U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for August 17: A Good Turn

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

A GOOD TURN

Profile America — Wednesday, August 17th.  Hand-tools have a long history.  Evidence of hammer-stones and hand axes date from about 2.6 million years ago.  That's well over 2 million years before the appearance of Homo sapiens about 200,000 years ago.  Nearly all of those millennia passed before the development of the monkey wrench.  On this date in 1835, the adjustable or screw wrench was patented by Solymon Merrick of Springfield, Massachusetts.  The modern looking wrench was soon followed by improved designs that are still in use today.  There are 900 establishments in the U.S. making the hand and edge tools that are the descendants of the prehistoric hammer stones and hand axes.  The $5-billion a year industry employs some 23,000 people.  You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.  

Sources:  Kane's Famous First Facts, 7916
Tool history/accessed 6/15/2016:  http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/stone-tools/early-stone-age-tools 
Homo sapiens/accessed 6/15/2016:  http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-sapiens 
Solymon Merrick/accessed 6/15/2016:  http://ourpluralhistory.stcc.edu/industrial/innovators.html 
Patent/accessed 6/15/2016:  http://www.datamp.org/patents/search/advance.php?pn=9030X&id=13685&set=2 
Hand and edge tools:
http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ECN/2012_US/00CBDG2//naics~332212

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotion of the U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics and accounts drawn from cited non-Census sources are employed for illustrative or narrative purposes, and are not attested to by the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Audio" in the "Library" pull-down menu). 

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

Related Links

http://www.census.gov

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