Energy & Power

The Museum's collections on energy and power illuminate the role of fire, steam, wind, water, electricity, and the atom in the nation's history. The artifacts include wood-burning stoves, water turbines, and windmills, as well as steam, gas, and diesel engines. Oil-exploration and coal-mining equipment form part of these collections, along with a computer that controlled a power plant and even bubble chambers—a tool of physicists to study protons, electrons, and other charged particles.

A special strength of the collections lies in objects related to the history of electrical power, including generators, batteries, cables, transformers, and early photovoltaic cells. A group of Thomas Edison's earliest light bulbs are a precious treasure. Hundreds of other objects represent the innumerable uses of electricity, from streetlights and railway signals to microwave ovens and satellite equipment.

This lamp was mass-produced for the 50th anniversary of Edison’s invention.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
This lamp was mass-produced for the 50th anniversary of Edison’s invention.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1929
associated date
1879 10 21
associated person
Edison, Thomas Alva
ID Number
EM.320684
catalog number
320684
accession number
242716
Carbon filament lamp with internal exhaust tube. Few carbon lamps were still being made by this time.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Carbon filament lamp with internal exhaust tube. Few carbon lamps were still being made by this time.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1928
ID Number
EM.318609
catalog number
318609
accession number
232729
This pen-and-ink comic art drawing by Rube Goldberg from 1924 features the concept of using “windy” political speeches as free energy.Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was an engineer before he was a comic artist.
Description (Brief)
This pen-and-ink comic art drawing by Rube Goldberg from 1924 features the concept of using “windy” political speeches as free energy.
Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was an engineer before he was a comic artist. After receiving an engineering degree, he started his career designing sewers for the City of San Francisco, but then followed his other interest and took a job as a sports cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle. After moving to New York in 1907 Goldberg worked for several newspapers, producing a number of short-lived strips and panels—many of which were inspired by his engineering background, including his renowned invention cartoons. In the late 1930s and 1940s he switched his focus to editorial and political cartoons and in 1945 founded the National Cartoonists Society. The Reuben, comic art’s most prestigious award, is named after him.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1924-10-31
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
ID Number
GA.23492
catalog number
23492
accession number
299186
Replica Edison sewing thread filament lamp made by Francis Jehl for the 50th anniversary of the invention.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Replica Edison sewing thread filament lamp made by Francis Jehl for the 50th anniversary of the invention.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1929
associated date
1879 10 21
associated person
Edison, Thomas Alva
maker
Jehl, Francis
ID Number
EM.318327
catalog number
318327
accession number
232729
A coiled-tungsten filament 300 watt lamp with a glass pear-shaped envelope.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
A coiled-tungsten filament 300 watt lamp with a glass pear-shaped envelope.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1922
maker
General Electric Company
ID Number
EM.307563
catalog number
307563
accession number
68492
“Mazda C” spotlamp for base down or horizontal use only.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
“Mazda C” spotlamp for base down or horizontal use only.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1925
maker
Westinghouse
ID Number
EM.320647
catalog number
320647
accession number
242716
A third generation tungsten filament lamp with pear-shaped envelope. For use in street lighting on a parallel-circuit.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
A third generation tungsten filament lamp with pear-shaped envelope. For use in street lighting on a parallel-circuit.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1920
maker
General Electric Company
ID Number
EM.307592
catalog number
307592
accession number
68492
Irving Langmuir received a Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1906 from the University of Göttingen. He studied under Walther Nernst, who had invented a new type of incandescent lamp only a few years before.
Description
Irving Langmuir received a Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1906 from the University of Göttingen. He studied under Walther Nernst, who had invented a new type of incandescent lamp only a few years before. In 1909 Langmuir accepted a position at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York. Ironically, he soon invented a lamp that made Nernst's lamp (and others) obsolete.
Langmuir experimented with the bendable tungsten wire developed by his colleague William Coolidge. He wanted to find a way to keep tungsten lamps from "blackening" or growing dim as the inside of the bulb became coated with tungsten evaporated from the filament. Though he did not solve this problem, he did create a coiled-tungsten filament mounted in a gas-filled lamp—a design still used today.
Up to that time all the air and other gasses were removed from lamps so the filaments could operate in a vacuum. Langmuir found that by putting nitrogen into a lamp, he could slow the evaporation of tungsten from the filament. He then found that thin filaments radiated heat faster than thick filaments, but the same thin filament–wound into a coil–radiated heat as if it were a solid rod the diameter of the coil. By 1913 Langmuir had gas–filled lamps that gave 12 to 20 lumens per watt (lpw), while Coolidge's vacuum lamps gave about 10 lpw.
