Agriculture - Overview
From butter churns to diesel tractors, the Museum's agricultural artifacts trace the story of Americans who work the land. Agricultural tools and machinery in the collections range from a John Deere plow of the 1830s to 20th-century cultivators and harvesters. The Museum's holdings also include overalls, aprons, and sunbonnets; farm photographs; milk cans and food jars; handmade horse collars; and some 200 oral histories of farm men and women in the South. Prints in the collections show hundreds of scenes of rural life. The politics of agriculture are part of the story, too, told in materials related to farm workers' unions and a group of artifacts donated by the family of the labor leader Cesar Chavez.
"Agriculture - Overview" showing 4214 items.
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[Farm field and buildings.] Honolulu / Waipahn [on envelope]. [stereo photonegative.]
- Notes
- Currently stored in box 1.1.27 [210], moved from [154]
- Orig. no. 56-C
- Date
- 1900
- 1910
- 1900-1910
- publisher
- Underwood & Underwood
- H.C. White Co
- Local number
- RSN 5031
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
[Agriculture in India.] 2219 photonegative 1905
- Notes
- Company catalog card included
- Similar to RSN 11455
- Currently stored in box 2.1.17 [64]
- Date
- 1905
- 1900-1910
- publisher
- Underwood & Underwood
- photographer
- Johnson
- publisher
- American Stereoscopic Co
- Local number
- RSN 10517
- Video number 09788
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
A peasant girl and her patient servants, Northern Spain. 2273 Photonegative 1900
- Notes
- Company catalog card included
- Currently stored in box 3.1.25 [170]
- Date
- 1900
- 1900-1910
- publisher
- Underwood & Underwood
- photographer
- McKern
- Local number
- RSN 13784
- Video number 13059
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Forty-Saw Cotton Gin, Wooden Gearing
- Description
- This 40-saw cotton gin and the wooden gearing came from a farm formerly owned by the Augustus C. Smith family in Monroe County, G. The gin shed was built around 1840 and operated until approximately 1900. The gin stand was probably built in the decade following the Civil War; it bears no manufacturer's name or other identification.
- Augustus Card Smith, born on March 5, 1830, owned and managed the farm and gin until his death in 1907. His wife, Sara Jane Phinazee Smith, bore eleven children. James Milton Smith took over the farm when his father died. On the eve of the Civil War in 1860, the farm had 180 acres, and the family owned one horse, four cows, and three mules. Smith marketed 11 bales of cotton that year. During the Civil War, A. C. Smith joined the Monroe County Cavalry and fought for the Confederacy. By 1880 the Smith farm had grown to 350 acres and raised 23 bales of cotton. A. C. Smith personified the yeoman farmer who owned his land and produced enough to provide for his family and to market the surplus. His life spanned the ante bellum years of increasing sectional tensions, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the establishment of segregation in the 1890s.
- The Smith cotton ginning operation typified 19th-century ginning technology. The large open space on the lower level allowed mules to circle the bull gear, setting in motion the pinion gear that transferred power to the gin on the second floor. The precisely fitted wooden blocks joined by pegs and cleverly fitted supports demanded skilled workmanship.
- Ginwrights both manufactured and serviced gins. The number of gins and the precise work needed to construct and maintain them necessitated a large number of skilled workmen. African Americans manufactured, maintained, and operated gins along with whites. A. C. Smith's ledgers show that he ginned for toll; that is, he took a percentage of the cotton in payment.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1880
- Ginstand
- ca 1880
- wooden gearing
- 1840-1910
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 1984.0852.001
- accession number
- 1984.0852
- catalog number
- 1984.0852.001
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Advance Rumely Ideal Separator, 32 x 52
- Description
- Ronald Miller of Geneseo, Illinois, donated this threshing machine to the Museum in 1988. The bright red paint that covered the machine when new had faded, but wood and internal parts were in excellent shape, a testament to the care that farmers lavish upon their machines.
- Smithsonian conservators decided to accept the threshing machine without restoration, and this separator threshed oats at the 1991 Smithsonian Folk Festival, pulled by a Rumely Oil Pull 20-40 tractor.
- The 32 x 52 designation refers to a 32-inch cylinder and the 52-inch-wide threshing shoe. The 7-ton machine was designed to have four men pitching bundles of grain into the feeder; it could thresh over 2,500 bushels a day.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1923
- maker
- Advance Rumely Company
- ID Number
- 1988.0371.01
- catalog number
- 1988.0371.01
- accession number
- 1988.0371
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Rumely Oil Pull Tractor, 20-40
- Description
- In 1923, John Ploesch purchased this Rumely Oil Pull tractor for $4,000 from an Advance-Rumely dealer in Woodbine, Illinois. He arranged with neighbors to thresh their crops, organizing what was called a threshing ring that lasted until 1948. The Rumely Oil Pull was belted to the threshing machine that separated the grain. Threshing became a major social event for farmers, laborers, and their families.
- The Rumely Oil Pull was the first tractor to use an oil cooling system, which kept the engine at a steady temperature no matter how heavy the tractor's load. The cooling system allowed hotter cylinders and easier ignition. The Oil Pull starts on gas but runs on kerosene, making it much lighter and easier to maneuver than its steam-driven predecessors. This Rumely Oil Pull weighs seven tons.
- Rumely engineers also made space for an extra person in the tractor's cab, gave the operator a clear view in every direction, and placed all the mechanisms--gear shift, clutch, foot brake, steering wheel, carburetor, and more--in easy reach. These new design elements helped the Rumely Oil Pull to surpass most old kerosene tractors, and many of these features were further refined in gasoline-powered machines.
- Because of their hot-riveted steel frame construction, Rumely Oil Pulls lasted through years of harvests. Some were still in use as late as the 1960s.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1923
- maker
- Advance Rumely Company
- assembler
- Miller, Ronald E.
