 68.25 77.75 142.25 45.75 110.5 333.75 500.75 19-Dec-52 29.25 40 27-Oct-53 201.5 11-Jul-51 04-Dec-51 15-Jan-51 31-Dec-51 14-Feb-51 29-Jun-51 03-Jan-52 11-May-51 19-Oct-51 11-May-51 02-Oct-51 25-N ov-51 09-May-51 04-Oct-51 Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Surg. Des. Co. Client Cutco Co. 28-Sep-51 17-Nov-51 78.5 U.S. Post Office U .S. P o st O ffice Al. Gds. Ltd.Cutco Co. 17-Oct-51 28-Sep-51 10-Jul-52 12-Nov-51 91.25 84 99.5 Wear-EverA. 08-Feb-51 24-Feb-51 U .S. A rm y Wear-Ever A.Wear-Ever A. 02-Jan-51 28-Feb-51 17-Jan-51 09-Feb-51 U.S. Post Office 19-Sep-51 22-Jan-52 92.75 U.S. Post Office U.S. Post Office U .S. A rm y U .S. A rm y U.S. Army 12-Jan-51 05-Feb-52 167.5 303 304 306 297 299 301 290 291 292 295 Hand Cancelling Stamp Flat Seloci (?) J. B. Co. Des 117,116C 305 307 T o fS W D ouble HV 293 294 Hand Cancelling Stamp 302 cutlery cutlery Des 117, 118 kitchen kitchenkitchen PE Pace (or Pau) # Double A B kitchen surgical Surgical Retractor militarymilitary Gun Stock MI Calmilitary 30 IIA - 30.069ord-158military G 12297-52 reg 296 MI Final Report Book 296B MI 2 office supply office supply Hand Cancelling Stampoffice supply Hand 298Cancelling Stamp 300 office supply office supply Hand Cancelling Stamp 302A 337 336 338 333 334 335 345 346 325 326 327 328 329 339 340 341 342 343 344 330 331 332 Line# Category Project Model#

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 71 45.5 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 163 246.5 215 373.5 56.5 139 35.5 35.5 37.5 77 56.25 111.5 193.25 282.5 198.25 327.5 261.25 423.5 Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours 05-Jun-52 29-O ct-53 25-Jun-52 2 5 -Jun-52 11-M ar-53 0 31-Jul-52 06-Jan-54 15-Oct-51-Mar-53 11 02-Jan-52 02-Sep-52 134.75 190.25 04-Jan-49 10-Mar-53 02-Jan-52 02-Sep-52 21-Jan-51 11-Jan-52 30.25 08-0ct-5012-Nov-51 31-Dec-50 17-Dec-51 45.75 12 31.25 09-Aug-51 23-Sep-52 Client StartDate Finish Date Wear-Ever A. 10-Jan-52 15-Jun-52 Al. Gds. Ltd.Al. Gds. Ltd. 20-Feb-52 28-Feb-52 10-Mar-53 0 0 Wear-Ever Co.Wear-Ever Co. 18-Jun-52 27-Jul-53 29-Oct-53 Al. Gds. Ltd. 02-Jul-52 10-Mar-53U .S. A rm y 253.75 377.75 Model # 309310 Surg. Des. Co. Surg. Des. Co. 311 U.S. Army 316 317 323A 321 325 U.S. Army 19-Jun-52 24-Jul-53 58 85 308 Surg. Des. Co. 312314 U.S. Army 315 Al. Gds. Ltd. 0 0 318 Al. Gds. Ltd.323 18-Feb-52 326 U.S. Army 320 326A U.S. Army Coffee MakerV 313 T rum m er (?) V Paring K 319 Al. Gds. Ltd. cutlery Cutlery CK cutlery cutlery 317a cutlery B. Treucsh ChefBread K cutlery cutlery Fork kitchen Coffee Maker F 322 Wear-Ever Co. 23-Jul-53 kitchen kitchen Coffee Maker F kitchen Coffee Maker 324 Wear-Ever Co. 18-Jun-52 kitchen Coffee Maker F A surgicalsurgical S. Hand Saw Retractor (292) surgical S. Retractor military G2-1090752 US Car military T-10-G5 military Brauwig -Aut R. (?) military 30 BAR M-1918A2/ MI 195 325A military G10 U.S. Bayonets-M4 military Ml 30 Cal-Bayonet Category Project 348 349 347 353 354 350 355 360 361 365 366 352 351 356 357 362 364 358 363 367 368 359 ie # ie

