Photo Library
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Sweet Standards (Photo 3)
Illustration of the Bates saccharimeter, 1912. The saccharimeter is a version of the polariscope calibrated to use solely for sugar analysis. Source: Handbook of Sugar Analysis, 1912.
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Sweet Standards (Photo 7)
Patent for a type of half shade polariscope used by the U.S. Customs Service. Light passes-through a tube containing sugar solution-into the eye piece, which was rotated to reveal a fully circular clear image. The degree of rotation of the eyepiece corresponds to the level of sucrose, which in turn marks the quality of the sugar product.
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Sweet Standards (Photo 11)
Philadelphia laboratory, circa 1948. Chief Chemist William C. Beard on the left, and Charles Curtis on the right, are shown dividing raw sugar for sampling.
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Sweet Standards (Photo 2)
Chief Chemist Walter L. Howell analyzing sugar at the New Orleans laboratory, 1906. The flasks on the left contained sugar in solution, while the ones on the right incorporated a small amount of lead acetate to determine impurities.
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Sweet Standards (Photo 6)
The U.S. Customs Service used optical instruments like this half shade polariscope, patented in 1907, for at least sixty years in sugar analysis. Accuracy was critical. Small degrees of difference in the samples translated to substantial overall duties assessed across a whole shipment.
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Sweet Standards (Photo 9)
Excerpt from a transcript of James A. Garfield's speech before the United States House of Representatives on the sugar tariff, 1879. Garfield became the 20th president of the United States.
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Sweet Standards (Photo 1)
This sugar balance and trier (scoop) were used by U.S. Customs Service in preparing sugar for testing. They were manufactured to precise specifications to insure equality in sampling across all of Customs.
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Sweet Standards (Photo 5)
Title page and excerpt from a pamphlet arguing against the sugar tariff, 1880.
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A House Divided (Photo 6)
Though construction began in 1848, the New Orleans customhouse was still a building-in-progress when the U.S. Customs Service moved into the first floor in 1856. Confederate forces, and later the Union Army, occupied the unfinished structure during the Civil War. Construction resumed in 1871. Damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the customhouse was renovated and reopened in 2011. (CBP History reference collections)
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Southwest Border Fence Construction Progress (Photo 5)
Construction in San Diego sector, Smuggler’s Gulch.
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A House Divided (Photo 12)
The customhouse was still under construction when the Civil War began. In addition to deterioration from its unfinished state, the building was damaged by shelling. Construction resumed in 1870. (Library of Congress image [LC-DIG-pga-01103])
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Southwest Border Fence Construction Progress (Photo 6)
Joint Levee-Wall project with Hidalgo County, Texas.