[Milsurplus] Wire

[Jim Haynes]

A common item in hardware stores through at least the 1940s was twisted
pair electrical wire called "drop cord".  This was a pair of stranded,
rubber-covered conductors and then each conductor had a braided yellow
and green textile covering.  I think one of the wires included a little
bit of red thread so they could be told apart.

When I was seven years old in 1945 I got to visit the Smithsonian.
About the only exhibit I still vividly remember was a glass case where
if you pushed a button on the side a machine inside wove the yellow and
green fabric over a rubber covered wire.  I remember a bunch of spools
of yellow and green thread that went around the wire in opposite 
directions, weaving the covering as the wire was wound on a spool below.

Something I never saw in operation, but I saw some wiring that had been
pulled out of an old house, and it included lots of drop cord and
pulleys and weights and light sockets.  So I guess there was some
arrangement for moving a light bulb around in a room.  I do remember
seeing a porcelain connector mounted on a ceiling, with a mating
connector having drop cord attached and then hanging down to a
light bulb socket.  The two-piece porcelain connector may have been
called a rosette.