Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1965 a large department store employed a full-time display department that began work on the Christmas windows in the spring - carving figures, engineering cam-driven mechanisms, painting…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1960 a working theatre flew its scenery on hemp rope hauled by hand, loaded iron counterweights from an unguarded gallery several storeys up, lit the stage with…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1955 the great terminal stockyards were among the biggest industrial operations anywhere - hundreds of acres of timber pens inside a city, with their own railway sidings,…
The paper clip is one of the few objects in daily use that is genuinely anonymous. The shape everybody pictures - the double oval of bent wire - is called…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The tin can was patented in 1810. The first practical can opener appeared in the late 1850s. For most of fifty years, people bought food sealed in metal…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1960 a suit from a tailor took six weeks and three fittings. A cutter read the customer's body, drafted a paper pattern for that person alone, and…