DUBUQUE STAMPING AND ENAMELING WORKS

Canteens developed by the company and submitted to the military were found unable to handle hard use without chipping. They were rejected.

DUBUQUE STAMPING AND ENAMELING WORKS. In 1891 Dubuque Stamping and Enameling Company was founded in Dubuque by investors including Paul TRAUT who served the company as vice-president. (1)

The business was destroyed by fire in 1893 with one fatality. (2) The company was quickly back in business, however, because the following year the city council ordered 800 street signs at 30 cents per sign from the Dubuque Stamping and Enameling Works to be placed on the street corners. (3)

One of the less successful products of the company was their canteen.

        It is understood that this is a naked metal flask, 
        coated inside and outside with some kind of agate, 
        vitrified, glazed, incrysted (sic), porcelained, lava, 
        granite or annealed ware. If it chips like the enameled 
        agate ware used in furnishing officers' mess chests, 
        its use will be dangerous if the chips are swallowed. 
        In composition it is understood to resemble the kind of 
        ware commonly used in cooking utensils. This type, 
        viz.: uncovered metal, is merelya thing to carry fluid 
        in without pretending to keep the fluid at a palatable 
        temperature. 

              The lower part of the neck, or nozzle, or mouth-piece, 
              of the Dubuque Enamel canteen forms a right angle with 
              the side-band of the flask, and so cuts away the filter 
              part of the Parker tube, exposing the center metal rod. 
              This cutting away causes the friable matter of which 
              the filter is composed to break away from the rod. The 
              jolting incident to transportation would probably cause 
              it to disintegrate, if used in the Dubuque Enamal 
              canteen, owing to the mechanical construction of the 
              neck of the flask. (4)

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Sources:

1. Portrait and Biographical Record of Dubuque, Jones and Clayton Counties, Iowa. Chicago: Chapman Publishing Company, 1894. Online: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~iabiog/dubuque/djc1894/djc1894-t.htm

2. The Weekly Republic. (Weatherford, Tex.), Vol. 2, No. 44, Ed. 1 Friday, April 21, 1893 http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth182281/m1/7/zoom/?q=Enameling%20works

3. City Council Minutes. Dubuque Daily Times January 3, 1894

4. Reade, Philip. Lieut. Colonel, History of the Military Canteen Washington, D. C.: Secretary of War, 1900, p. 20. Online: http://archive.org/stream/historyofmilitar00readrich/historyofmilitar00readrich_djvu.txt