Made in the late 1940s to promote their Dempster-Dumpster sanitation system, this silent film was created by the Dempster Brothers. It shows the use of Dempster-Dumpster containers in the city of Baltimore. The film shows the standard problems affiliated with trash collection in the 30s, 40’s and 50s, with steel garbage cans used to remove refuse by hand.
The word “dumpster”, first used commercially in 1936, came from the Dempster-Dumpster system of mechanically loading the contents of standardized containers onto garbage trucks, which was patented by Dempster Brothers in 1935. The containers were called Dumpsters, a portmanteau of the company’s name with the word dump. The Dempster Dumpmaster, which became the first successful front-loading garbage truck that used this system, popularized the word.
The word dumpster has had at least three trademarks associated with it by Dempster Brothers, but today it is often used as a genericized trademark.
Dempster Brothers, Inc. of Knoxville, Tennessee, was an industrial firm that made waste handling vehicles including the Dempster Dumpmaster and Dempster Dinosaur. The firm was originally established by George Roby Dempster with his brothers Thomas and John Dempster.
The Dempster Dumpmaster, introduced in the 1950s was the first commercially successful, front-loading garbage truck in the United States. The product uses the Dempster-Dumpster system of mechanically emptying standardized metal containers, which had been patented by the company in 1937. It had arms at the front that picked up a dumpster and lifted it over the cab to tip it into the hopper. A rearward-traveling compacting panel compressed the garbage stored in the truck, and was also used to push it out through a door at the back when it was being emptied.
George Dempster was born on September 12, 1887 in Knoxville, TN. He was one of eleven children. After failing the bar exam he went to work with four of his brothers in a construction company run by his brothers which built railroads, highways, dams, and bridges.
In 1935, at the age of 39, Dempster invented the Dempster Dumpster which was a multi-purpose storage unit able of containing solids and liquids and could be emptied by moving lifts into a truck run by a single operator. Originally his Dumpster was intended to load stone from quarrys.
Dempster patented his invention and with his four brothers organized Dempster Brothers Inc. which specialized in the manufacture of Dempster Dumpsters and trucks. The trucks and trash bins that were developed made it easier to remove waste from construction sites. The truck was designed to pick up and dump a specialized bin, the dumpster, and haul the trash away.
Soon after manufacturing his custom trucks and trash bins, Dempster Dumpsters began to be used as trash disposal systems all over the country. The significance of his invention is that the Dempsey Dumpster system reduced the cost of commercial and residential waste and garbage removal by 75%. That 75% savings from garbage removal still applies to this day and affects most people around the world.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
