However, this has been refuted by diligent historical and patent research. New England industrial pioneers, Loring Coes and Laurin Trask, around the end of the 19th century related the more plausible account. Also, I show a very early English wrench from my collection that I reckon to be from about the same or an even earlier era.
I conclude that the name came along with these early wrenches when they were shipped to America. In summation, while boxer Jack Johnson did patent a type of wrench in the s, it was not the original monkey wrench. Fact Checks. The term "monkey wrench" was originally used to insult the tool's African-American inventor, Jack Johnson.
Mixture About this rating. What's True Boxer Jack Johnson patented a type of wrench in the s. Ask Question. Asked 2 years, 5 months ago. Active 1 year, 1 month ago. Viewed times. There appear to be 2 common misconceptions based on faulty internet information. Improve this question. Cascabel Cascabel The earliest U. The earliest matches for "monkey wrench" in a British Newspaper Archive search come from the Chester [Cheshire] Chronicle in August The most descriptive of these is from August 11, , in a summary crime report: "William Darlington, aged fi[fty?
It may be worth noting that Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language offers as the only tool-related definition of wrench "An instrument for screwing or unscrewing iron work, and as one definition of monkey "The weight of a pile driver; i. I always thought it was because, like a monkey on a branch, it was sure to get a tight grip on anything.
Show 8 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. Etymonline has an interesting suggestion on its possible origin:: Monkey was used in 19c. Improve this answer. Community Bot 1. Yes I saw that first stop. I think there should be a primary source for the Surrey Dane citation for it to actually qualify. Right now it appears the date in in doubt.
Cascabel, it is on page books. Yes but what I am asking for is a primary source: that appears to self-referencing. See the wonderful phrase " Freeze the balls off a brass monkey " — Gort the Robot.
Add a comment. For example, there is evidence that at least some people called the carriage wrench by the name before our modern monkey wrench was even invented. The term appears in other places too and appears to predate the invention of the monkey wrench we have today.
This confusion makes it difficult to trace the actually tool. When looking at historical documents, you can never know really which tool its talking about. At some point, the name even seemed to refer to a category of tools, making the matter even more complicated. Because of this, picking out the actual inventor is nearly impossible. Jack Johnson was an African-American boxer who may have invented this tool. However, there is evidence pointing towards this not being true, even if Jack Johnson did invent the tool.
There is another theory floating around that Charles Moncky invented the monkey wrench. There are some people by that name living at the time, but none of them appear to be inventors or anything of that sort. Many of the possible individuals were also children when the tool was invented, or born just after it was invented.
The inventor also could have been Loring Coes, who we know invented a tool in in Worcester, Massachusetts. Instead, it was a minor improvement on a tool that had been around for a bit. Other tools required two-hands to operate, while his only required one.
0コメント