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 22-Mar-54 06-Apr-54 37.75 44.75 StartDate Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Client Surg. Des. Co. Surg. Des. Co. Surg. Des. Co. 10-Sep-52 10-Sep-52 16-Sep-52 10-Sep-52 21-Nov-52 17-Sep-52 28.5 32.5 8.25 36.75 37 11.25 Surg. Des. Co. 09-Oct-52 19-Oct-52 59.75 109 Surg. Des. Co. Surg. Des. Co. 25-Aug-53 25-Aug-53 27-Aug-53 27-Aug-53 7.75 40.25 11.25 44.25 Martindale Wear-Ever Co. Wear-Ever Co. 07-Feb-52 02-Nov-52 03-Jan-53 26-Nov-52 24-Jun-53 24-Jun-53 44.5 230 148.5 Wear-EverCo. 81.75 359 207.5 06-Apr-50 17-Nov-51 167.5 239 U.S. Army Ol-Aug-52 20-Sep-52 83.75 135.5 Wear-Ever Co. Wear-Ever Co. Wear-Ever Co. TL office 10-Feb-53Cutco Co. 10-Mar-53 Cutco Co. 13-Jul-53 10-Mar-53 24-Jun-53 22-Mar-54 24-Jun-53 22-Apr-53 11-May-53 30-Jun-54 Cutco 01-May-53 Co. 19-Jul-53 69.75 123 88.75 129.75 17-Aug-53 183.75 128.5 10-Oct-53 189.5 44 80.5 173.5 58.5 125.5 64.25 128.75 331 332 333 334 336 337 339 340 341 342 344 saw) 328 (up (up Straight Saw 308A TT 330 GolfClub Single S.O. V 345 sport sport GolfClub V cutlerycutlery Machette cutlery ProffCutlery Des-182,290 335 cutlery cutlerycutlery Des-182,293 Des-182,292cutlerycutlery Cutlery SKK Cutlery SKK 338 cutlery Cutco Cutlery SK 346 kitchen Trummel (?) 347 militarysurgical G6 30 Cal-Bayonet Sugical 327 surgicalsurgical 3 ofstraight saw 329 surgical Plume Scalpel surgicalsurgical Large Retractor Large Retractor #262 343 369 370 371 372 375 373 374 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 Line # Category Project Model #

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 505 353.5 55.75 0 0 000 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 26.75 301.75 16-Dec-55 255 406.25 30-Jun-5630-Jun-5618-Apr-58 0 42 0 78.5 20.25 20.25 09-Sep-57 190.5 368.5 03-Mar-54 79.75 145 15-Jan-56 15-Jan-56 16-D ec-53 06-Jan-54 08-Jan-58 Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Client Surg. Des. Co. Surg. Des. Co. Wear-Ever Co. 08-Mar-54 22-Nov-56 245.25 Bridgeport Hardware 30-Nov-54 Bridgeport Hardware Wear-Ever Co.Wear-Ever Co. 04-Jan-55 22-Dec-53 21-Oct-55 06-Feb-54 C utco C o. W. R. Grace 350 356 357 360 361 367 368 365 349 363 348 V V 351 V VV 354 VVV 352 V 353 VV 355 358 359 V V 366 Carrier Desk Study 368 toolstools Hammer Axe Handle (BSO 362 carrier Carrier carrier cutlerycutlery C.K. C #274 Fork kitchen Kitchen Tools (339) surgicalsurgical Large Retractor S Large Retractor S 364 394 393 398 399 391 392 400 395 396 397 401 404 405 411 402 403 410 412 406 407 408 409 Line # Category Project Model #

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 116 62.5 37.75 94.25 56.75 98.75 161.25 375.75 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 0 0 0 0 37.75 325.75 19-Sep-57 17-M ay-56 18-Jun-56 27-Dec-56 101 18-Oct-53 27-Dec-53 30 55.5 07-Jan-5415-Apr-5419-Apr-54 11-Oct-55 30-Oct-54 05-Jun-54 40.25 106.75 40.75 08-Feb-54 09-Apr-54 55.25 01-Sep-54 26-Jan-55 54 27-Apr-53 16-Dec-55 296.25 360 0 1 -A ug-57 Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Client Watts Elect Co. W ear-E v er Co. Flyosse U .S. A rm y G oldblatt G oldblatt Aldm Speinst? 17-Feb-54 R ed D evil U .S. A rm y G oldblatt 372 368 370 373 374 380 382 V V 371 B rick T row el Handle & HCMERS ?VV 376 VV 377 378 379 VTVV 385 386 387 388 Brick Trowel VV 383 384 tools Cement Trowel tools Putty Knives 381 tools tools cutlery Fork Studies 369 kitchen Rnive Sharpener 375 military ?? 9 MM Hand G S military Bayonet DA-30-CR9-ORD-1 383 uncertain Watts Elect Co. uncertain 414 415 416 417 413 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 432 433 434 428 429 430 431 Line # Category Project Model #

