Engineering, Building, and Architecture - Overview
Not many museums collect houses. The National Museum of American History has four, as well as two outbuildings, 11 rooms, an elevator, many building components, and some architectural elements from the White House. Drafting manuals are supplemented by many prints of buildings and other architectural subjects. The breadth of the museum's collections adds some surprising objects to these holdings, such as fans, purses, handkerchiefs, T-shirts, and other objects bearing images of buildings.
The engineering artifacts document the history of civil and mechanical engineering in the United States. So far, the Museum has declined to collect dams, skyscrapers, and bridges, but these and other important engineering achievements are preserved through blueprints, drawings, models, photographs, sketches, paintings, technical reports, and field notes.
"Engineering, Building, and Architecture - Overview" showing 67 items.
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- No Image Available
Division of Transportation: Railroads' Engineering Data, 1912-1949
- Summary
- Includes statistics on electric train operation, drawings, blueprints, technical papers, train classifications, research and development reports, business and financial correspondence (1933, 1939-48, 1940-41), installation and operation instructions, locomotive system test procedures, locomotive operations data and calculations, records of locomotive mileages and part failures, suggested locomotive improvements, locomotive specifications, plans for fire extinguishing systems, tonnage ratings, etc
- Railroads represented are the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, Piedmont and Northern Railroad, Pennsylvania Railroad, Takata and Company Railroad, Philadelphia and Western Railroad, Sorocabana Railway, and Erie Railroad Company
- Cite as
- Division of Transportation: Railroads' Engineering Data, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1912
- 1912-1949
- 1930-1950
- collector
- Hamily, David
- Transportation, Division of, NMAH, SI
- Subject
- New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad
- Piedmont and Northern Railroad
- Pennsylvania Railroad
- Takata and Company Railroad
- Philadelphia and Western Railroad
- Sorocabana Railway
- Erie Railroad Company
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Model, Liberty Ship
- Description
- This model represents one of the 2,710 Liberty ships built during World War II. The designation EC2-S-C1 was the standard designation of the dry cargo Liberty ships that were used by the United States Merchant Marine to transport nearly anything needed by the Allies. Whether in Europe, Africa, or the Pacific, most of the essential supplies arrived on ships, including tanks, ammunition, fuel, food, toilet paper, cigarettes, and even the troops themselves. Manning these vessels was a dangerous task, as the merchant vessels faced tremendous losses from submarines, mines, destroyers, aircraft, kamikaze fighters, and the unpredictable elements of the various destinations. One in 26 merchant mariners died during the war, a higher fatality rate than that of any branch of the armed forces.
- Even before the United States was officially involved in World War II, shipyards on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts were building Liberty ships. Drawing from lessons learned at Hog Island in the First World War, Liberty ships were standardized and designed to be built quickly and efficiently. Using new welding technology, workers pieced together prefabricated sections in assembly-line fashion. This largely replaced the labor-intensive method of riveting, while lowering the cost and speeding up production. While it took about 230 days to build one Liberty ship in the first year, the average construction time eventually dropped to 42 days, with three new ships being launched each day in 1943.
- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt attended the launching of the first Liberty ship on September 27, 1941, at the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland. The ship was the SS Patrick Henry, named after the Revolutionary War hero whose famous “Give me Liberty or give me Death!” speech inspired the ships’ nickname. At the launching of the first “ugly duckling,” the President’s name for the stout and functional Liberty ships, he praised the shipyard workers: “With every new ship, they are striking a telling blow at the menace to our nation and the liberty of the free peoples of the world.” President Roosevelt proclaimed that these ships would help to bring a new kind of liberty to people around the world.
- date made
- early 1940s
- launching of first Liberty Ship, SS Patrick Henry
- 1941-09-27
- attended first launching
- Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
- ID Number
- TR*313022
- accession number
- 170015
- catalog number
- 313022
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
[Trade catalogs from Dodge & Day]
- Date
- 1900s
- Company Name
- Dodge & Day
- Record ID
- SILNMAHTL_12882
- Data source
- Smithsonian Institution Libraries
- No Image Available
[Trade catalogs from Gannett Fleming Corddry & Carpenter Inc.]
- Date
- 1900s
- Company Name
- Gannett Fleming Corddry & Carpenter Inc.
- Related companies
- Gannett Fleming, Inc. ;
- Record ID
- SILNMAHTL_17264
- Data source
- Smithsonian Institution Libraries
- No Image Available
[Trade catalogs from Hales & Ballinger]
- Date
- 1900s
- Company Name
- Hales & Ballinger
- Related companies
- Tioga Steel and Forge Works, Ltd.
- Record ID
- SILNMAHTL_18375
- Data source
- Smithsonian Institution Libraries
- No Image Available
[Trade catalogs from United Engineers & Constructors Inc.]
- Date
- 1900s
- Company Name
- United Engineers & Constructors Inc.
- Related companies
- This company is a combination of the following four engineering and construction organizations: U.G.I. Contracting Co. (Philadelphia, PA), Public Service Production Co. (Newark, NJ), Dwight P. Robinson & Co., Inc. (New York, NY), and Day & Zimmermann Engineering & Construction Co. (Philadelphia, PA).
- Record ID
- SILNMAHTL_27042
- Data source
- Smithsonian Institution Libraries
- No Image Available
[Trade catalogs from United Engineers & Constructors Inc.]
- Date
- 1900s
- Company Name
- United Engineers & Constructors Inc.
- Related companies
- A subsidiary of the Raytheon Company
- Record ID
- SILNMAHTL_27056
- Data source
- Smithsonian Institution Libraries
- No Image Available
[Trade catalogs from Pennsylvania Iron Works Co.]
- Date
- 1900s
- Company Name
- Pennsylvania Iron Works Co.
- Record ID
- SILNMAHTL_30095
- Data source
- Smithsonian Institution Libraries
- No Image Available
[Trade catalogs from H. M. Chance & Co.]
- Date
- 1900s
- Company Name
- H. M. Chance & Co.
- Record ID
- SILNMAHTL_10321
- Data source
- Smithsonian Institution Libraries
- No Image Available
[Trade catalogs from Day & Zimmermann Engineering & Construction Co., Inc.]
- Date
- 1900s
- Company Name
- Day & Zimmermann Engineering & Construction Co., Inc.
- Record ID
- SILNMAHTL_13298
- Data source
- Smithsonian Institution Libraries