original early 20th century vintage industrial early american office steel "daisy" waste basket. originally designed and patented by harry t. beatty and andrew reese for the massillion wire basket co., massillion, oh. features unique filler wires terminally coiled around the upper rim and lower base hoop. welded joints are used to conceal the joints. comprised of durable steel with a largely uniform exterior brushed metal finish. manufacturer markings lightly embossed on the bottom. the advent of the waste paper basket in the 19th century coincided with the increased use of paper by new business entities, as well as the government bureaucracies designed to regulate them. in the early part of the century paper was more expensive, but advances in paper production made this once-precious commodity inexpensive enough to waste. some of the earliest office waste paper baskets of the 19th century were made of rattan (derived from parts of palm trees) and imported from china. others were woven from wicker (plaited lengths of willow or osier), shipped from germany and then assembled by german craftsmen in the united states. that led to the import of german baskets to the united states, “direct from the great basket industries along the beautiful valley of the thueringer forests,” as one ad from 1905 read. world war i, however, ended such imports, which allowed a willow-weaving industry to blossom in baltimore and parts of upstate new york. standard wicker office baskets consisted of a round base (relatively few were square) anchoring vertical, plaited willow stakes, each of which was held an equal distance apart from the next by two to four horizontal rings. usually a twined ring of heavier willow or rattan would crown the basket’s opening, providing structural support for the basket overall, while also giving basket craftsmen an armature for handles. wicker office baskets are distinctive for their open architecture, revealing the crumpled first drafts of letters or expired contracts inside, but some wicker or rattan baskets were woven tight, keeping the accumulation of a day’s failures discretely hidden from view. this reliance on natural materials is surprising when you consider how easily wicker baskets burned. cigars or matches carelessly tossed in bone-dry wicker baskets full of paper regularly set off infernos, sometimes burning entire buildings to the ground. thus, a market for metal waste baskets developed, some of which touted their resistance to flames. for example, in 1914, the metal office furniture company patented a fireproof waste basket called the victor that was made of sheets of steel—oddly to contemporary eyes, it was painted to resemble wood, since that was still the prevailing aesthetic of the day. in the first decades of the 20th century, other companies like andrews wire and iron works of rockford, illinois, and massillon wire basket co. of ohio produced, as their names suggest, wire baskets, while in the 1920s, nemco (northwestern expanded metal company) of chicago made wire-like baskets that were actually made of perforated metal sheets that resembled wire when mechanically expanded and shaped. nemco baskets were famously flared at the top, and sometimes had bulbous middles, giving them what legrand calls a “foxglove” appearance, named for the shape of the flower. in keeping of the office décor of that era, nemco baskets were dark, enameled in maroon or olive green. measures 10 3/4 inches high x 10 inches in diameter.