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 180 23.5 137.5 155.25 210.75 Total Hours 00 0 0 0 19.5 112.5 183.5 92.25 78.25 29-Jul-5529-Jul-5507-Jul-55 209.75 209.75 396 396 09-Jul-55 75.5 120 10-A pr-55 24-Apr-56 156 217 23-N ov-54 03-Aug-5503-Aug-55 65.5 42 105 109 03-Aug-55 78.75 166.75 Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours 25-Apr-55 15-Aug-55 07-Mar-48 28-Apr-55 190.5 283 Client StartDate W ear-E ver C o. Wear-Ever Co. 25-Jan-55 Gen. Electric 21-Nov-52 Wear-Ever Co. 25-Apr-54 GoldblattWear-Ever Co. 07-Oct-54 22-Nov-54 Gen. Electric 21-Nov-52 W ear-E ver C o. TL office 17-May-55 395 396 399 Model # 393 0 389 405 TT 391 392 Stock Pan H. 3 3/4, 4 1/2, 5 1 401 0 0 T 394 V PitcherModels ABCB un W arm er H 397 398 TV 406 407 0 0 0 0 Shears Straight Y. VV 408 409 0 0 tools Elec. Sad Irons tools Elec. Sad Irons tools Garden Trowel 390 tools Cement Trowel toolstools Shears Desl Hon. E. S. ditto medium 403 TL office 404 TL office 02-May-55 04-May-55 09-Apr-55 04-May-55 79.75 113.25 tools sport GolfClub Handle 410 TL office 05-Jul-55 kitchen kitchen kitchenkitchen Stock Pan H. 1 1/2kitchen qts Stock Pan H. 2. 3/4 qts 400 Wear-Ever Co. 25-Apr-55 kitchen Stock Pan H. 7, 8 1/2, 10 qts 402 Wear-Ever Co. 25-Apr-55 440 441 442 436 437 438 445 449 453 439 443 444 446 447 435 448 450 452 454 455 456 451 ie #ie Category Project

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Client Stanley (M?) Stanley (M?) 18-May-54 14-Feb-56 20-Feb-55 07-May-56 TL office 122.75 113.25 192.75 Parker 151.25 21-Mar-55 P Co. 02-Apr-55 09-May-56 10-May-56 84 8.25 100 12.25 TL office 10-Oct-55 23-Nov-55 Lawton Lawton Cutco Co. 35.25 Lawton 15-Nov-55 ParketPCo. 63.75 03-Jan-56 TL 23-Aug-53 office 07-Aug-57 16-Nov-55 31-Jan-56 31-Dec-54 23-Jan-56Parker P Co. 13-Dec-57 Parker 03-Apr-55 P Co. 01-Apr-05 04-May-55 03-May-56 125 22-May-56 94.75 162.25 21-May-56 197.75 31-May-56 197.5 233.25 158 20.25 252.25 106.5 31.75 78.25 146 41.5 98.75 65 Lawton 10-May-52 19-Oct-52 53.25 96.5 422 426 419a 421 411 414 415 417a 420 418 419 425 428 412 413 416 423 424 Large Retractor T V V V V V Hammer (417 A)V 417 Shears Desl Shears Desl T Humistat? 427 Grill Pan P.PGrill Pan V P.P 428a 429 sport Double Grip tools tools tools sport Hunting Knife tools kitchen kitchen Grill Pan PP kitchen Grill Pan P.P kitchen surgical surgical Scalpel (Plume) ? surgical Scalpel (Plume) ? uncertain Turn Dial T household 457 469 470 458 459 460 461 462 463 465 466 468 464 471 472 473 475 467 474 476 477 478 Line # Category Project Model #

Line # Category Project Model # Client Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours o O CJ ” a ^ I & O O 000 00 l "3" Tl- O t= § h h •c a o o CJ U Q a a •c H i Q CsJ -J oo CL o 8 . cj c-~ 3 .2 O O cJ O 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 3 '=t"3- O I g u oj 3 h h h J 3 i ^r 3 O e~ C O CL U s nNO in

Line # Category Project Model # Client Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours

NCOCN T m ni in in in O o o o o o O in T <4H Tf O X O -N- N- £ £ £ nmmi ni nm in m in in in m m in o U fc* 1 P3 eu in X oo m o > •D" so w n i n i so in in in in > & O U X £ W o & o o > c h O

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Oo No ON oo NO m T so OS SO SO "d- SO T ■"t r ^ - 00 r-> T s 5 1-H M d OS SO ni nin in in in 1-H < a •-C U tj o u r** NC CN CN CN a d c a to d o - 1-H sport DES 186-021 470A Cutco Co. 30-Jul-58 02-Apr-58 34.5 59.5 CN 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 122.5 154.75 0 0 00 0 00 0 0 0 00 0 00 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 139 166.75 44.5 60.5 135.25 156.25 12-Nov-57 97.25 16-May-58 44.5 60.25 19-M ar-58 Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours Client Watts Elect Co. 03-Feb-58 22-Jul-58 88.25 R&DWatts Elect Co. 19-Mar-58 19-Jun-57 26-May-58 14-Feb-58 Max Schlug 05-0ct-50 18-Oct-50 0 Wear-Ever Co. 11-Sep-57 Watts Elect Co. 24-Jun-57 25-Jul-57 476 481 484 493 487 474 480 486 490 Paint Scraper 472 V V 477 C offee P o t H andleP 482 483 P GolfClub H MandrilBicycle Handle T V 473 475 VV P 479 V P PP 485 Paint ScraperP 492 P 491 P PP 489 tools tools tools Garden Tool 488 sport sport sport Blom Bicycle H 478 kitchen 523 526 527 528 529 532 533 534 543 544 538 539 540 524 525 530 531 535 536 537 542 541 Line# Category Project Model#

