Engineering, Building, and Architecture

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.

This is a 1/8-scale model of the tobacco ship Brilliant, a 250-ton vessel built in Virginia in 1775 for British owners.
Description
This is a 1/8-scale model of the tobacco ship Brilliant, a 250-ton vessel built in Virginia in 1775 for British owners. The Brilliant's first and probably only commercial venture from Virginia took place when it set sail for Liverpool, with a full hold of tobacco, in the summer of 1775. Typically the Brilliant would have returned with manufactured goods, but because of growing hostilities between Britain and the colonies, the ship remained in England. Records show that the Brilliant made one voyage to Jamaica and returned to London in 1776. Later that year, the Royal Navy purchased the vessel for just over £3,000 and converted it to a ship of war for service in the American Revolution.
The ship Brilliant had three masts and square-rigged sails. Its lower deck was 89'-3" long, its breadth was 27'-1/2", and the depth of the hold was 12'-2". The ship was built of oak, pine, and cedar. When purchased for war service, the Royal Navy assessed its hull, masts, and yards at £2,143. The cordage, including halyards, sheets, tack, and anchor cables, were assessed at £340. Brilliant's sails, 27 in all, were valued at £143. Five anchors were assessed at £58, while a long boat with a sailing rig and oars was estimated to be worth £45. Other items aboard the Brilliant were inventoried, including block and tackle, metal fittings, iron-bound water casks, hour and minute glasses, compasses, hammocks, an iron fire hearth, and 10 tons of coal.
After its conversion in 1776 as a ship of war in the Royal Navy, the Brilliant was commissioned as the HMS Druid. Its first voyage westbound across the Atlantic was as an escort for a convoy to the West Indies. The vessel served as the Druid until 1779, after which it became the fire ship Blast. In 1783, it was sold out of the service for £940 and, for the next 15 years, the former Virginia tobacco ship served as a whaler in Greenland. The vessel was lost in the Arctic in 1798.
This model was built by Charles and N. David Newcomb of Bolingbroke Marine in Trappe, Md. The model makers began their work in March 1975, scaling every timber to size and making everything out of the same type of wood as the original. They devised miniature rope-making equipment to manufacture the 5,000 feet of rigging and anchor cable required in 20 different sizes. Women from the Newcomb family and the surrounding community made the rigging and sails.
The model makers left the starboard side of the vessel unplanked to reveal the timbering and joinery of the hull and to permit a view of the vessel’s living accommodations in the stern and cargo stowage, complete with tobacco hogsheads.
Date made
1978
ship built
1775
voyage to Jamaica
1776
became a ship of war in Royal Navy
1776
ship lost at sea
1798
maker
Newcomb, Charles J.
Newcomb, N. David
ID Number
TR.335672
catalog number
335672
accession number
1978.0403
Honeywell, Inc. of Minneapolis, Minnesota manufactured this Honeywell Comfort T8095 Chronotherm thermostat around 1977. This front face of the thermostat features a clock, thermometer, and two (red and blue) temperature setting levers.
Description
Honeywell, Inc. of Minneapolis, Minnesota manufactured this Honeywell Comfort T8095 Chronotherm thermostat around 1977. This front face of the thermostat features a clock, thermometer, and two (red and blue) temperature setting levers. For heating, the left (blue) lever sets the lower temperature when the clock hits a blue pin, and the right (red) lever sets the temperature for when the clock has a red pin. The red and blue program pins are inserted into the clock, switching the furnace on or off to heat the house to its setting. The thermostat operated via a bimetallic strip and mercury tube, — the bimetallic bar would move one way when the temperature dropped, and another when the temperature rose. This movement shifted the mercury in a tube, opening and closing a circuit inside the tube when the mercury flowed to one side or the other.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1977
ID Number
2008.0011.17
accession number
2008.0011
catalog number
2008.0011.17
date made
ca 1977
ID Number
1982.0769.08
accession number
1982.0769
catalog number
1982.0769.08
Date made
1972
ID Number
1983.0250.02
accession number
1983.0250
catalog number
1983.0250.02
Alarm Clock by Rube Goldberg, circa 1970.
Description
Alarm Clock by Rube Goldberg, circa 1970. This non-working, sculpted model signed by Rube Goldberg was crafted [during the 1960s] to replicate a cartoon from the series The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts that he drew for between 1914 and 1964.
Inscription: At 6 a.m. garbage man picks up ashcan, causing mule to kick over statue of Indian warrior. Arrow punctures bucket and ice cubes fall on false teeth, causing them to chatter and nip elephant's tail. Elephant raises his trunk in pain, pressing lever which starts toy maestro to lead quartet in sad song. Sentimental girl breaks down and cries into flower pot, causing flower to grow and tickle man's feet. He rocks with laughter, starting machine that rings gong and slides sleeper out of bed into slippers on wheels, which propel him into bathroom where cold shower really wakes him up.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
circa 1970
depicted
Butts, Lucifer Gorgonzola
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
ID Number
GA.23502
accession number
1972.289709
catalog number
GA*23502
accession number
289709
Hopper dredges are used to clear channels and offshore sandbars as well as sediment deposits that restrict navigation into rivers and harbors.
Description
Hopper dredges are used to clear channels and offshore sandbars as well as sediment deposits that restrict navigation into rivers and harbors. They work like underwater vacuum cleaners: each dredge is equipped with a suction pipe, or drag arm, that gathers up sediment from the bottom. The dredged sediment is then stored in the ship’s interior containers, or hoppers. When the hoppers are full, the dredge uses a series of pumps and pipelines to transport the sediment to a secondary location for disposal.
Built in 1926 by the Federal Shipping Company, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel, in Kearny, New Jersey, the hopper dredge Willets Point could raise sediment from depths of 12 to 35 feet. This 200-foot vessel was designed for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and represents the type of equipment used in early 20th-century harbor improvement work. In 1927 the Willets Point was commissioned to dredge sections of the Potomac River. At the time, large vessels could not reach Alexandria, Virginia, and Washington, D. C., because of sedimentation in the channels and harbors. Between January and April 1927, the Willets Point moved 581,507 cubic yards of sediment from the bottom of the Potomac.
Hopper dredges cannot move quickly while working. As a result, dredges use a series of signal patterns to let nearby ships know when they are actively working. During the day an arrangement of black circles and diamonds is raised up on the mast, while at night the dredges use an alternating pattern of red and white lights.
This cutaway model was built by Severn-Lamb Ltd., in Stratford-on-Avon, England.
date made
1970
1926
ID Number
TR.330083
catalog number
330083
accession number
288668
Description: This crumpled piece of exterior sheathing from the World Trade Center was recovered from the debris pile.Context: The twin towers of the World Trade Center, a New York City landmark and the tallest buildings in the world when completed in 1973, were noted for their i
Description
Description: This crumpled piece of exterior sheathing from the World Trade Center was recovered from the debris pile.
Context: The twin towers of the World Trade Center, a New York City landmark and the tallest buildings in the world when completed in 1973, were noted for their incredible 110-story height and their gleaming exterior. The towers were clad in an aluminum alloy sheathing that gave the buildings a golden sheen at sunrise and sunset. The material covered the closely-spaced exterior steel columns, enhancing their soaring appearance.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
late 1960s-early 1970s
ID Number
2002.0205.05
accession number
2002.0205
catalog number
2002.0205.05

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