National Museum of American History

Nearly 40 examples of prints from three government survey expeditions to the American West: the U.S. and Mexico Boundary Survey, the U.S. Naval Astronomical Expedition to the Southern Hemisphere, and the U.S. Pacific Railroad Surveys.

From the mid-19th century, Americans have used simple instruments to assist them in doing arithmetic. Some of these did not actually add and subtract, but made it easier for users to do so. These included not only the abacus, but also devices called adders.

By the 1700s, samplers were being worked by young women to learn basic needlework skills. Samplers are important representations of early American female education and this group features 50 of the 137 American samplers in the Textile Collection.

The Art of Frank Gasparro consists of 115 drawings, plaster models, photographs, newspaper clippings and ephemera collected by, and related to, Frank Gasparro, the 10th United States Chief Engraver. Christina Hansen, Gasparro's daughter, donated the collection in 2009 to the National Numismatic Collection (NNC).

Selected objects from the Museum’s significant collection of patent medicines. Begun in 1930, the collection has grown to over 4,000 products dating from the 19th century to the present day.

Clothing houses people. These objects provide not just warmth and wrapping of the human form, but also establish identity and distinctiveness. The Virginia Lee Mead collection objects give insight on a Chinese immigrant family through the clothes in which they lived

Some of the simplest computing devices made and sold are aids to counting.  From ancient to early modern times, scribes performing calculations moved small stones or metal tokens along lines.  More recently, mechanical counters have been widely used to count crowds and objects,  and as parts of machines. In the nineteenth century, several inventors patented mechanical counters.  Patent models surviving in the Mathematics Collections at the National Museum of American History suggest the range of their concerns.   

Dividers and compasses are instruments for mathematical and engineering drawings that have also been used in schools. Additionally, dividers were employed in conjunction with other measuring and calculating instruments, such as sectors. The metal, wood, and plastic objects in this collection were used in Europe, North America, and Japan from the 18th to the 20th centuries.

Those learning and using mathematics have long consulted tables of numbers. This collection from the Division of Medicine and Science illustrates the role of numbers in everyday American life—in schools, commerce,weights, measurements, banking, taxation, sales, shipping, payroll, manufacturing, gunnery, and public safety.  

Cartoonist, book illustrator, and children’s author David Crockett Johnson painted over 100 works relating to mathematics and mathematical physics. 80 of these paintings are in the Museum's collections.

"Mexican America" is a sampling of objects from the collections of the National Museum of American History. The stories behind these objects reflect the history of the Mexican presence in the United States.

This group features a variety of mining lamps, lights, hats and helmets from the collection of the Division of Work and Industry. Mining lights include oil-wick lamps, carbide lamps, and safety lamps. The mining hats are often soft caps with metal or leather mounts for a light. The hard plastic helmets have mounts for mining lights, usually electric lamps.

This searchable online collection contains a small sampling of objects from the National Numismatics Collection, which is comprised of approximately 1.6 million objects, including over 450,000 coins, medals and decorations and 1.1 million pieces of paper

The collection contains more than 500 quilts—both quilts made for functional, utilitarian purposes as bedding, and others made mainly for decorative purposes—and quilt-related items.

Patent Models at the National Museum of American History that relate to graphic arts.

This sampling of over 40 patent models includes textile machinery (1837-1840) and sewing machines (1842-1854).

Without indoor plumbing, bathing in the early 19th to the early 20th centuries involved filling small portable tubs with water, bucket by bucket. 10 examples of portable bathtubs are featured here.

This collection features printing matrices—either engraved plates and blocks or lithographic stones—used to print the Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition and its accompanying volumes.

Protractors are mathematical drawing instruments used to draw and measure angles, typically used by students in geometry. But protractors have a long history of applications in navigation, surveying, engineering, and war.

Sectors are mathematical calculating instruments chiefly used by Europeans - including in North America —from the 16th to 19th centuries. This collection of 23 objects illustrates the three main forms of sectors. They are made from brass, ivory, and wood, and they range in length from 3" to 13" when folded.

Explore Puerto Rico’s history, from the 16th to the 20th centuries, through the eyes of collector Teodoro Vidal. Vidal captured the island’s history by collecting thousands of objects. Over 80 artifacts are featured here.

The abacus is a computing device on which arithmetic calculations are performed by sliding counters (beads, pebbles, or flat discs) along rods, wires or lines.

Ralph Baer donated his video game test units, production models, notes, and schematics to the Museum in 2006. 11 objects are featured in this online collection.

A selection of 45 prints collected by Stephen James Ferris (1835–1915), a Philadelphia painter and etcher. The collection includes over 2,000 European and American prints and a variety of artistic subjects, compositions, and styles.

A group of objects related to the sinking of the Titanic, including the stories of the Carpathia rescue ship, Bernice Palmer, and Harry Cheetham.

During the last third of the 19th century American mathematics matured and American women gained access to both undergraduate and graduate education. Most of the items in the Smithsonian collections that relate to women mathematicians are connected with pioneering women who joined the growing American mathematical community before World War II. The objects in this collection illustrate diverse aspects of the personal and professional lives of several women mathematicians.