metal, which could be sealed with a lock. It was special in that it kept the papers separated. Vertical file The invention of the vertical file remains an unsolved mystery. The Vertical Filing Cabinet section in the Early Office Museum website begins with a discussion of the erroneous conclusions by highly credentialed “secondary sources", concerning the origin of vertical filing. The secondary sources claimed that a gold medal was presented at the World’s Fair of 1893 for a vertical file. The Early Office Museum found no evidence to substantiate those claims. However, the information presented in the Early Office Museum’s discussion of vertical filing cabinets suggests that the commercial introduction of vertical filing may have occurred in 1900 when a company named the Library Bureau (founded in 1876, later a division of Remington Rand) published a catalog that included a vertical filing cabinet. A US patent was filed in 1902 by the Library Bureau that credited David E. Hunter as the inventor. Research by Ester Ellen-Poe validated The Early Office Museum's findings, and suggests that the most credible claim to the invention of vertical filing, as we know it today, appears to have been by the Library Bureau. The Library Bureau’s 1903 pamphlet titled "Library Bureau Systems of Vertical Filing with Interchangeable Unit Cabinets", begins with: "Vertical filing, as originated [emphasis added] and perfected by the Library Bureau, is the most complete, accurate and practical method ever invented [emphasis added] for taking care of correspondence, catalogs, reports, invoices, orders, duplicate bills, and loose sheets, or papers of any kind for any business—large, small or peculiar."). In addition to the Library Bureau, early manufacturers of vertical filing cabinets included Globe-Wernicke, Yawman and Erbe Manufacturing Company, and the Art Metal Construction Company. Prior to the introduction of commercial vertical filing cabinets businesses kept papers in envelopes in turn stored in arrays of pigeonholes often lining a wall. Finding and opening envelopes and unfolding papers was troublesome and inefficient. However, the concept of vertical filing was clearly practiced as early as 1895 when a U.S. patent (533053) was issued to W.A. Cooke, Jr. for A Receptacle for Letters or Other Papers. After World War II, the Home-O-Nize Company was established in Muscatine, Iowa to provide returning veterans with jobs. Founded to produce steel kitchen cabinets, the company soon encountered the reality of the limited availability of steel. So the company began to make