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 quickly rebuilt. 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 (sic), 
        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 merely a thing to carry 
        fluid in without pretending to keep the fluid at a 
        palatable temperature. 

        During Test No. 46 the Dubuque enameled canteen froze 
        after two hours exposure and burst open at the seams 
        along the edges, during the next hour. It had forty-five 
        (45) fluid ounces of water, temperature 102 deg., F., 
        placed in it at 8:10 a. m. The variations of air 
        temperature were, (observations made hourly), as follows: 
        -10 deg.; -8 deg.; -6 deg. The temperature of the contents 
        of the canteen fell from 102 deg. to 38 deg. after one hour's
        exposure;at the expiration of the second hour the fluid 
        dropped to 32 deg. During this test, the enamel splintered 
        off around the edges; little blisters of enamel, like small 
        volcanoes, bubbled up, and patches of the enamel blew off, 
        exposing the metallic base. The cause was simple. The Dubuque 
        Stamping and Enamel Co. canteen is a combination of mineral 
        and metal; the metal contracted; result, disintegration. (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. 32. Online: http://archive.org/stream/historyofmilitar00readrich/historyofmilitar00readrich_djvu.txt