It was really fun to find this full box yesterday, sold to me by a former school teacher in Concord, NH, who had been pretty excited to find it herself! All housed in their original box are two types of chalkboard erasers (invented by Hammett), a gorgeous sample book of a rainbow array of construction papers, a couple of ink pens, a ruler, pair of envelopes with different closures, and a whole array of different types of notebooks and writing pads (12 of them). All contents are documented. I believe these date to the earlyish 1900s.
Company founder John L. Hammett was a schoolteacher who had authored grammar books and worked as a representative of a publishing house. In 1863 he established a small school-supply shop in Rhode Island and, two years later, moved it to a single store location in Boston, Massachusetts. Hammett was an inventor as well, developing a "slating paint" for chalkboards and the chalkboard eraser (as the story goes, during a presentation, when he could not find a cloth to wipe his slate, he picked up a carpet remnant and discovered that it cleaned the slate much better than the cloths he had been using.) In 1891 the company formed a partnership with game-producer Milton Bradley of Springfield, Massachusetts, and pioneered the production of kindergarten materials in the United States Read more: https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history/He-Ja/J-L-Hammett-Company.html#ixzz7aukmdrWf
The large red cardboard box the samples are housed in shows plenty of wear but is still holding together and all of the contents are in good condition, with really just some toning to the first sheets of a few of the notepads. Red box measures 12 3/8" x 9 3/8" x 2".
