Agriculture

John Deere Model D Tractor

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
Topic: Photography

No. 17 Grain Elevator

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1953
maker
Feininger, Andreas
ID Number
1990.0160.012
accession number
1990.0160
catalog number
1990.0160.012

Farm

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Plowden, David
ID Number
1986.0711.0693
accession number
1986.0711
catalog number
1986.0711.0693

Planters

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1982
maker
Caffery, Debbie Fleming
ID Number
1986.0650.02
accession number
1986.0650
catalog number
1986.0650.02

Bales of Bagasse

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1973
maker
Caffery, Debbie Fleming
ID Number
1986.0650.06
accession number
1986.0650
catalog number
1986.0650.06

Feeding Time

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1909
ID Number
1986.3048.1860
nonaccession number
1986.3048
catalog number
1986.3048.1860

Two women working in the fields

real photo postcard; black and white image of two women holding farming tools; wood planks on ground in front of them and wooden structure partially visible in background; postmark from 1914, sent to Buffalo, North Dakota; handwritten text on verso reads "Dear Nora.
Description (Brief)
real photo postcard; black and white image of two women holding farming tools; wood planks on ground in front of them and wooden structure partially visible in background; postmark from 1914, sent to Buffalo, North Dakota; handwritten text on verso reads "Dear Nora. Well what do you think of Alices & my garden suits. What are you doing now? Are you going to teach this year? I guess we will thresh before very long but it is so dry all of the time I am afraid there won't be much crop. Write soon. With love Lillie" and addressed to Miss Leonora B. Titus, Buffalo, N. Dak.; 1 cent stamp on verso, franked
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1914
ID Number
1986.3048.0645
catalog number
1986.3048.0645
nonaccession number
1986.3048

Field Worker in a Furrow, Planting Season

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1982
maker
Caffery, Debbie Fleming
ID Number
1986.0650.04
accession number
1986.0650
catalog number
1986.0650.04

Goat pulling cart of kids

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
after 1907
ID Number
1983.0376.0035
catalog number
1983.0376.035
accession number
1983.0376

Woman milking cow

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
before 1907
ID Number
1986.3048.0707
catalog number
1986.3048.0707
nonaccession number
1986.3048

Young Worker in a Slicker Suit, Sunrise

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1974
maker
Caffery, Debbie Fleming
ID Number
1986.0650.05
accession number
1986.0650
catalog number
1986.0650.05

Old Man Scraping Cane

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1973
maker
Caffery, Debbie Fleming
ID Number
1986.0650.03
accession number
1986.0650
catalog number
1986.0650.03

Man plowing field

date made
1944-1961
maker
Ruohomaa, Kosti
ID Number
PG.007381
catalog number
7381
accession number
252971

Man walking in snow toward barn

date made
1944-1961
maker
Ruohomaa, Kosti
ID Number
PG.007391
catalog number
7391
accession number
252971

Chickens outside the coop

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1944-1961
maker
Ruohomaa, Kosti
ID Number
PG.007341
catalog number
7341
accession number
252971

Man leaning against mule drawn plow

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1944-1961
maker
Ruohomaa, Kosti
ID Number
PG.007332
catalog number
7332
accession number
252971

River and Agricultural Silhouettes

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1958
maker
Erwitt, Elliott
ID Number
PG.007542
accession number
252364
catalog number
7542

Harvesters Return

photographed by Samuel Leonard Stein; studio portrait of six women posed and dressed to appear as if returning from the fields; woman at left is carrying a basket, woman second from right is holding a rakeCurrently not on view
Description (Brief)
photographed by Samuel Leonard Stein; studio portrait of six women posed and dressed to appear as if returning from the fields; woman at left is carrying a basket, woman second from right is holding a rake
Location
Currently not on view
date made
before 1892
maker
Stein, Samuel Leonard
ID Number
PG.000246
accession number
25318
catalog number
246

Woman and boy on porch

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1930s-1950s
maker
Keppler, Victor
ID Number
PG.006262.Y
accession number
238737
catalog number
6262Y

Cows and a barn

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1944-1961
maker
Ruohomaa, Kosti
ID Number
PG.007340
accession number
252971
catalog number
7340

Woman pitching hay

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1944-1961
maker
Ruohomaa, Kosti
ID Number
PG.007315
catalog number
7315
accession number
252971