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 156 224.5 25-Jul-57 135.25 156.25 0 5 -A ug-58 0 5 -A ug-58 24-Jun-58 09-Jun-58 09-Jun-58 Start Date Finish Date Thomas Lamb Hours Total Hours L ofstrand W ear-E v er Co. W ear-E ver Co. 497 C utlery SK K H 495 V 499 Crutch Handle Causchem ? 494 Double Grip Mandril 498 Heller Co. Cutlery SKKH 496 V 500 crutch cutlery cutlery uncertain 545 547 548 549 546 550 551 Line # Category Project Model # Client oo

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX B

“The Lamb Grip-hold,” patent essay, c. 1944

186

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. functions more perfectly or which would perform functions which cushions, and interlacing over-all upholstery, A sensitiveto perform. wir If it were feasible toprovide redesign applianceswith the the human human constructedhand, hand as it it to exists cooperate in to order best to advantage enable the hand to the scant contribution made by designersobject and engineers to operate in as the aalmost unit as been important a consideration#a com as pilation sheathing, the headof mechanical and rigid that braces, it cables, is ball a springs,highly and socket complex levers^w joints,^hinges, ebbing, pads, ing system of nerves enables it to respondhas manyto defectsmany impulses when applied and to cannotmany tasks nowfeasible, be which performed it however, is by expected the the human next hand, best Since approach this to is the not problem is to THE IAMB GRIPHOLB Paf-'s 2 . able,v they has, have for made the little most part, use of notit. Engineers been a The factor anatomy and designersofinphysical the the hand development failedmechanism, to of realize A m asterpiece that of the engineering, human hand is the hand is perform, its functions to better advantage, and to reduce strain handle field. D espitehandles, the wealth nor hasof technical the possibility knowledge avail-of enabling the hand and its react tohand texture, has its temperature own heating andplant m oisture. and oiling miglut Furthermore, well system. be possible the to provide a hand which would perform its W hile the human hand is a remarkable tool in many respects, it f thorough and painstaking clarification by medical science was tions of current handles, and experimentsand diagramming undertaken the human withhand* indi In no degree comparable to this v i d u a l s * Medical science had done a profound job in exploring, explaining research on development of handles from earliest tim es, examina c cnsc ic oune s ssn in the public m ind. Stim ulated then by a desire outgrowths would be an intelligentthe understanding publicsupplying would recognize ofhitherto the value thehandleless advantagesBackground items work, to for with be realized THE these LAMB ORIPHOLD included superior from anatom "co ical studies, of hand-and-handle for cooperation better handles and the on birth,old,ordinated11 of fam a iliar handles* f,handle- but hard-fco-use objects, in games and sports. Further, such increased coordination would the expended energy of dailyincrease life efficiency , the widespread in industry, beneficial farming, housekeeping, and effect a sound solution of this problem of hand-and-handle ec- Since work done with the hsnaan hand representsm ilitary a large and naval part operations, of ^ but it would also &ake for greater P a g e 2 . THE LAMB GRXPHO&D use of handles, = tend= to I would lessen save fear both and time reduce and money. accidents. The far-reaching Economically, inevitable it ! ! pleasure in. recreation and for a higher degree of proficiency I I ordination would have was at once apparent# Hot only would it

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. pity that & superficial approach to design, coupled A to take full advantage of the paddings of the hand; the dealra the center of gravity might be shifted with the result that the comfort, undue fatigue, needless•ripping; squeezing, and crowding the use and of"fractionalized" over ridges and prim designs itive conformations ars little they better are fear thanmade, complexes their andto their skilled homely in the manner workrr-anaMp users; of attachment and psychologically, satisfactory to articles production. they breedare menaces Fatigue and represente x p e billions n d e d ! of manpower hourslapping lost of finders. and needlessiny of gripping Yet energy these surfaces faults without exist, objectives, and more: causing failtxrs excessive P a g o S . ornamentall a t i conceptions o n * called “handles" actually retard manipu etc. In X’act, many of the so-called Such "modern", poorly "stream designed lined" handles, and. theaccidents ill-chosenno go thought hand mhandle aterials in has handmight been ofwith given be which utilized theirweight to theuse. of tothe fact change object They that are the attached a evidence function properly to that involved,shaped the handle or might that seem to be less THE LAI3 SEIFKOLD A rticles bearing these with handles a lim are ited inefficisntly perspective, operated. should result They in unnecessary dis predecessorsact as which a merely guide, recognized shovel, pusher, the ability puller of or the lifter. hand to which actually Impair circulation and cause blisters, callouses,

