| National Museum of American History

Telegraph message, printed in Morse code, transcribed and signed by Samuel F. B. Morse.

Description: Telegraph message, printed in Morse code, transcribed and signed by Samuel F. B. Morse. This message was transmitted from Baltimore, Maryland, to Washington, D.C., over the nation's first long-distance telegraph line.; In 1843, Congress allocated $30,000 for Morse (1791-1872) to build an electric telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore. Morse and his partner, Alfred Vail (1807-1859), completed the forty-mile line in May 1844. For the first transmissions, they used a quotation from the Bible, Numbers 23:23: "What hath God wrought," suggested by Annie G. Ellsworth (1826-1900), daughter of Patent Commissioner Henry L. Ellsworth (1791-1858) who was present at the event on 24 May. Morse, in the Capitol, sent the message to Vail at the B&O Railroad's Pratt Street Station in Baltimore. Vail then sent a return message confirming the message he had received.; The original message transmitted by Morse from Washington to Baltimore, dated 24 May 1844, is in the collections of the Library of Congress. The original confirmation message from Vail to Morse is in the collections of the Connecticut Historical Society.; This tape, dated 25 May, is a personal souvenir transmitted by Vail in Baltimore to Morse in Washington the day following the inaugural transmissions. The handwriting on the tape is that of Morse himself. Found in Morse’s papers after his death the tape was donated to the Smithsonian in 1900 by his son Edward, where it has been displayed in many exhibitions.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1844-05-25; 1844-05-24
associated date: 1844-05-24
donated: 1900-04-18

associated person: Morse, Samuel Finley Breese
maker: Morse, Samuel Finley Breese

ID Number: EM.001028
catalog number: 001028
accession number: 65555

Margaret Knight (1838–1914) applied for a patent using this model to demonstrate her machine that folded and pasted flat-bottomed paper bags. She was granted patent number 220925 for the invention in 1879.

Description (Brief): Margaret Knight (1838–1914) applied for a patent using this model to demonstrate her machine that folded and pasted flat-bottomed paper bags. She was granted patent number 220925 for the invention in 1879. As stated in her patent specification, this design is an improvement on her earlier patent, number 116,842, granted in 1871. Her concept continues to be used in the manufacture of today's paper grocery bag.; Margaret was born in Maine, later living in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Her first patented invention, inspired by her work at a Springfield, Massachusetts paper company, was her machine for improvement in paper-feeding; it was given patent number 109224 in 1870. She received patents for inventions having to do with the paper bag, shoe manufacturing, and rotary engine industries.; While many women had innovative ideas during the 19th century, it was sometimes difficult for them to secure patents under their own names. Knight's inventions are celebrated because they demonstrate women's participation in the American patent system.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1879
patent date: 1879-10-28

maker: Knight, Margaret E.

ID Number: 1980.0004.01
accession number: 1980.0004
catalog number: 1980.0004.01
patent number: 220925
catalog number: GA*89797.220925

In March 1856, the University of Michigan named a committee “to contract for the construction of a suitable microscope for the University.” Within a year or so, this committee had spent $469 for a microscope made by Charles Achilles Spencer, America’s first successful microscope

Description: In March 1856, the University of Michigan named a committee “to contract for the construction of a suitable microscope for the University.” Within a year or so, this committee had spent $469 for a microscope made by Charles Achilles Spencer, America’s first successful microscope maker. This enormous sum was charged to the account of "Natural History" and the microscope was placed in the hands of Alexander Winchell, a professor of geology who would soon be named Geologist of the State. Twenty years later, after Winchell had left the University, the costly microscope was transferred to the Physiological Laboratory in the Medical School. The transfer was arranged by Charles Stowell, a young doctor who would spend his career teaching physiology and microscopy, and who was clearly aware of the historic importance of the instrument. In an obituary notice penned shortly after Spencer’s death in 1881, Stowell explained that the objective was a 1/16 of “as near 180°as can be obtained.” That is, it had a very short focal length and a very wide angular aperture. When Stowell got his hands on this objective, he saw a crack “running across about 1/3 of the field,” and so returned it to the firm. Spencer replied that he could make a new objective nearly as cheap as he could remedy this, “for it is one of my first glasses.” Accepting the inevitable, Stowell ordered a new 1/18. We have not yet measure the objective, but note that it does not appear to have a crack.; Spencer referred to the stand of this microscope as a Pritchard, recognizing that the form had been popularized by Andrew Pritchard, an important London naturalist and optician. The “C. A. & H. Spencer / Canastota, N.Y.” inscription on the tube refers to the partnership between Charles A. Spencer and his cousin Hamilton, a partnership that began around 1848 and ended around 1854.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1849-1859
associated dates: 1990-04-10

maker: C. A. & H. Spencer

ID Number: 1990.0183.01
catalog number: 1990.0183.01
accession number: 1990.0183

Emile Berliner, a German immigrant who settled in Washington, D.C., profoundly influenced the direction of early sound-recording technology.

