Popular Science Monthly 



595 



Kitchen Luxury— The Ivory Pie-Crust 

 Trimmers of New England 



NEW ENGLAND has long 

 been famous for pie, which, 

 if it is not the actual staff of life, 

 at least runs the other food con- 

 tributions a close second. In 

 the old Dartmouth Historical 

 Museum in New Bedford is a 

 curious collection of quaintly carv- 

 ed ivory instruments known then 

 as now, in the old New England 

 households as piecrust crimpers. 



New Bedford was at one time 

 the greatest whaling port in the 

 world. A whaling trip is by no 

 means short. The average trip 

 was one year. Ofttimes three or 

 four years passed before the 

 whaler would reach his own shores again. 

 No doubt with thoughts of home came 

 visions of the pies for which their house- 

 wives were famous; for most of the curious 

 pie-crust crimpers were carved by the 

 whalers during their idle hours at sea from 

 the ivory which was part of their catch. 



The pie-crust crimper consists of a handle 

 and wheel which has a crimped edge so that 

 when it is run around the sheet of thin pie 

 crust dough it cuts the dough out with a 

 fine serrated design. Trimmers were 

 used not only to cut around the border of 

 the pie but also back and forth along the 

 top of the crust. In baking, the openings 

 spread, leaving beautiful leaf and flower 

 designs on top of the pie. 



The envelopes are fed automatically 

 by a turn of the typewriter platen 



Let This Automatic Device Feed 

 Your Envelopes 



A 



Ivory pie-crust trimmers made by the old 

 whalers who used to put in at New Bedford 



SIMPLE machine designed to in- 

 crease the efficiency of typists by auto- 

 matically placing envelopes in proper posi- 

 tions in typewriters has just been put on 

 the market. The instrument consists of a 

 framework attached to the machine and 

 operated by the ordinary space-line lever. 

 With one turn of the typewriter platen, the 

 addressed envelope is forced up and out 

 from the roll and the next one simultane- 

 ously and automatically placed in the 

 proper position to receive the next address. 

 From four to six envelopes can be ad- 

 dressed per minute by an amateur typist, 

 thereby allowing the higher- 

 priced stenographers to con- 

 centrate on letter- writing; or 

 the time saved will permit the 

 same stenographer to do more 

 work in the same time as 

 formerly. 



The automatic envelope 

 feeder consists of a magazine 

 holding one hundred and fifty 

 envelopes and a framework 

 having four steel fingers, two 

 above the others. The upper 

 ones, one on either side, press 

 down on the uppermost edge 

 of the envelope and force it 

 behind the platen, adjusting it 

 in a straight position. The two 

 lower fingers engage the en- 

 velope inside of the flap and 

 push it from the magazine 

 down behind the roll, after 

 which the address is written. 



