Great Maritime Inventions, 1833-1950

Richard Wilbur is the author of The Rise of French New Brunswick and
co-author of Silver Harvest: The Fundy Weirmen’s Story.

This small volume is a great booster for Maritimers’ morale. We may be
the have-not provinces, but we have turned out some very bright
citizens, especially those with a mechanical bent. The author is an
industrial engineer who for the past 20 years has been a professional
patent agent in Fredericton. In what clearly is a labor of love, he has
compiled a short but scholarly summary of “Great Maritime ideas that
changed the world,” to quote from the back cover. Under the section
“Consumer Goods: Food,” we find that Maritimers were the first to
patent ideas for ice cream soda, key-opening cans, fruit and flake
cereal, and frozen marinated fish. The next section, “Consumer Goods:
Conveniences,” lists 13 more patented innovations, including the first
clothes washer with wringer rolls, clip-on skates, a folding ironing
board, combined hot and cold water faucets, gum rubber showers, and a
replaceable pool cue tip. Besides a brief word description of how each
item works, each item has a detailed drawing.

The last three sections describe engineering inventions in three broad
categories: farming and industry, transportation, and construction. Many
inventions are outdated, but others like rubber-lined pulleys, separable
baggage checks, automobile backup lights, partitioned concrete
sidewalks, rotary roof ventilators, thermal windows, and weatherstrip
are very much part of our present world. In his introduction, Theriault
notes that in the period he studied, over 3300 patents were granted to
Maritime residents.