We know what you’re thinking. R.I.P. Halloween 2019. But not so fast! The fearful fete is rising from the grave today one last time with a little help from Christian Henry Eisenbrandt (1790-1860)’s patented protection against inadvertent live burial.
Outfitted with a motion-sensitive assortment of springs and levers attached to a metal headplate and finger-ring, Eisenbrandt’s coffin lid was designed to spring open at the “slightest motion”. A mesh lid was also in place to prevent suffocation, should anyone be both lucky and unlucky enough to still be breathing post-burial. Eisenbrandt was not a coffin-maker by trade, which is why his invention was manufactured with the assistance of cabinet-makers Charles Bobeth and Harman Schulenberg.
Eisenbrandt was a manufacturer of musical instruments who arrived in the United States from Hanover in 1807, fleeing the threat of conscription in the Napoleonic Wars. After attempts at establishing himself in Philadelphia, then New York, he arrived in Baltimore in 1811, where he found a welcome home for his trade in fifes and woodwinds. Born Heinrich Christian Eisenbrandt, he changed his name in the United States, operating at times as Henry C.E., Christian H. E., or, as seen here, C.H. Eisenbrandt.
Before he died in 1860 (or did he?????), he exhibited his work in the New York, at the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, and in London’s Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World Fair, where he received a prize medal for workmanship in the category of ‘clarinets and flutes’. His instrument-making business was passed to his son, Henry Raphael Eisenbrandt (1834-1886). It was renamed it H.R. Eisenbrandt and Sons in 1888 by his twin sons, a second Christian Henry Eisenbrandt (1861-1919) and William Albert Eisenbrandt (1861-1934). The company closed in 1949.
Eisenbrandt’s invention was patented on November 15, 1843 (you can see the patent here, and see the patent drawing digitized by the National Archives here). Those of you that are feeling entrepreneurial are in luck. The U.S. Patent Office declared that the application status of Eisenbrandt’s coffin expired just last week, on October 23rd of this year, along with a less ghoulish invention by Eisenbrandt; an attachment for locomotive engines designed to harmlessly fling objects and people from railroad tracks using a cushioned scoop and suspension cord net.
This item is part of the Hagley Published Collections Department’s collection of broadsides. You can find it on our Digital Archive’s Hagley Library Published Collections section.
