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 935 items.
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[Fessenden's engineers, black-and-white photoprint.]
- Cite as
- George H. Clark Radioana Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
- Date
- 1914
- 1920-1930
- collector
- Clark, George H
- Subject
- Fessenden, R.A
- Local number
- AC0055-0000105.tif (AC Scan)
- 86-10566 (SI neg number)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
- No Image Available
Holton Duncan Robinson Papers, 1889-1938
- Notes
- Bridge designer, consulting engineer, and authority on bridge cable construction
- Summary
- Papers documenting the career of bridge designer and engineer Holton Duncan Robinson. The collection includes photographs, including cyanotypes, of bridges under construction; five patents; correspondence; programs; articles; and an 1889 notebook containing calculations
- Cite as
- Holton Duncan Robinson Papers, 1889-1938, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. Gift of Ann Robinson Henshaw
- Date
- 1889
- 1889-1938
- 20th century
- 1900-1950
- creator
- Robinson, Holton Duncan 1863-1945
- donor
- Henshaw, Ann Robinson
- Local number
- 2007.3045 (NMAH Acc.)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
La Libreria a Venise
- Description
- Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697–1768), known as Canaletto, etched this view of Venice featuring the Library of St. Mark and the Piazzetta in the 1740s. The Library was designed by Jacopo Sansovino (1486–1570), who is credited with bringing the High Renaissance style to Venice. Many travelers were interested in Renaissance and Baroque architecture, as well as the ruins of ancient Rome. Canaletto's views appealed especially to wealthy 18th-century British visitors who came to Venice on the Grand Tour. Americans also visited Italy and collected prints to remind them of places seen.
- Canaletto specialized in paintings of Venice, many of which show well-known landmarks. He also made a series of etchings. Some depict actual sites, as this one does, while others show invented landscapes. The Museum's set of Canaletto's Venetian etchings was received as a gift from Mabel Brady Garvan, who, with her husband Francis P. Garvan, built an important collection of American paintings, furniture, and decorative arts that is now at the Yale University Art Gallery.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- graphic artist
- Canaletto
- ID Number
- GA*21847
- catalog number
- 21847
- accession number
- 257503
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
E. Howard and Company Tower Clock
- Description
- In places that required many clocks—factories, office and public buildings, or schools—time was often distributed by a system of "master" and "slave" clocks. In such a system, a central timekeeper, the master clock, sent periodic impulses, usually electric or pneumatic, to any number of secondary or slave clocks. These slave clocks could be located anywhere, without regard for convenience of winding, because they needed none. The master clock could also drive other time signals like classroom bells, factory whistles, or time stamps. More economical to install and more convenient to maintain than an equal number of independent clocks, the system also ensured that all dials within the system agreed.
- The museum collection contains such a timekeeping system. The system's master clock (Cat. 310,569), built by E. Howard and Company of Boston, is a mechanical tower clock movement equipped with electrical contacts. Once a minute the escapement, through a pair of rotary switches, closes an electrical circuit and sends an impulse to the slave dial (Cat. 310,570), where electromagnets advance the hands. Batteries at the base of the master clock supply current.
- This clock and dial were components of a system that served the Smithsonian between about 1881 and 1932. First housed in the north tower of the Arts and Industries Building, the clock movement distributed impulses to eighteen dials in that building and the Castle, the Smithsonian's earliest building. Tunnels under the floors carried the wiring. The clock room also housed a telephone switchboard, a watchman's clock, a central burglar alarm, and call bells—all of which, like the time distribution system, relied on the newly harnessed power of electricity. "Indeed," boasted the Smithsonian's annual report for 1881, "it is believed that in no building in the world, with the exception of the Grand Opera House in Paris, is there so perfect and complete an application of electricity to practical services."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1880
- manufacturer
- E. Howard & Co.
