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 547 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
[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
Winston Churchill at demonstration of the magnetically levitated railway at Bachelet Works [black and white photoprint,] 1914
- Notes
- In Box 1, Folder 12
- Summary
- Photographer unidentified, but possibly by Brown Bros. Churchill is shown in profile, slightly to the right of the center of the image
- Cite as
- Emile Bachelet Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. Gift of Albert E. Bachelet
- Date
- 1914
- 1910-1920
- Subject
- Churchill, Winston Sir 1874-1965
- Bachelet, Emile (inventor) 1863-1946
- Local number
- AC0302-0000012.tif (AC Scan)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
- No Image Available
J. Parker Snow Collection, 1882-1933 (bulk 1930-1933)
- Notes
- Bridge engineer
- Summary
- Snow's engineering notebook, 1882; notes relating to his writings on the history of wooden bridges; drafts and manuscripts for articles he wrote on the development of wooden bridges; and correspondence, especially with engineering journals relating to efforts to get his manuscripts published
- Cite as
- J. Parker Snow Collection, 1882-1933 (bulk 1930-1933), Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1882
- 1882-1933
- bulk 1930-1933
- 20th century
- 1930-1940
- 1850-1900
- creator
- Snow, J. Parker
- collector
- History of Technology, Division of, NMAH, SI
- Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Division of [former name], NMAH, SI
- Work and Industry, Division of, NMAH, SI
- Local number
- 2007.3098 (NMAH Acc.)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Simplex '50' Racing and Touring Car, 1912
- Description
- This Simplex '50' is an early example of a type of car marketed as a touring car that could also be raced. Thus it is an example of what came to be termed, in the 1940s, a "sports car."
- American automobile racing is characterized by many widely divergent types of racing, each type having its own distinct history. Many aspects are/have been unique to each racing type: the general design of its participating cars, its sanctioning organization, its funding sources and owner-participants, the types of courses raced on, the different designated classes within an overall design, the official rules governing design details of the cars (rules that usually change every few years), and an enthusiastic base of fans who are often uninterested in the other types of motor racing. A century-long and complex history explains these distinctions and their genesis. A "fascination with speed" is only the seed of the story of each type and explains very little of what was seen in the past, or what is seen today, on race tracks around the United States.
- "Sports cars" came to the US as a post-World War II phenomenon. Ex-servicemen who had been based in England began bringing British sports cars to American soil in 1948. Auto dealerships selling such makes as MG, Triumph, and Jaguar - and Porsche from Germany and Ferrari from Italy - opened in the US for the first time. These cars were typical of European engineering for two-door performance cars: light, agile, many with small or medium-sized engines compared to general US custom, and right at home on curving, twisting roads where a driver could test his or her cornering skill.
- The provenance of this Simplex is not known in detail, nor whether it has a racing history. In 1922, it was registered to a Dunbar Adams of Bay Shore, Long Island; in 1929 it was given to the Smithsonian by a Mr. and Mrs. John D. Adams of the same town. The car has a stock Simplex '50' chassis with a 'skeleton' body - meaning, a sporting as distinct from a commodious body - by the Holbrook Co. (A customer purchasing a chassis-and-engine from an auto manufacturer and a body separately for fitting-on by a body manufacturer was a common practice in the first decade of the 20th century, though a rapidly declining practice by the mid-1910s.) The car is red (the semi-official color for American cars in international races of the time), with a four-cylinder engine and chain drive.
- The car was repainted and reupholstered by a contractor to the Smithsonian in 1950. At that time, Harvey Firestone, Jr., donated the seven 33-inch x 5-inch tires now fitted
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1912
- contributed
- Firestone, Jr., Harvey S.
- through
- King, George S.
- maker
- Simplex Automobile Co.
- ID Number
- TR*309549
- catalog number
- 309549
- accession number
- 104418
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Robert Scofield Condon Engineering Papers, ca. 1924-1973
- Notes
- Robert S. Condon, engineer at Continental Can Co., was born in Bloomington, Ill. Graduate engineer, University of Illinois. Married Catherine Behrens, 1924 (d. 1958); they spent 15 years in Rutland, Vermont, where he was a founder of the Fibre Can Machinery Corp., later sold to the Continental Can Co. His second wife was Ilza de Souza Condon. After retirement, Condon continued consulting work; his last project was the "Marvel" pencil pointer or sharpener
- Summary
- Documents and photographs (including prints and negatives) relating to the patents, inventions, and designs of mechanical engineer Robert Scofield Condon. The bulk of the material concerns the development of his small "Marvel" pencil sharpener
- Cite as
- Robert Scofield Condon Engineering Papers, ca. 1924-1973, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1924
- 1924-1973
- ca 1924-1973
- 1920-1980
- 20th century
- author
- Condon, Robert Scofield (engineer) 1896-1973
- donor
- Condon, Robert B
- Subject
- Fibre Can Machinery Corp. Rutland (Vt.)
- Continental Can Co
- Local number
- 1991.8049 (NMAH Acc.)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
[Howard University School of Engineering : acetate film photonegative, ca. 1930s.]
- Summary
- Uncaptioned. Four students working with large machinery. "Agfa Safety Film" edge imprint. Technically excellent image
- 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
- 618ns0178956hu.tif (AC Scan)
- Freezer box 35
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