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to provide a handle so was case m ightly be.a m atter The of conform mechanical ation is of function designed THE LAMB cooperate C-BIPKOLD isto and pure providehasm echanically nothing certain whatsoeverwith surfaces the human which hand are for shaped functionalthe to problem, pur as explained above, constructed as to cooperate with the hand and to enable it to P a g e 7 . to do withfactors appearance, commonly associated beauty, ornam with entation eyethe appeal. handleor any may of seem The the to conformation alsobeen haveugly beautyand completely or eye appeal,unattractive.function itmore is efficiently. Ror The should whole it approach be .supposed to that the creation of TEE LAMB GRXPHGLD tion thefe&tixres factors of enumeratedthis invention above. is One that of the it remarkable can be used in either poses only. If, due to its symmetry, or to Its flowing lines, However, ita handle should a —THE handle not IAMB be GRIPKOLD obviously to supposed — is conform a does mere that to notm the atter this conform shape of new shapingexactly of design the of hand. to the The shape ^design of the hand• purely accidental,purposes would forhave the been .conformation the same even required if the for appearance functional had THE LAMB GRXPHGLD On the contrary, the handle is hand, shaped whereas would to enableobviously a handle the fit conforming hand to only toa right the shape hand of or thea left hand hand, as the was a m atternew combination. of selecting Instead,old elements it and is rearranging a wholly new them concept in a of a perform functions to better advantage, taking into considera U.A — the "versa ^ 1 " - - LAI© GRIPKOLD ..... LAMB GRIPKOLD the fingers, the relative strength of the fingers, the relative sidered: the shape of tioning the average theof the varioushand, thumb theoperations in relativecooperation of length lifting, with theof fingers pushing, performing pulling, turning, etc thumb; thumb with rem aining three fingers; and remaining three tile ” coordinating handle —was the acquisition of a thorough In designing the LAMB C-RXPKOLB, the following factors were The con- result j is a handle shaped to enable the hand to perform these position of the thumb with respectoperations to the with fingers, less strain and the and func fatigue than is usually experi Its purposelation and allpotential to a thesehandle power, were as of a its cooperatingparamount basicpower: importance conformation,unit thurrb for alone; during fingers pi'oper its index the m alone. anipulation re study.finger * rfh. alone;-w w /W index f, r finger with e n c e d . The units of the hand were studied in relation to their operating furtherm ore, no '’veffectiveness. ersatile” handleThe has first been step developed in. the —one creation which of THE knowledge of the hand's anatomy ana, hence, its basic mechanics. P a g e 6 . to the user.that theira Also,handle tnakers there night grasped is become no the an indication ideaextension that, in of forthe the operational handles hand proper. studied purposes, To date, THE may be applied to many different types of objects with equal O o

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. / ' 1: a (CL that this m etacarpalfinger. arch palm This while increases bone the form hand in ationheight is being causesas prorated it & movesconvex andarch a concavein the curve across the palm from the fifth finger to the index (second) Considering further the shape of the palm (downward), it was smoothly curved, slightly convex ugpbr surface adapted to en noted that there is also an arch running across the palm, and to as the heel of the hand. gage the heel of the hand, Page Page 9. It is logical to assume that Therefore, these curved the bones Inventor and muscular established Til’ IAMB (rHiFMOLD a thumb and the fifth finger. Also, form the ations hand basicrests must contour be on takena surface of into the upper consideration surface when of a creating handle. the at these points, this -’resting area11 being commonly referred THE IAMB C-RmtOLO STUDY X STUDY a. HEEL OF THE KBND !he muscular padding of the hand is heaviest at the base of the P a g e handle, based on a rather extended study of the anatomy of the In considering the shape of the hand proper, it was found that THE LAME ORIPHOLD following, the the lines padding of ofthe palm the curve, fingers from and thepalm fin' accentuate er tips this curve. to the wrist joint, form an over-all slightly convex curve, and the metacarpal bonesbeing greater in the palm as of they the nearhand theare thumb.not straight, Considering these curved human, hand and its functions as a human tool# bones of the palm (downward), and also thearm other is a fingersim ilar bonescurve, slightly convex, as illustrated below; but curved, the arch of the curves of the m etacarpal bones 'O Also, the conformation of the wrist bones joining hand to lower

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. form the convexverging. surfaces The outsidew e d g e . curve The insideresting curvesand the surface, curve two and di forwardly downwardly. make the central Tags 11. Tags ing two diverging surfaces curving forw ardly and downwardly and These sets of opposite curves were impossibleadapted to to use engage in theone thumb and forefinger* (CLAIM I, 2}: THE LAMB ORIPHOU5 ple of theplacing first a wedge-shaped convex curve partition surface at (referred tixa forward to above),end of thus form curves in one handle, thereby making said handle interchangeable, handle until the inventor discovered the revolutionary princi The use of the wedge-shaped partition, which divided the hand, further,at these the finger heel conversely end end, of opposite as the illustrated: hand, symmetrical and opened curvesat the converged thumb and index Xt w ill be observed from this diagram that a handle has been made it possible to utilize both sets of reversely symmetrical I yrr.m etri.ccl 3 'CK''' ■’ 1 0 . q ': sets of curves in one handle: Thecinventor, therefore, used these two reversely The right hand (closed)She left assumes hand (closed) theseNeither curves assumesset of these curves curves fits the opposite hand. For example: fin ers simulate these the palm-anule symmetry between curves.in the the This curves right, contention of thepalm handle and can fingers. designer must Since produce curves which are straight line handle and that, when the hand is closed,reversely the symmetries! in order that the handle fit either hand. be proved essential,by squeezing therefore, a softthe curves plastic that In the thebar left contoursin the hand hand. of are a handle reversely It isallow symmetrical for to those Further, oalis it ofwill the behand found in that both directions the natural assumes indentation curves awayof free the a In the pel* when the hand is being supiaated: i p a TEE LAMB SRIPHOED to VO

