Industry & Manufacturing

The Museum's collections document centuries of remarkable changes in products, manufacturing processes, and the role of industry in American life. In the bargain, they preserve artifacts of great ingenuity, intricacy, and sometimes beauty.

The carding and spinning machinery built by Samuel Slater about 1790 helped establish the New England textile industry. Nylon-manufacturing machinery in the collections helped remake the same industry more than a century later. Machine tools from the 1850s are joined by a machine that produces computer chips. Thousands of patent models document the creativity of American innovators over more than 200 years.

The collections reach far beyond tools and machines. Some 460 episodes of the television series Industry on Parade celebrate American industry in the 1950s. Numerous photographic collections are a reminder of the scale and even the glamour of American industry.

This patent model demonstrates an invention for an apparatus to receive and stack sheets as they came from a press, or cut and pile printed sheets from a web. The invention was granted patent number 25068.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
This patent model demonstrates an invention for an apparatus to receive and stack sheets as they came from a press, or cut and pile printed sheets from a web. The invention was granted patent number 25068.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1859
patent date
1859-08-09
patentee
Wilkinson, Jephtha A.
ID Number
GA.89797.025068
accession number
089797
patent number
025068
catalog number
GA*89797.025068
This patent model demonstrates an invention for a rotary printing press which was granted patent model number 25069. The patent details improvements to Wilkinson's press of 1853, patent number 9525.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
This patent model demonstrates an invention for a rotary printing press which was granted patent model number 25069. The patent details improvements to Wilkinson's press of 1853, patent number 9525.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1859
patent date
1859-08-09
patentee
Wilkinson, Jephtha A.
ID Number
GA.89797.025069
patent number
025069
accession number
089797
catalog number
GA*89797.025069
This patent model demonstrates an invention for a rotary press using tapered type on its type cylinders along with a special curved composing stick; the web of paper was cut and folded at the same machine, after printing.
Description (Brief)
This patent model demonstrates an invention for a rotary press using tapered type on its type cylinders along with a special curved composing stick; the web of paper was cut and folded at the same machine, after printing. The invention was granted patent number 468.
According to Stephen D. Tucker’s History of R. Hoe & Company, Wilkinson built a press along these lines for the New York Sun in 1842, but never succeeded in printing the paper at it.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1853
patent date
1853-01-04
maker
Wilkinson, Jephtha A.
ID Number
GA.11019
catalog number
GA*11019
accession number
48865
patent number
009525
catalog number
GA*48865.009525

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