Nordberg Manufacturing Company Engineering Blueprints Collection

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: MS-871

Staff Only

Collection Scope and Content Summary

Blueprints, circa 1890-circa 1946, of the Nordberg Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Includes blueprints of valve engines, pumps, hoists, compressors, and similar equipment, much of which was used by mining companies in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Dates

Circa 1890-Circa 1946

Access

Available for use in the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections.

Biography

Bruno Victor Nordberg was born in Helsinki, Finland in 1858. He graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in Helsinki in 1878. In 1880 he migrated to the U.S. and to Milwaukee, and in 1889 founded the Nordberg Manufacturing Co. to manufacture an automatic governor, for which he held the patent. The company soon expanded into the manufacture of valve engines, pumps, hoists, compressors, and similar equipment. Nordberg was vice-president, designer, and draftsman for the company from 1890 to 1912, its president from 1912 to 1924, and chairman of the board at his death in 1924. He held 58 patents on various machines and devices, was a member of numerous engineering societies, and was the author of several papers on engineering subjects (excerpted from http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/, accessed Sept. 2011).