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Is a wedge-shaped partition t. SURFACES V iiH 5 P a g e 1 3 . capacity in a tensionless condition is the key which unlocks THE IAMB GRXPHGLD the fu ll power of the hand. Full utilisatiosigning overhanging n of the wing-shaped thumb was therefore surfaces provided on the sidesfor by of de the The salientthe entire feature handle. of the wedge isr thewedge. key to To theexplain function further, of it which formswardly two and divergingwedge-shaped adapted curved surfaces topartition engage outwardlyof curvingsaid the having theand diverging thumb forw follow thumb oppositely and ardly and ing forefinger,surfaces andforefinger. the down disposed outward and said adapted and wing (CLAIMS downward surfaces1,2,3). to contour engage the sides of These wing surfaces allow the thumb or forefinger to lift, pull or guide in a tensionless condition. The thumb and forefinger Ill T\im. S one taken advantage of its inherent engineering prin GRIPHOED 110 LAim It was obvious, therefore, that a thumb free to employ all its object held increases. to the other fingers. Why then, has the thumb been used merely comfort ofobtained manipulating extend through theabecoming perm handle. amount itting fatigued. of free time Also, a play this hand U tilisation of could lack the manipulate of thumb tension of would the agreatly thumb handle to before its fullest termine tightened its effect thumb upon creates the hand tension and arm. in the It muscles was found of the that lower the and lever, fingers, it exercises operates a broad independently arc of movement and can over readily the common act in opposition power in a relaxed condition would add greatly to the ease and ceptionally powerful and mobile • Easily lending itse lf as a in two functions ciples — as and acapable lockingvisualized of oroperating guiding it as eithermember aThe lifting, of use alone the of the hand? or pushing, thumb in conjunction in pulling the main memberwith as the a locking member (as needed rest of the hand? at present in all manuallyupper operatedarm and thatobjects) this was tension observed increases to de as the weight of the created which fits the natural conformation of both hands, W hy h a s The thumb: of strong anatoaic&l construction, the thumb is ex P a r e 1 2 * THE U>

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. $ power of 100 P ag e 1 5 . (c) fourth and fifth fingers, 30$, and (d) third, fourth and fifth THE LAMB GKTPHOLD each finger and source.of possible forefinger, The combinations thumb is second; by offar fingers the the fifth strongest working (or as digitlittle of finger), the hand; third; the the third the hand. The larger circles designate hypothetical strength of To determine the hypothetical chart of the relative strength of finger, finger fourth; is and given the an fourth approximation finger, of fifth itsthe . share hand In and of theto the chart, determine each which are best prepared to function on units (shown below), the power of each finger wasoperational traced to areas itsfingers, - (a) 45$. thumb, 35$, It isand (b) now fifth thumb easy and to fingers forefinger,visualize (built the 55$, to operating handle only\mit-s l/3rd of of the hand’s task) when, as ix usually une case,_ r.uey are required to do 2/3rds of the a particular job. Also obvious is the strain exerted on the fourth S T P P T IV (up and down). Further, the muscular padding of the fingers, cles controlling them a ll differ in length, strength and thick joined to the w rist bones and acts independently of the others. convex. The m etacarpalthe length bones and are, points in of a broadattachment sense, of long the ovals tendons and the mus positions, and differentPalm up, the heights shape of in the the phalangeshand. The is thumb flat; is dorsal-w ise, it is 2,3,4 and 5 are joined to the metacarpal bones in different n e s s . duces fatigue in use. Each finger varies in shape, length and thickness. Fingers KQLL the ultim ate in a handle — a handle wliich distributes and This wedge feature, which forms theequalizes subject gripping of Claim tensions I, is and thereby relieves strain and re- into correctcorrect alignment operational withthe handle,theposition* an hand active there and wing am Theyworking is surfaces preventand a of parthold constant the by binding of themhand.the the tendencyin thumb and hand* Thus, allow and to forefinger it use Slight is the at pressure thumb forces once as apparent on an theupward that pull these surfaces the handle. These wins for surfaces easy release force the of the thumb hand and forefingerfrom handle.may be Luring used as operation a mechanism of to make the hand perform . P age 1 4 , cannot sup, turn, slide forward or backwards, or ro ll around THE LAMB CrHIPHOLD CrHIPHOLD THE LAMB i—* i—* 4^- also present additional in the featuresremaining whichclaims contribute in which areto makingdefined THE LAMB GRIP-