During the 1910s GE began phasing-in Langmuir's third generation tungsten lamps, calling them "Mazda C" lamps. Although today's lamps are different in detail (for example, argon is used rather than nitrogen), the basic concept is still the same. The lamp seen here was sent to the National Bureau of Standards in the mid 1920s for use as a standard lamp.
Lamp characteristics: Brass medium-screw base with skirt and glass insulator. Two tungsten filaments (both are C9 configuration, mounted in parallel) with 6 support hooks and a support attaching each lead to the stem. The stem assembly includes welded connectors, angled-dumet leads, and a mica heat-shield attached to the leads above the press. The shield clips are welded to the press. Lamp is filled with nitrogen gas. Tipless, G-shaped envelope with neck.
Date made
ca 1925
date made
ca. 1925
ID Number
1992.0342.23
accession number
1992.0342
catalog number
1992.0342.23
This lamp was mass-produced for the 50th anniversary of Edison’s invention.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
This lamp was mass-produced for the 50th anniversary of Edison’s invention.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1929
ID Number
EM.320464
catalog number
320464
accession number
241402
This lamp was mass-produced for the 50th anniversary of Edison’s invention.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
This lamp was mass-produced for the 50th anniversary of Edison’s invention.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1929
associated date
1879 10 21
associated person
Edison, Thomas Alva
ID Number
EM.314938
catalog number
314938
accession number
212908
This lamp was mass-produced for the 50th anniversary of Edison’s invention.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
This lamp was mass-produced for the 50th anniversary of Edison’s invention.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1929
associated date
1879 10 21
associated person
Edison, Thomas Alva
ID Number
EM.326672
catalog number
326672
accession number
263165
Grand is one of four boats used to survey the "ruggedest" 300 miles of the Colorado River's Grand Canyon during the 1923 expedition by the U.S. Geological Survey. Led by Col.
Description
Grand is one of four boats used to survey the "ruggedest" 300 miles of the Colorado River's Grand Canyon during the 1923 expedition by the U.S. Geological Survey. Led by Col. Claude Birdseye, the expedition's primary purpose was to survey potential dam sites for the development of hydroelectric power. Indeed, the survey party mapped twenty-one new sites.
Grand is eighteen feet long, with a beam of four feet, eleven inches. Heavily built of oak, spruce, and cedar, the boat weighs about 900 pounds. Grand is one of three boats ordered in 1921 by the survey's sponsors, the Edison Electric Company, and built at the Fellows and Stewart Shipbuilding Works in San Pedro. The vessels were patterned after those designed by the Kolb brothers, who had based their boats on vessels used by trappers in the upper Colorado River canyons.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1921
associated date
1923
associated institution
US Geological Survey
maker
Fellows and Stewart Shipbuilding Works
ID Number
TR.034381
catalog number
034381
34381
accession number
71541
Introduced in the early 19th century, snag boats were designed to clear trees, stumps, and other obstructions from navigable rivers and channels.
Description
Introduced in the early 19th century, snag boats were designed to clear trees, stumps, and other obstructions from navigable rivers and channels. Most were in the form of a catamaran, with two parallel hulls between which trees were hauled in, cut up, and disposed of on land.
Designed by the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency responsible for maintaining the national waterways, Charles H. West was built at Nashville, Tenn., in 1933-34 by the Nashville Bridge Co. at a cost of $227,260.48. It measured 170’ in length and 38’ in beam but only drew 4’-6” of water. Instead of a catamaran design, the West had a normal, shallow sternwheeler hull. At the flat or scow bow, two A-frames hauled snags up a ramp for disposal. It cleared snags along the lower Mississippi River for many years.
In 1969, the West was sold to a private party and converted to the restaurant boat Lt. Robert E. Lee in St. Louis, Mo. the following year. The name was fitting. Although best known as a Confederate general, in the late 1830s, Lee had been an officer in the Corps of Engineers. His work installing pilings and wing dams had helped the Mississippi currents to clear silt and keep open the main St. Louis landing.
Moored on the Mississippi near the St. Louis Arch, the Lee was a successful restaurant until a 1993 flood devastated the waterfront. After several failed attempts to reopen, the vessel was auctioned on December 19, 2008, for $200,000. Its new owners plan to renovate and reopen the famous ship once again as a restaurant and nightclub in St. Louis.
Date made
1966
ID Number
TR.326538
catalog number
326538
accession number
265606
The first successful mechanical refrigeration equipment was patented soon after the Civil War, but the large size and high cost of these early machines restricted their use to industrial processes.
