The Ins and Outs and All You Need to Know About the Doorknob
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
By Bill Primavera
Except for those dastardly swinging doors which I never liked and think are one of the world’s most dangerous inventions – I once was a waiter in a restaurant – 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.
But especially after I read recently that there are about two million germs per square inch attached to the average doorknob, I became very aware of every doorknob I touched and really started to scrub my hands down many times during the day.
Readers of this column know that I’m a movie buff and much of what I learned about home life started from make-believe home life in old movies. One of these was a Judy Garland film called “Presenting Lily 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 Judy’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 in providing 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 doorframe and prevents the door from being opened if the knob is not turned.
The mechanism is a little more complex than I’m describing it 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 introduction of the glass pressing machine, patented in 1826. It permitted the first truly decorative and mass-produced pressed glass doorknob made 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, with the outbreak of World War I, glass became wildly popular once more since metals were allocated for the manufacture of planes and other wartime materials.
Glass knobs remained popular throughout World War II, but by the 1950s, preference reverted back to metals.
Today, the choices are all but limitless in the styles and shapes of knobs and levers, as well as finishes to suit every décor, such as 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.
As I contemplate this subject, I am aware that the lever has all but replaced the doorknob, and perhaps that is something to be mourned. We grew up with actively grabbing and turning doorknobs, but today, with the lever, we can lazily just push down.
Bill Primavera is a realtor associated with William Raveis Real Estate and founder of Primavera Public Relations, Inc. (www.PrimaveraPR.com). To engage the services of The Home Guru to market your home for sale, call 914-522-2076.
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