aW&LE R N D « INBEX SK Sl£ 195 STUDY V (continued) $ to 50$ of their potential strength. Thus, 50$ 35 s e r v i c e . smoothly curved, slightly convex side surfaces extending down Page 18* since they are acting merely as locks, guides or stabilizers, are of the power of forcedthe hand tension parts, is not — despiteused* a state the Furthermore, which fact results that the theyunused in fatigueare not of giving these sideeffective and thebottom hand surfacesseparatedand the wardly being lastfrom andsaidadaptedthreebeing downwardly diverging separated fingers, toand engage (Claims connecting surfaces from said the 4 saidand palm said side by 5) of transverse ridgesfirst and surfaces said extending named bottom being surface surfaces. surface for by a ridge (Claim 5). joining exerting onljr parts of the hand are not in a relaxedTo provideconditionpalm a angle surfacebut are (or for under planewardly fingers ofand reference), inwardly 3, 4 and and 5 m thewhich eeting inventor constitute to form incorporated a bottom the surface, said TH3 Lb LA'"'' IPEG Jr? Small angle: At the joining of the fingers to the rest of the ° a n d 10 ° to the axis of the 110 ° a n d 100 o HflRIZQMTA t o e o to explain further: if the fingers of the hand are closed the weakest,fingers* as shown actual by figurepower is being • Onlyutilized 20$ to to30$ carryof the the weight joints, etc. lower than the other end and form an angle of between the varying length of finders of hand, arrangement of knuckles suitcase thehandle), greatest when strain the hand is and onarm the lift highest the point weight, of the palm 20° to the horizontal. The range in degrees is because of To go further: if the verticalangle. arm and hand engages a or manipulate it, as the case may be. The other fingers, sume an angleforearm of measuredbetweenThat is, fromrod if the w ill the end be forearmof tilte the dis rod downwardlyheld nearest vertical, with the the thumb* end for nearestexample, the the thumb horizontal object as shown in figure , (for example a P a g e 17* To about a small cylindrical rod while the hand and w rist are Unfortunately, this portion of the hand is mechanically TEB IAMB GRIFHOLD held straight with respect to the forearm, the rod w ill as n 'O O

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. * OF ULNfl STY1O#0 l»«OC£SS l»«OC£SS STY1O#0 ST* LOO PftOC PftOC LOO ST* OF OF TIODHJS inward movement (toward, the body and the- thuajb). To compensate THE LAMB ORIPHOLD P a g e 2 0 , The w rist:cated Theat- the styloid w rist)it processes be control fromw rist side ofmechanism. the the to general ulna side Thereand or arc radius up is of and movement greater down, (lo of is freedom the lim ited in byan this outward move- for thesecesses, lim itationsconducive a handle imposed, to must ext embodyuponanding theangles the hand natural and by contours the arc styloid which of movement prow ill and be w ill hand and act as a brake. Thus, movement of the Land, whether divisions serve to equalize and properly distribute pressure. provide protection for the styloid processes against impact. the amount of pressure function of which it is capable. Hence, msnt (away from the body, toward the little finger) than in an In THE LAMB GHIPHCID, specialTherefore, contours,exercises during gripping m control anipulation surfaces over ofeach an and. finger object, and TICE LAMP- GBXPHGLD lim its each finger to despite thethe weight object or being force m anipulated, on the hand theand handv.rist does exerted not get by out of surface below the lower forward ends of said diverging surfaces in This surface is described in Claim 2, as follows: rt...a curved changes andthe to lower accomodate surface the of average the curved hand, transverse the line surface created approximatesfor rather abrupt curves and adapted to engage the end of the iorefinger5 the horizontal. opposing be the formed parallel orby left)a line line a Inclining offew thedegrees hand. upwardly from Inthein other horizontal.either hands, direction it To w provide ill (right for these incorporatef i n g a e r speeial . surface for the individual use of the index In some hands, the index angle w ill be formed by a horizontal line angle independentin lesser and of degrees103° the rod topalm to thenearestangle it. axis and thumb of This sometimes the in index-finger either forearm, reversely direction. also angle opposite measured is between Therefore, from the100° end a ofhandle must THE LAMB GRIPHOLD P a g e 19* hand (third phalanx-metacarpal joint), the index finger assumes an

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 I 0> o «j i»

198

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. S T P P y V I I I tendency is recognized, and the angles of the diverging surfaces the straight lineself of to tothe another the handle. right, position However, as either the during case slightly m may anipulation be. to In the TKS LAMB leftGHIPHDLD, this or slightly of the object, there is a tendency for the hand to readjust it to each finger oror jointly,group area of finders of and eachstabilize finger. the space the needed relative for length strength and operational When a hand grasps the handle of a fixed object, it sim ulates and thickness, allow each finger to operate either separately These curves and ridges divide the function of the hand, allot P a g e 2 4 . The diagram below illu strates the preceding paragraph: THE XAmB GRXPHGLD hand and the last three fingers, the IAMB QBIPHOLU 8 yers permit movement in one direction only: up and down, TK P a g e £ 3 , lateral socketmovement joint ofparts the at of finger in its theshort, finger,proper base as (referred stems hasLike however, been from the to are said, thepalm, above). capable b the all ofcrowding an and fingers onlyup-and-down The andthe separateof squeezing have creases "crooking” movement. shoulda natural of of have the — the only padding. hand fingers smooth,and fingers. and pressureless, Therefore, the cushionscrowding To be uninterrupted formedand ideal,total squeezing, by hand a handle strength conformations and to alioted fullyi.e .,perform to convex (4), it* its side "...said share surfaces of handle the extending said having side downwardly smoothly surfaces curved and"...said inwardly beingslightly separatedbottom and meeting surface from said being diverging separated surfaces from said transverse a handle’s contours should allow which for permit suchand cushioning sides, free unimpeded prevent' and preventmovement overlapping of fingers of creases aroundThe by its inventor stretching bottom provided them surfaces out,to fom as a expressed bottom surface, in Claims said 4 and side 5, and.surface bottom surfaces bj* a ridge being joining and connecting said first named ridges.” adapted to engage the pair- of by ridges extending forwardly and downwardly;" and (Claims 4 and 5), 'sD allow each finder to find its own natural position without

