May I offer the following references: Petroski, Henry 1992 From Pins to Paper Clips. In The Evolution Of Useful Things, pp. 51-77. Vintage Books, New York. Dutton, H. I. and S. R. H. Jones 1983 Invention and Innovation in the British Pin Industry, 1790 - 1850. Business History Review, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, Vol. LVII, No. 2:175 - 193 Lubar, Steven 1987 Culture and Technological Design in the 19th-Century Pin Industry: John Howe and the Howe Manufacturing Company. Technology and Culture. The International Quarterly of the Society for the History of Technology, Vol. 28, No. 2:253 - 282. yours, Betsy Cassebeer "Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; always busy without getting on; always behind hand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity..." Jane Austen "Mansfield Park" 1814. >From: marie pokrant <[log in to unmask]> > >I am looking for information on the chronology of straight pins. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp