Modern Motors
    On this page are modern motors, quite different from the  Page-type rotating motors described in other pages. 

   At the right is a Geissler Tube Rotator made by the L. E. Knott Apparatus Co. of Boston. In the 1916 catalogue it is described as being used "for rotating Geissler Tubes to increase the spectacular effect. Our Rotator consists of a practical motor (not a toy) constructed after designs of the expensive commercial types. It is mounted upon a substantial metal pedestal support, and is provided with appropriate binding posts, one pair for battery or other current and one pair for induction coil or Influence Machine. The Geissler tube is attached to the holder, which may be firmly fixed to the spindle of the rotator. ...  Motor only, with Geissler tube attachment, motor wound for battery current ... $12.00." The motor could also be furnished in models for 110 volts D.C. and 110 volts A.C., each at $13.25. 

   The motor is at St. Marys College in Notre Dame, Indiana.


 
  This electric motor appears to be exactly the same as the one above, but it is marked  "A.P. Gage. Alfred P. Gage was a Boston-area educator who wrote a series of physics books in the last years of the nineteenth century for high school students. He was an instructor at the English High School in Boston. This is the oldest public high school in the United States and was founded in 1821.

   At the back of his Physical Laboratory Manual and Notebook (Boston, Ginn & Company, 1890), there is a note: "Catalogue of Apparatus/A new illustrated price-list catalogue of apparatus, especially adapted to this manual and to the author's textbooks on physics, will be mailed to any teacher of physics, on application to A.P. Gage & Son, Box 1654. Boston, Mass." I would certainly like to see this catalogue!

   The motor is at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania.

   The motor at the left is at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. 

   Its label notes that it is a 1/6 HP, 130 Volt motor made by the Crocker Wheeler Motor Company of New York. The patent dates are May 5 and September 22, 1891.
 
   At the right is a motor from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. 

   It was made by the Elektron Manufacturing company, and is listed as Volts 10 and H.P. 1/10. The label read "Perret's Patent, May 14, 1889."
 

    The two small motors below are typical of those sold by American apparatus manufacturers during the first part of the twentieth century. At the left is the "Little Hustler", sold by the Chicago Apparatus Company (and others), for $2.00. The catalogue description notes that it will run on a single dry cell, or on alternating current. The three-pole armature made the motor start with the motor start with the armature in any position. For $2.50 you could buy a companion Little Hustler dynamo. 

   Both of these motors are in the Greenslade Collection.

 
   This small motor in the collection of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is marked "Voltanna".
 


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