Shaw-Walker Built Like a Skyscraper 1917 Office Steel Filing Cabinet Catalog
Title: Shaw-Walker: "Built Like a Skyscraper"
Item Type: Antique Industrial Office Furniture & Equipment Catalog
Publication Date: Circa 1917 (Features rare period printer/dispatch code 731-10-1-17 on the final page)
Publisher / Origin: The Shaw-Walker Company (Muskegon, Michigan, USA)
Significance: A magnificent, highly collectible piece of early 20th-century American industrial ephemera. This promotional showroom catalog documents Shaw-Walker's legendary, heavy-duty line of steel office equipment and modular upright sectionals. It is highly valued by collectors of industrial design, advertising history, and antique office ephemera.
Iconic Multi-Panel Demonstration Graphics: Features classic, highly stylized early-century illustrations demonstrating the extreme structural engineering and durability of their steel cabinets:
"Strength": Shows a man in a period business suit jumping full force directly into an open, loaded drawer.
"Rigidity": Illustrates a worker executing a full handstand balancing off a single extended file drawer.
"Easy Operation": Shows a young girl effortlessly sliding open a fully loaded heavy steel drawer using nothing but a single thin silk thread to demonstrate their roller-bearing coasting action.
"Strength in a Horizontal": Documents a group of three adult men (weighing a combined 500 pounds) standing together on top of a single horizontal row of extended cabinet drawers without causing structural sag or pinching.
Featured Product Lines: Detailed technical cross-sections, model numbers, and deep olive-green enamel color plates for:
No. 1070 Four-Drawer Steel Letter File
Upright modular sections including No. 1073 (Separate end panels), No. 1071 (Upright files/shelves), No. 1471 (Adjustable roller shelves for heavy books), and No. 1371 (Integrated office wardrobe section with coat hanger rod and umbrella holder).
Horizontal Sectionets (Stackable index drawers, card guides, check files, and storage bins).
Corporate Directory: Back page details their primary lines of steel and wood filing cabinets and system accessories, listing global agencies in Muskegon, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Washington, and London.
Front & Back Covers: Features a thick, textured olive-green cardstock wrap with pristine black and orange target typography. Shows incredibly light edge-toning and very minimal surface wear.
Spine & Binding: Staple-bound and structurally completely sound. The binding remains tight and square with zero loose panels or pulled staples.
Interior Pages: Exceptionally clean, crisp, and bright. The color plates retain excellent ink depth. Free of any contemporary owner signatures, pencil scribbles, or clipped pages.
Please review the detailed high-resolution photos provided to evaluate the exact paper sheen, page corners, and spine edges.
Combined shipping available