- ID Number
- 1988.0372.01
- catalog number
- 1988.0372.01
- accession number
- 1988.0372
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Cotton Weigh-up Scale
- Description
- This cotton weigh-up scale was a gift of James W. Butler and came from the H. H. Hopson Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi. Such scales were customarily used in cotton fields to weigh each worker's daily pickings, which were the basis of pay. Because cotton is so light, only the most proficient workers could pick 300 pounds.
- Cotton that was planted in April or May and chopped and cultivated through the summer would be ready for picking by September. The picking season could last into December. Once the cotton had been picked, it was taken to a gin where the seeds were separated from the lint. The baled lint went to textile mills, and the seeds were crushed to make vegetable oil and cattle feed.
- ID Number
- 1989.0423.01
- catalog number
- 1989.0423.01
- accession number
- 1989.0423
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Lummus 80-Saw Cotton Gin
- Description
- This steam-powered cotton gin, usually called a ginstand, was produced by F. H. Lummus and Sons of Columbus, Georgia. It employed a system of 80 twelve-inch saws, a pneumatic elevator, and a single-cylinder feeder. It also used a single-stand condenser, which collected the lint (cotton) as it came out of a flue and discharged it in mat form. The mat of cotton lint was then put into a compress. This machine was manufactured around 1900.
- The Lummus gin and compress could produce one and a half bales of cotton every hour, or as many as 15 bales in a twelve-hour workday. Steam whistles signaled the beginning of a new day of ginning.
- Much information about the construction of the shed that housed the gin has been lost, but it may date to the 1880s. When land development threatened the structure, the owner contacted the Smithsonian about the 80-saw ginstand. Lummus Industries restored the gin.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1900
- maker
- F. H. Lummus Sons Co
- ID Number
- 1990.0344.01
- catalog number
- 1990.0344.01
- accession number
- 1990.0344
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Plains Georgia Tractorcade Protest Pin
- Description
- The American Agriculture Movement was started in the fall of 1977 in response to the 1977 Farm Bill which had the adverse affect of dropping commodity prices to a level lower than the cost of production. In 1977, organizers from the American Agriculture Movement put together a tractorcade, a protest on tractors, to descend upon President Jimmy Carter’s hometown of Plains, Georgia during his planned Thanksgiving holiday visit. Unfortunately for the organizers, the President changed his plans and spent the holiday in Camp David. Many members of the movement were dissatisfied by the President’s inattention to the growing farm crisis. They felt doubly betrayed by President Carter who had farming roots in the South.
- The farm crisis of the late 1970s and 1980s was triggered by several factors stemming from the early 1970s. When Earl Butz became the Secretary of Agriculture in 1971, he changed farm policies that provided supports to farmers who did not plant a certain percentage of their land, and instead asked farmers to plant “fence row to fence row” in order to increase production. New foreign markets had opened up, inflation was high which increased land values and interest rates were low which provided extra incentive for farmers to increase their landholdings and purchase modern equipment that made output from the land more productive. Many farmers took advantage of this confluence of factors to increase their income by following this advice.
- In the late 1970s, the Federal Reserve Board raised interest rates in an attempt to bring down the rate of inflation. This happened at the same time foreign markets dried up and a trade embargo was placed on the Soviet Union. These factors meant farm income dwindled at the same time interest rates skyrocketed, eating up what little income remained for farmers. The members of the American Agriculture Movement were highly involved in protests through the late 1970s and 1980s, speaking to officials at all levels of U.S. government in an attempt to raise awareness of the growing farm crisis. Concern over the 1977 Farm Bill ignited the concern for many farmers who believed the bill would adversely affect farm income by lowering commodity prices to less than the cost of production. Farmers began to protest at all levels of government, most for the first time, in order to bring this to the attention of policy makers as well as the people.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1993.0188.001
- accession number
- 1993.0188
- catalog number
- 1993.0188.001
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
American Agriculture Strike, Protest Pin
- Description
- The American Agriculture Movement was started in the fall of 1977 in response to the 1977 Farm Bill which had the adverse affect of dropping commodity prices to a level lower than the cost of production. Members of the movement called for a strike in December 1977 to oppose the 1977 Farm Bill. They proposed a strike of farmers across the nation where each refused to buy or sell commodities until their demands had been met. Unfortunately for the farmers organizing the strike, the movement did not receive enough support and they were required to organize a different type of protest.
- The farm crisis of the late 1970s and 1980s was triggered by several factors stemming from the early 1970s. When Earl Butz became the Secretary of Agriculture in 1971, he changed farm policies that provided supports to farmers who did not plant a certain percentage of their land, and instead asked farmers to plant “fence row to fence row” in order to increase production. New foreign markets had opened up, inflation was high which increased land values and interest rates were low which provided extra incentive for farmers to increase their landholdings and purchase modern equipment that made output from the land more productive. Many farmers took advantage of this confluence of factors to increase their income by following this advice.
- In the late 1970s, the Federal Reserve Board raised interest rates in an attempt to bring down the rate of inflation. This happened at the same time foreign markets dried up and a trade embargo was placed on the Soviet Union. These factors meant farm income dwindled at the same time interest rates skyrocketed, eating up what little income remained for farmers. The members of the American Agriculture Movement were highly involved in protests through the late 1970s and 1980s, speaking to officials at all levels of U.S. government in an attempt to raise awareness of the growing farm crisis. Concern over the 1977 Farm Bill ignited the concern for many farmers who believed the bill would adversely affect farm income by lowering commodity prices to less than the cost of production. Farmers began to protest at all levels of government, most for the first time, in order to bring this to the attention of policy makers as well as the people.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1993.0188.002
- accession number
- 1993.0188
- catalog number
- 1993.0188.002
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