Description
The first successful mechanical refrigeration equipment was patented soon after the Civil War, but the large size and high cost of these early machines restricted their use to industrial processes. In his effort to improve mechanical air-conditioning systems, Willis Haviland Carrier (1876-1950) introduced the first practical centrifugal refrigeration compressor in 1922 (pictured here). This machine provided the foundation for safer, smaller, and more powerful and efficient large-scale air-conditioning systems.
Prior to the introduction of the centrifugal compressor--which compressed the refrigerant gas through the centrifugal force created by rotors spinning at high speed—reciprocating compressors compressed the refrigerant by the action of pistons inside cylinders, much like an automobile engine. The centrifugal compressor proved an extremely important advancement and paved the way for "comfort" air conditioning in theaters, department stores, hospitals, banks, offices, and hotels.
Carrier installed this initial compressor at his company's Newark, N.J., offices, where he gave the first public demonstration of the machine on May 22, 1922. Two years later, he sold the compressor to the Onondaga Pottery Company of Syracuse, N.Y., for the air conditioning of its lithography plant. The machine remained in use there until about 1957, when the Carrier Company repurchased the compressor for donation to the Smithsonian. Earlier, in 1924, the Carrier Company had installed centrifugal refrigeration machines in the J. L. Hudson department store in Detroit and the Palace Theater in Dallas, thereby introducing the phrase "air conditioning" into the public vocabulary.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1922
maker
Carrier Corporation
ID Number
MC.318219
catalog number
318219
accession number
232896
The three-masted wooden propeller Edward Smith was built in 1890 by F.W. Wheeler & Co. at West Bay City, Michigan. The 201-foot bulk freighter is best known for rescuing crew from the old wooden steamer Annie Young on 20 October 1890 in Lake Huron.
Description
The three-masted wooden propeller Edward Smith was built in 1890 by F.W. Wheeler & Co. at West Bay City, Michigan. The 201-foot bulk freighter is best known for rescuing crew from the old wooden steamer Annie Young on 20 October 1890 in Lake Huron. The Young was transporting a cargo of coal from Buffalo to Gladstone, MI when a fire began somewhere in the vicinity of the boiler.
Upbound from Marine City, Smith’s Captain Mitchell saw the Young on fire, dropped the two barges he was towing and began circling the burning ship, rescuing 13 crew and the captain. Nine men were lost when their lifeboat swamped and sank. Capt. Mitchell was awarded a lifesaving medal for his efforts; Annie Young had been insured for $55,000.
In 1900, the Smith was renamed Zillah, when transferred at Port Huron, MI to new owners. On 29 August 1926, Zillah was transporting a cargo of heavy limestone when it sailed into a summer storm in Whitefish Bay, Lake Superior. The old steamer began to take on water, and the crew removed their belongings while Zillah coasted in a circle. The crew was rescued without loss by the steamer William B. Schiller, with assistance from the Coast Guard. Shortly afterwards, the ship rolled over and sank. The Zillah’s wreck was located in 1975.
Date made
1966
ship transferred to Michigan
1900
ship sank
1926-08-29
ship wreckage located
1975
built ship, Edward Smith
F. W. Wheeler & Co.
ID Number
TR.326655
catalog number
326655
accession number
265603
This scale model of Thomas Edison's Pearl Street power station was made in 1927.
Description
This scale model of Thomas Edison's Pearl Street power station was made in 1927. It demonstrates the internal arrangement of generating equipment and can be operated by means of a small electric motor in the base.
The first floor contained the boiler room and coal-handling equipment. Steam created by the boilers operated Porter-Allen horizontal steam engines on the second floor. The engines powered large Edison electrical generators nicknamed "Jumbo" after the famous elephant. Control and switching equipment were housed on the third and fourth floors.
The site for Edison's generating station had to satisfy both engineering and business needs. Because Edison used 100 volt direct current to power his new light bulbs, customers could be no further than ½ mile from the generator. But he needed a high profile location to promote the system. Edison chose a site in the heart of New York's financial district, 255 and 257 Pearl Street. On 4 September 1882, he threw a switch in the office of one of his main investors, J. Pierpont Morgan, and initiated service to the area.
A fire damaged the station extensively in 1890 but Edison and his men worked around the clock for 11 days to restore service. The station was taken out of service and dismantled in 1895, the building sold and later demolished. The New York Edison Company placed a commemorative plaque at the site in 1917.
Date made
1927
maker
Edison Company
ID Number
EM.309605
catalog number
309605
accession number
104795

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