- ID Number
- ME*310569
- catalog number
- 310569
- accession number
- 123081
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Slave Dial to Tower Clock
- Description
- In places that required many clocks—factories, office and public buildings, or schools—time was often distributed by a system of "master" and "slave" clocks. In such a system, a central timekeeper, the master clock, sent periodic impulses, usually electric or pneumatic, to any number of secondary or slave clocks. These slave clocks could be located anywhere, without regard for convenience of winding, because they needed none. The master clock could also drive other time signals like classroom bells, factory whistles, or time stamps. More economical to install and more convenient to maintain than an equal number of independent clocks, the system also ensured that all dials within the system agreed.
- The museum collection contains such a timekeeping system. The system's master clock (Cat. 310,569), built by E. Howard and Company of Boston, is a mechanical tower clock movement equipped with electrical contacts. Once a minute the escapement, through a pair of rotary switches, closes an electrical circuit and sends an impulse to the slave dial (Cat. 310,570), where electromagnets advance the hands. Batteries at the base of the master clock supply current.
- This clock and dial were components of a system that served the Smithsonian between about 1881 and 1932. First housed in the north tower of the Arts and Industries Building, the clock movement distributed impulses to eighteen dials in that building and the Castle, the Smithsonian's earliest building. Tunnels under the floors carried the wiring. The clock room also housed a telephone switchboard, a watchman's clock, a central burglar alarm, and call bells—all of which, like the time distribution system, relied on the newly harnessed power of electricity. "Indeed," boasted the Smithsonian's annual report for 1881, "it is believed that in no building in the world, with the exception of the Grand Opera House in Paris, is there so perfect and complete an application of electricity to practical services."
- Date made
- 1880
- ID Number
- ME*310570
- catalog number
- 310570
- accession number
- 123081
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
[View from top of bridge tower of bridge construction. Active no. 13624 stereo interpositive.]
- Notes
- Currently stored in box 1.2.9 [14]
- Same as RSN 427
- Date
- 1895
- 1900-1910
- publisher
- Underwood & Underwood
- H.C. White Co
- Local number
- RSN 426
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
[View from top of bridge tower of bridge construction.] 13624 interpositive
- Notes
- Currently stored in box 1.2.9 [14]
- Same as RSN 426
- Date
- 1900-1910
- publisher
- Underwood & Underwood
- H.C. White Co
- Local number
- RSN 427
- Video number 06384
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
[Howard University School of Engineering : acetate film photonegative, ca. 1930s.]
- Summary
- One student with machinery, uncaptioned. "Agfa Safety Film" edge imprint
- Cite as
- Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1930
- 1940
- ca 1930s
- 20th century
- 1930-1940
- photographer
- Scurlock, Addison N. 1883-1964
- film manufacturer
- Agfa
- Subject
- Howard University
- Local number
- 618ns0178959hu.tif (AC Scan)
- Freezer box 35
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Sch[ool] of Eng[ineering], H[oward] U[niversity] April [19]42 [cellulose acetate photonegative]
- Summary
- Four men dressed in lab coats in a laboratory. To the left is a fume cabinet. Two of the men are seated at a table with glass tubes in clamps. "310-B" is written on the door behind them. No ink on negative. "2 AGFA SAFETY FILM" edge imprint
- Cite as
- Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1942
- 1940-1950
- photographers
- Scurlock Studio (Washington, D.C.)
- film manufacturer
- Agfa
- Subject
- Howard University School of Engineering
- Local number
- Box 618.04.91
- AC0618.004.0000844.tif (scan number)
- No Scurlock number
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Sch[ool] of Eng[ineering], H[oward] U[niversity] April [19]42 [cellulose acetate photonegative]
- Summary
- Group of men and a woman in a laboratory working with test tubes, mortar and pestle and beakers. No ink on negative. "2 AGFA SAFETY FILM" edge imprint
- Cite as
- Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1942
- 1940-1950
- photographers
- Scurlock Studio (Washington, D.C.)
- film manufacturer
- Agfa
- Subject
- Howard University School of Engineering
- Local number
- Box 618.04.91
- AC0618.004.0000845.tif (scan number)
- No Scurlock number
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
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