page_title: Samuel Colt
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Samuel Colt / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Colt Third Model Dragoon Percussion Revolverca. 1853Made by Samuel Colt (1814–1862, inventor and manufacturer); Decorated by Gustave Young (1827–1895, engraver) Wikipedia Loves Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art This photo of item # 1995.336 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was contributed under the team name "dmadeo" as part of the Wikipedia Loves Art project in February 2009. Metropolitan Museum of Art The original photograph on Flickr was taken by dmadeo—please add a comment to the original Flickr page whenever a use has been made on Wikipedia or another project. Project galleries on Flickr: this institution, this team
context_page_description: Samuel Colt was an American inventor, industrialist and businessman who established Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company and made the mass production of revolvers commercially viable.
  Colt's first two business ventures were producing firearms in Paterson, New Jersey and making underwater mines; both ended in disappointment. But his business affairs improved rapidly after 1847, when the Texas Rangers ordered 1,000 revolvers during the American war with Mexico. Later, his firearms were used widely during the settling of the western frontier. Colt died in 1862 as one of the wealthiest men in America.
  Colt's manufacturing methods were sophisticated. His use of interchangeable parts helped him become one of the first to use the assembly line efficiently. Moreover, his innovative use of art, celebrity endorsements, and corporate gifts to promote his wares made him a pioneer of advertising, product placement and mass marketing.
context_section_description: It is estimated that during its first 25 years of manufacturing, Colt's company produced more than 400,000 revolvers. Before his death, each barrel was stamped: "Address Col. Samuel Colt, New York, US America", or a variation using a London address. Colt did this as New York and London were major cosmopolitan cities and he retained an office in New York at 155 Broadway where he based his salesmen.
  Colt was the first American manufacturer to use art as a marketing tool when he hired Catlin to prominently display Colt firearms in his paintings. He was awarded numerous government contracts after making gifts of his highly embellished and engraved revolvers with exotic grips such as ivory or pearl to government officials. On a visit to Constantinople he gave a custom-engraved and gold inlaid revolver to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Abdülmecid I, informing him that the Russians were buying his pistols, thus securing a Turkish order for 5,000 pistols; he neglected to tell the Sultan he had used the same tactic with the Russians to elicit an order.
  Apart from gifts and bribes, Colt employed an effective marketing program which comprised sales promotion, publicity, product sampling, and public relations. He used the newspress to his own advantage by giving revolvers to editors, prompting them to report "all the accidents that occur to the Sharps & other humbug arms", and listing incidents for which Colt weapons had been "well used against bears, Indians, Mexicans, etc". Colt's firearms did not always fare well in standardized military tests; he preferred written testimonials from individual soldiers who used his weapons and these were what he most relied on to secure government contracts.
  Colt felt that bad press was just as important as good press; provided that his name and his revolvers received mention. When he opened the London armory he posted a 14-foot sign on the roof across from Parliament reading "Colonel Colt's Pistol Factory" as a publicity stunt which was noted by the British press. Eventually the British government forced him to remove this sign. Colt historian Herbert Houze wrote that Colt championed the concept of modernism before the word was invented, he pioneered the use of celebrity endorsements to promote his products, he introduced the phrase "new and improved" to advertising and demonstrated the commercial value of trade-name recognition as a word for "revolver" in French is le colt. Barbara M. Tucker, professor of history and director of the Center for Connecticut Studies at Eastern Connecticut State University, wrote that Colt's marketing techniques transformed the firearm from a utilitarian object into a symbol of American identity. Tucker added that Colt associated his revolvers with American patriotism, freedom and individualism while asserting America's technological supremacy over Europe's.
  During 1867, Colt's widow, Elizabeth, had an Episcopal church designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter built as a memorial to him and the three children they lost. The church's architecture contains guns and gun-smithing tools sculpted in marble to commemorate Colt's life as an arms maker. During 1896 a parish house was built on the site as a memorial to their son, Caldwell who died during 1894. During 1975 the Church of the Good Shepherd and Parish House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
  Colt established libraries and educational programs within his armories for his employees which provided training for several generations of toolmakers and other machinists, who had great influence in other manufacturing efforts of the next half century. Prominent examples included Francis A. Pratt, Amos Whitney, Henry Leland, Edward Bullard, Worcester R. Warner, Charles Brinckerhoff Richards, William Mason and Ambrose Swasey.
  During 2006, Samuel Colt was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
caption: A Dragoon revolver, Colt's gift to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
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