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Henry R. Heyl papers
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Held at: The Historical and Interpretive Collections of The Franklin Institute [Contact Us]222 N 20th St, Philadelphia, PA, 19103
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the The Historical and Interpretive Collections of The Franklin Institute. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Henry Renno Heyl (1842-1919) was born in 1842 in Columbus, Ohio. He came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1863. Heyl had a passion for inventing and was involved with The Franklin Institute for several years. He also served in the United States military. He married Mary Knauff and they had four children.
In February of 1870 at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Heyl displayed one of his inventions, the phasmatrope, which used glass transparencies of a sequence of static poses to produce an illusion of motion when projected onto a screen. This was one of the first public demonstrations of projected photographic sequences to give the appearance of motion. In 1877, Heyl was awarded the first United States patent for a stapler. In 1882, Heyl received an award from The Franklin Institute for a wire book sewing machine. Heyl received his final patent in 1913 for a seam clamp used to make paper tubes. He died in 1919.
Bibliography:
McCosker, M. J. "Philadelphia and the Genesis of the Motion Picture." The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 65, no. 4 (October 1941): 401-419.
Reyland, Mark T. "What Will They Say About You in 100 Years?" July 28, 2014. Accessed September 8, 2016. http://www.inventoropinion.com/what-will-they-say-about-you-in-100-years/.
Henry R. Heyl papers, 1876-1917, consist of numerous patents, drawings and explanations of Heyl's inventions. There is a large amount of materials pertaining to his paper milk bottle and wire book sewing machine inventions. Also included are some photographs and a glass plate negative, a scrapbook, correspondence, graphs, diagrams and blueprints, notes, reports, notebooks, manuals, and books.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2014-2016 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact The Historical and Interpretive Collections of The Franklin Institute directly for more information.
- Publisher
- The Historical and Interpretive Collections of The Franklin Institute
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Sarah Leu through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact The Historical and Interpretive Collections of The Franklin Institute for information about accessing this collection.