The Celebrated "Perfect" Heating Furnaces and Cooking Ranges: "Perfect" Manufactured by Richards & Boynton Co. Catalogue 53

New York: Bartlett & Company, The Orr Press, 1896. Octavo (20.5 x 14 cm.), 97 pages. Date derived from Water Street address on title page. An extensively illustrated trade catalogue of heating furnaces and cooking ranges. Before the 1830s, gravity hot-air furnaces were produced according to the specifications of individual buildings. The first mass-market manufacturer in the United States was Richardson & Boynton, established in 1837 (and in business for more than a century thereafter). The company survived the competitive surge in home heating manufacturers in the decades after the Civil War (Fuller & Warren of Troy, for instance, also advertised as "the oldest house in the trade"), introducing innovations in fuel source efficiency, flue design, cleaning access, and model size – to say nothing of aesthetic appeal – at a surprising rate. The foundries and shop buildings occupied a double block in Red Hook (Brooklyn); corporate offices (232-234-236 Water Street) were across the Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan. By the 1890s Richardson & Boynton were advertising themselves as manufacturers of multiple designs of furnaces, fireplace heaters, laundry water heaters, cooking ranges, stoves, and kitchen appurtenances such as kettles, urns, pastry ovens, and steam tables. Owing ostensibly to climbing tunnage and wharfage costs, the entire operation decamped to Dover, New Jersey in February 1896. Elaborate illustrations, with equally elaborate cutaways; specification charts. A bit of chipping to head and foot of wrapper at spine, otherwise very good, in two-toned brown wrappers with gilt decoration. Pages clean and bright. Scarce. [OCLC locates three copies of all other Richardson & Boynton catalogues,but none of this issue; Romaine, page 363 for other issues].