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. o h

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o % of the wedge compensates for such changes without q

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and 7 (as shown 6 COMNftCTIMt CMOS' LAMB (rRIPHQLD to the outside form of the handle proper, as illustrated: differentlyconnecting designed links ends or to formeet appearance. the specific The requirements connecting ends for can be elongated,ways, straightened, made thicker or curved thinner, either orupward have downwardother orparts side added thereto The connecting ends of said handle proper can he changed with w ithin the space marked off by dotted lines in figtira 2 of Patent Drawings ). P a g e 2 . The conform ations of the LAMB 0RIPK0LD proper are contained TJ-rg {for heel of hand), t.SAS S e c t i o n I actually a mechanical mechanism. It Patent #2,290,544 T liE LAMB GBIPHOLB December 11, 1$45 ft NCBHS NCBHS ft ch is (to divide the functions of the hand). upper surface ved transverse surface {for forefinger), *?je-shaped partition, (for thumb and forefinger). ng^qurfaeesnvexSs^de“" (for surfaces su>£ace thumb and (for (for forefinger). fingersfingers 3, 3, 4 4 and and S), 5). C o n v e x 1TMUOT8 THE LAMB G-HIPHOLB is a conform ation ofthe curves, full power surfaces, of the planes hand. So versatile is this ‘‘handle meoha- and divisionsforces whl the hand to functioning a properlyhandle. and. It comfortably is didded and into utilises specific working parts, as f o l l o w s : nisst" that it can .meet the reqiiiremants of almost any item requir The thumb and forefinger can operate either separately or jointly^ the fingers can operate as a unit. fingers 3, 4 and 5 can operate independently or as a groupj c-r a ll to o

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONNECT! KG CONNECT! IAMB GRXFHOLB function theproperly handleof because inattachm the the ent. hand gripping' arc This not means surfaces affected that and it by angles a makes change ofno in. difference the angle whether 45° angle of In attachment THE LAMB GRIPHOLD,the basic at however, an angle anvie it index, of is of attachment only from are 1° necessary incorporated to that 20°. to is consider in formed the by handle the arm design. and hand The hand w ill However, it w ill be seen that the meeting palm or the index object angles because oppose the the other angles, i.e ., the palm and (For description of this illu stratio n , see preceding pap:©}. P a g e 4 . 90 Attachment of Handles. ed hand of the 'users of the particular article must be con- 2 s i It should not be confused with the palm angle or with the index such enlargements or reductions embody the proportions of THE contours, planes, wedges and division which constitute the s i d e r e d . is attached. angle of the hand proper. THE LAMB GRIPHOLD isFurthermore, designedenlarged its to for it conformation reduced both LAMB fJtll’BOI.D.m&Is to andw meet ill Vfh.n female not specificmaking be hands. impaired such requirem changes if ents init as size, is long the as average- function as properly as if no ends had been added if the exact ly as possibleping the attachment) the handle. angle formed is This formed angleby the by (referred am the and am handand to handwhen as grip themeeting angle their of object. comfortable angle or of (b) the 45° arm fromand hand the and vertical the object position they ofmeet object to which handle P a g e 5 . parts may stake the handle look differently, the handle w ill For example, as illustrated on the next page, the natural and SHB LAMB GRJPHGIxD Although changing ends of the handlemechanism by differentof THE IAMB GRXPHGLD proper lines are or added retain ed , Careful consideration must be given to ascertaining as correct might be 45° (a) from the horizontal on which the object rests, to O to

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. , 6 comfort than an ordinary handle in a like position. THE LAMB GRIPHOLD P a g e LAMB GRIPHOLD are such that theyHowever, insure for greater maximum resu safety lts andand minimum strain , the LAMB GRIPHOLD shouldwhich be takes attached into in consideration an easy-to-operate the factors position above mentioned* 1 5 ;% Postlon of Handle on Object incorrect attachment would result merely in stress and strain Even In an incorrect position, the gripping surfaces of THE injury to the hard proper would result since the effect of such an angle which makes the objectof the dangerous w rist and to arm*m anipulate, no position either too high or too low for proper balance, or at correct position, leverage, law of gravity, stress and strain, negligence, a handle should be attached incorrectly or in a In attaching a handle, the following facts must be considered: distance from the objects operated. Such determ inations may be made with equal success on either movable or fixed objects* important correctis the operated angle, angle at the should whichTests normal be the carriedposition, considered. handle out ofof attaches* with theaverage operatorgroups angles To of obtain to atoperators the which a object their at stoves, hands and machinery, arms meet their ob- benches, work tables, etc*, should result in the determ ination P a g e 5 . above the horizontal or away from the vertical* While the manner of mechanical attachment is im portant, equally or* not theis object attached is so fixed that on themovable palm asangle long (angle as the of LAMB reference) GRIPHOLD is THE LAMB GRIPHOLD vibration, steam and heat. If, however, due to ignorantor ■i to O • jects and in the ascertainment of normal standing or sitting

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