During the first two or three years of the 20th century, a pantograph-style carving machine was designed by prominent Chicago furniture manufacturer S. Karpen & Co., and they made some for their own use. The manufacturing rights to the machine were sold to Indianapolis-based Union Embossing Machine Co. Union began making the machine and then based on their experience they designed a considerably improved version, and their designers applied for a series of patents for their improvements.
In late 1904 or early '05, Universal Automatic Carving Machine Co. was apparently spun off of Union Embossing Machine. Some of the carving-machine patents were already issued by then, but subsequent patents were explicitly assigned to the new company. We have not found a single ad or article from the company, and it was dissolved in late 1910.
Information Sources
- Patent records provide much of the timing info.
- New Jersey records show that Universal Automatic Carving Machine Co., was dissolved on 1910-11-01.
- The 1997 book Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization, 1865-1925, by Philip Scranton, has a note on page 381 that Karpen sold the carving-machine rights to Union Embossing Machine Co.