Agriculture

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.

John Deere Plow
John Deere Plow, 1830s
Ira Wertman, a farmer in Andreas, Pennsylvania, raised fruits and vegetables and peddled them with this truck to retired coal miners near Allentown. He also used the truck to take produce to market and haul supplies from town to the farm.
Description
Ira Wertman, a farmer in Andreas, Pennsylvania, raised fruits and vegetables and peddled them with this truck to retired coal miners near Allentown. He also used the truck to take produce to market and haul supplies from town to the farm. Pickup trucks have been versatile aids to a wide range of agricultural, personal, and business activities. Early pickup trucks were modified automobiles, but postwar models were larger, more powerful, and able to carry heavier loads. Some postwar pickups were used in building suburban communities. Others were used for recreational purposes such as camping, hunting, and fishing. By the 1990s, many people purchased pickups for everyday driving.
date made
1949
maker
General Motors Corporation
ID Number
1999.0057.01
accession number
1999.0057
catalog number
1999.0057.01
Labels are an important marketing device.
Description (Brief)
Labels are an important marketing device. They often go beyond merely identifying contents and are designed to help establish brand distinction and generate customer loyalty for a largely interchangeable product.
This Outboard brand apple crate label was used by the Chelan-Manson Co-operative Association Inc., of Chelan, Washington during the mid 1900s. The lithographed label has an illustration of a man wearing a life jacket driving a hydroplane named “Red Apple” over Lake Chelan, with the peak of Stormy Mountain rising in the background. The hills of the lake shore are lined with apple orchards. Fruit crate labels often depicted landscapes like this to evoke a sense of fresh, natural produce.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1949
1950s
referenced business
Chelan-Manson Cooperative Assn., Inc.
ID Number
1979.0441.052
accession number
1979.0441
catalog number
1979.0441.052
date made
1946
referenced
United States Department of Agriculture
ID Number
2013.0327.1163
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1163
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.1057
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1057
date made
1946
referenced
United States Department of Agriculture
ID Number
2013.0327.1164
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1164
four boys with shovels working ground in a large field; an older man is standing off to right supervisingCurrently not on view
Description (Brief)
four boys with shovels working ground in a large field; an older man is standing off to right supervising
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930s-1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.0569
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.0569
Press print; portrait of a teenage boy wearing button down shirt, tie and corduroy jacket with his name on it (partially visible) and Tate President partially visible; Booth, from Oklahoma, won Star Farmer in 1943, Future Farmers of AmericaCurrently not on view
Description (Brief)
Press print; portrait of a teenage boy wearing button down shirt, tie and corduroy jacket with his name on it (partially visible) and Tate President partially visible; Booth, from Oklahoma, won Star Farmer in 1943, Future Farmers of America
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1943
maker
Associated Press
ID Number
2013.0327.0809
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.0809
Built in 1943, Old Red was one of the first commercial spindle cotton picking machines. International Harvester developed the machine at the H. H. Hopson Plantation near Clarksdale, Miss., in the early 1940s and began manufacturing machines.
Description
Built in 1943, Old Red was one of the first commercial spindle cotton picking machines. International Harvester developed the machine at the H. H. Hopson Plantation near Clarksdale, Miss., in the early 1940s and began manufacturing machines. According to date code numbers, Old Red was the 25th of 30 picking machines manufactured in 1943, and was sold to Producers Cotton Oil Company in Fresno, Calif. After further development there, the machine, usually operated at 2 mph, picked 8,000 bales of cotton before being retired in 1959. In 1970 Producers donated Old Red to the National Museum of American History. In 1978, the American Society of Agricultural Engineers awarded Old Red landmark status in agricultural engineering.
Mechanical cotton harvesters transformed work routines on cotton farms. Using tractors to prepare the land and cultivate, herbicides to clean the fields of weeds, and mechanical harvesters to pick the cotton, the crop changed from one that required large amounts of labor to a capital-intensive operation. Millions of field hands in the South were thus unemployed and migrated to towns and cities across the country.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1943
user
Producers Cotton Oil Company
maker
International Harvester
ID Number
AG.70A01
catalog number
70A01
accession number
288163
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930s-1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.0611
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.0611
Press print; farmer holding the blade of a scytheCurrently not on view
Description (Brief)
Press print; farmer holding the blade of a scythe
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930s-1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.0570
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.0570
date made
1946
referenced
United States Department of Agriculture
ID Number
2013.0327.1165
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1165
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930s-1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.0641
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.0641
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1949
maker
Ruohomaa, Kosti
ID Number
PG.007327
catalog number
7327
accession number
252971
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1943
maker
Associated Press
ID Number
2013.0327.0814
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.0814
date made
1946
referenced
United States Department of Agriculture
maker
Anonymous
ID Number
2013.0327.1161
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1161
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.0775
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.0775
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1945
ID Number
2013.0327.0977
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.0977
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.1049
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1049
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930s-1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.0644
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.0644
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.1040
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1040
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.1080
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1080
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.1072
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1072
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.0527
catalog number
2013.0327.0527
accession number
2013.0327
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1940s
ID Number
2013.0327.1083
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1083

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