Home Guru: The Doorknob: One of the World’s Greatest Inventions
By Bill Primavera
Except for those dastardly swinging doors, which I never liked and think are one of the world’s most dangerous inventions, every door needs something to grab on to in order to be opened and closed.
It’s that round or oval device that you rarely think about, even though you wrap your hand around it 100 times or more a day.
After I read recently that there are about 2,000,000 germs per square inch on the average doorknob and the experience of showing a buyer client too many houses during flu season, I became very aware of every doorknob I touched and really started to scrub my hands many times a day.
Readers of this column know that I’m a movie buff and much of what I learned about home life started from old movies. One of these was a Judy Garland film called “Presenting Lilli Mars,” which was an adaptation of a Booth Tarkington novel of the same name. It was a silly enough storyline with a subplot that really galled me involving Garland’s character’s younger brother who had a strange hobby of collecting doorknobs that he would steal from people’s homes. Where was the moral compass of that Midwestern family, I thought, in dismissing the criminal behavior of that rascal as something cute, especially since it involved stealing an essential item that provides access and egress around the house?
The doorknob is an ingenious little device actually. The traditional knob itself has a bolt or spindle running through it that sits just above a cylinder, to which the spindle is connected. Turning the knob pulls the cylinder in the direction of the turn. The end of the cylinder is a latch that protrudes into a space that is carved out of the door frame and prevents the door from being opened if the knob is not turned. The mechanism is a little more complex than I’m describing here, but I’ll leave further understanding to the technicians among us.
Interestingly, America didn’t produce doorknobs or any hardware at all until well after the American Revolution because of England’s stranglehold on manufacturing and restrictive trade practices. The colonies were permitted only to supply the motherland with the raw materials needed to produce the finished manufactured products that would be sold back to us, including door latches, doorknobs and all other hardware used in this country.
After the Revolution, America’s ingenuity came into play and its agrarian society was balanced with rising industrialization. The first major invention influencing the production of doorknobs in America was the invention of the glass pressing machine, patented in 1826. It permitted the first truly decorative and mass produced pressed glass doorknob in America.
I love how history influences our use of materials. For instance, by Victorian times, the popularity of glass doorknobs was overtaken by the use of metals – iron, brass and bronze. But in 1917, following the outbreak of World War I, glass became wildly popular once more since all metals were allocated for the manufacturing of planes and wartime materials. Glass knobs remained popular throughout World War II, but by the 1950s, preference reverted to metals.
Today, the choices are nearly limitless in the styles and shapes of knobs and levers, as well as finishes to suit every décor. You can choose from satin nickel, aged bronze, bright brass, antique brass, bright chrome, brushed chrome, antique pewter, distressed nickel, matte black, oil-rubbed bronze and satin stainless steel.
And how’s this for a look into the future? The doorknob may disappear altogether. In Vancouver, Canada, businesses and residents are required to install only lever-style door handles in new buildings. While all existing homes, offices and businesses are grandfathered, all new construction require levers instead of doorknobs to accommodate individuals with physical disabilities who find doorknobs difficult to manipulate. In my home, all doors have levers.
I am reminded of a personal story about my wife Margaret, whose native tongue is Lithuanian, though few people would detect any trace of an accent today. Within that ancient language are some quaint expressions that don’t translate very well into English, but she still uses some of them on occasion. For instance, if one were expecting to visit a friend but found no one home, the Lithuanian expression would be that you were able only to “kiss the doorknob.”
Considering that there are 2,000,000 germs per square inch, that might be considered germ warfare!
Bill Primavera has enjoyed a career as a writer and publicist, and he is now a Realtor® associated with William Raveis Real Estate, specializing in upper Westchester and Putnam Counties. To engage the services of The Home Guru to market your home for sale, call 914-522-2076.
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