magnusbutler

The machine says "Made by M Butler, Patents pending." A Charles H. Butler (from California) had several patents for street cleaning equipment, e,g,. www.google.com/patents?id=aSxIAAAAEBAJ and www.google.com/patents?id=ryBpAAAAEBAJ The drawings looks similar although not identical. Patent number: 808006 Filing date: Oct 20, 1904 Issue date: Dec 1905 Patent number: 880124 Filing date: Oct 20, 1904 Issue date: Feb 1908 Patent number: 909865 Filing date: Dec 16, 1905 Issue date: Jan 19, 1909 Patent number: 1134586 Filing date: Aug 25, 1914 Issue date: Apr 6, 1915 Patent number: 1610119 Filing date: Dec 15, 1924 Issue date: Dec 1926

I presume that the Magnus Butler who shows up in a couple of the pictures in this group was the M. Butler who made the Butler Automatic Street Cleaner. And I suspect that these photos were most likely taken in November, 1914, when New York's Department of Street Cleaning hosted a week-long Exhibition of Street Cleaning which, among other things, allowed manufacturers to demonstrate their street cleaning equipment.

Left hand side building in back ground has sign "The Baker & Taylor " which is probably The Baker & Taylor Co. publishing firm. Maybe this is The Century building at 33 to 37 East Seventeenth Street, which The Baker & Taylor Co purchased in 1901. (ref. query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C0CE5DB143FE433A... )

Interesting vehicle! Solid rubber tires, extra spokes on both sets of wheels (16 front; 18 rear), chain drive, hand-operated horn, fuel tank under driver's seat, vertical steering column, right-hand drive, massive riveted steel frame.

I don't think Magnus Butler's machine is related to the pneumatic street sweepers in the Charles Butler patents. The Magnus Butler machine appears to be a mechanized dump wagon. There's no visible cleaning apparatus (rotary brush, conveyors, belts, etc.), just a tilting hopper with a gate at the rear and access doors on the sides. The streets of NYC were apparently still being cleaned by men with pushbrooms and hand carts. Machines were found to be less effective and more expensive than manual laborers. The Magnus Butler motorized wagon was probably designed as a collection vehicle to carry away the rubbish from the hand carts and dump it elsewhere. The raised letters on the rear wheel casting, visible in another photo, suggest the machine may have been made in Mass. (it could just indicate the maker of the wheel hubs, but the hubs are unusual, so they could have been custom-made ) See www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2497227956/ For more about street cleaning, download MODERN METHODS OF STREET CLEANING by GEORGE A. SOPER, PH.D. (1909) from the Internet Archive www.archive.org/details/texts

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