Harvesting peanuts

Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. (1862–1932) used a wide variety of printing processes, printing out some negatives in more than one medium.
Description
Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. (1862–1932) used a wide variety of printing processes, printing out some negatives in more than one medium. In his lectures, he pointed out that this approach to photography was important because in the hands of a photographer who “lives and understands the infinitely varied moods of nature, photography can be made to express and interpret them.” In correspondence with Dr. Olmstead at the Smithsonian, as the presentation of his gifts and bequest to the museum was being arranged, Eickemeyer wrote: “The collection illustrates the use of every important process and will, I believe, be of real educational value.”
The first of the Eickemeyer photographic collection came to the National Museum’s Department of Arts and Industries (the “Castle”), Division of Graphic Arts in 1922 at the close of a large exhibition of Eickemeyer’s work at the Anderson Gallery in New York. It was a gift from the photographer of five framed prints from the New York show that he considered representative of his work.
In 1929, Eickemeyer gave the Smithsonian 83 framed prints (including copies of the prints that he had previously given the museum), 15 portfolios, his medals and awards, and several miscellaneous photographic paraphernalia. In 1930, he made a will bequeathing most of his remaining prints, negatives, photographic equipment and other objects relating to his 30-year career as a photographer to the Smithsonian Institution.
Upon Eickemeyer’s death in 1932, an accession consisting primarily of photographic equipment from his studio came to the Smithsonian. Included in the bequest were 2 cameras, several lenses, scales, timers, printing frames, plate holders, dry mounters and a lecture case with slide projector and hand-colored lantern slides. Also included were 43 albums, journals and portfolios and assorted negatives and contact prints, many marked “discards.” There are 58 albums, notebooks and portfolios in the collection. Eickemeyer requested in his will that his gifts and bequests be called The Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. Collection.
The Eickemeyer accessions have remained remarkably intact over the past 50 years. With the exception of his medals and trophies (there is no record of these objects coming to the Museum of American History with the remainder of the collection), and the contact prints and negatives (his discards), most of the objects were assigned catalogue numbers and were clearly marked more than half a century ago.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1894
maker
Eickemeyer, Jr., Rudolf
ID Number
PG.004135.B046.11
accession number
106456
catalog number
4135.B46.11

Man in horse drawn reaper

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1944-1961
maker
Ruohomaa, Kosti
ID Number
PG.007349
accession number
252971
catalog number
7349

Harvesting Peanuts

Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. (1862–1932) used a wide variety of printing processes, printing out some negatives in more than one medium.
Description
Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. (1862–1932) used a wide variety of printing processes, printing out some negatives in more than one medium. In his lectures, he pointed out that this approach to photography was important because in the hands of a photographer who “lives and understands the infinitely varied moods of nature, photography can be made to express and interpret them.” In correspondence with Dr. Olmstead at the Smithsonian, as the presentation of his gifts and bequest to the museum was being arranged, Eickemeyer wrote: “The collection illustrates the use of every important process and will, I believe, be of real educational value.”
The first of the Eickemeyer photographic collection came to the National Museum’s Department of Arts and Industries (the “Castle”), Division of Graphic Arts in 1922 at the close of a large exhibition of Eickemeyer’s work at the Anderson Gallery in New York. It was a gift from the photographer of five framed prints from the New York show that he considered representative of his work.
In 1929, Eickemeyer gave the Smithsonian 83 framed prints (including copies of the prints that he had previously given the museum), 15 portfolios, his medals and awards, and several miscellaneous photographic paraphernalia. In 1930, he made a will bequeathing most of his remaining prints, negatives, photographic equipment and other objects relating to his 30-year career as a photographer to the Smithsonian Institution.
Upon Eickemeyer’s death in 1932, an accession consisting primarily of photographic equipment from his studio came to the Smithsonian. Included in the bequest were 2 cameras, several lenses, scales, timers, printing frames, plate holders, dry mounters and a lecture case with slide projector and hand-colored lantern slides. Also included were 43 albums, journals and portfolios and assorted negatives and contact prints, many marked “discards.” There are 58 albums, notebooks and portfolios in the collection. Eickemeyer requested in his will that his gifts and bequests be called The Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. Collection.
The Eickemeyer accessions have remained remarkably intact over the past 50 years. With the exception of his medals and trophies (there is no record of these objects coming to the Museum of American History with the remainder of the collection), and the contact prints and negatives (his discards), most of the objects were assigned catalogue numbers and were clearly marked more than half a century ago.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1894
maker
Eickemeyer, Jr., Rudolf
ID Number
PG.004135.B046.12
accession number
106456
catalog number
4135.B46.12

Farmers piling hay

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Keystone View Company
ID Number
PG.006816.11
catalog number
6816.11
accession number
245424

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