Patent Models Transferred to the National Museum
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PrintOn February 13, 1925, the U.S. Congress passed a law authorizing the creation of a commission to dispose of the patent model collection in the U.S. Patent Office. The U.S. National Museum at the Smithsonian was authorized to select the models that they believed were of historic importance, and those models were transferred to the National Museum collections. Others were returned to inventors' families, the bulk were sold to Sir Henry Wellcome, a British collector, and many were destroyed.
Chronology of Smithsonian History
Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu
1925