Description: Emile Berliner, a German immigrant who settled in Washington, D.C., profoundly influenced the direction of early sound-recording technology. In November 1887 he patented the first of a series of inventions that would result in a commercially successful disk record and a machine to play it on--the gramophone.; This rare rubber record is about 7 inches in diameter. It was made in May 1898 and donated to the museum by Berliner himself. According to information inscribed by hand in the center of the disk, it plays a banjo duet of the tune "Narcissus," performed by Joseph Cullen and William Collins.; Part of Berliner's success stemmed from his process that permitted mass-production of sound recordings. In that process, a performer made a master recording, a mold of that master was made, and then, from that mold, multiple disks could be pressed.; In contrast, Berliner's main competition—Edison's phonograph and the Bell-Tainter graphophone—played recordings made on wax cylinders with vertically cut grooves. At first, the only way to make multiple copies of these cylinders was to make multiple originals, but by about 1900 a process for making mass-producing cylinders was devised. In the meantime Berliner's disk recordings, longer playing and more durable than cylinders, won over consumers. Berliner's design for a laterally cut disk record, playing at 78 revolutions per minute, became the industry standard.; Berliner experimented with a variety of materials for records, including glass, celluloid, and hard rubber. He eventually settled on a shellac compound called Duranoid. Other manufacturers adopted the compound as well and continued to make records with it until the late 1940s. In search of a more durable material, Columbia Records introduced the vinyl long-playing 33 rpm disk record and RCA the three-minute 45-rpm disk.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1898-05

referenced: Cullen, Joseph; Collins, William
maker: Berliner, Emile

ID Number: ME.308322
catalog number: 308322
accession number: 71816

Alfred Vail made this key, believed to be from the first Baltimore-Washington telegraph line, as an improvement on Samuel Morse's original transmitter.

Description: Alfred Vail made this key, believed to be from the first Baltimore-Washington telegraph line, as an improvement on Samuel Morse's original transmitter. Vail helped Morse develop a practical system for sending and receiving coded electrical signals over a wire, which was successfully demonstrated in 1844.; Morse's telegraph marked the arrival of instant long-distance communication in America. The revolutionary technology excited the public imagination, inspiring predictions that the telegraph would bring about economic prosperity, national unity, and even world peace.

Date made: 1844
used date: 1844

demonstrator: Morse, Samuel Finley Breese; Vail, Alfred
maker: Vail, Alfred; Morse, Samuel Finley Breese

ID Number: EM.181411
catalog number: 181411
accession number: 31652

In 1928, the E. I. DuPont de Nemours Co. hired Wallace Carothers Ph. to conduct pure research in any area of chemistry he chose. His interest was in the construction of long chain polymers, similar to those found in nature.

Description: In 1928, the E. I. DuPont de Nemours Co. hired Wallace Carothers Ph. to conduct pure research in any area of chemistry he chose. His interest was in the construction of long chain polymers, similar to those found in nature. There was no product in mind when he and his team began their work, they simply wanted to learn as much about large molecules as possible. The work done by Carothers and his team lead to the discovery of polyesters and polyamides. DuPont went with the polyamides, and nylon was born. It was the first fiber produced entirely in the laboratory, and was introduced to the public in the form of women's stockings at the 1939 World's Fair. Nylon stockings went on sale May 15, 1940, and were a smashing success. Prior to the production of nylon stockings, American women wore stockings made of silk or rayon. By 1942, nylon stockings were taking twenty percent of the stocking market. With U.S. entry into World War Two, nylon was declared a defense material and withdrawn from the civilian market. Nylon's most famous use during the war was as a replacement for silk in parachutes. However, it was also used in ropes, netting, tire cord, and dozens of other items. So many uses were found for nylon that some referred to it as the "fiber that won the war." When the war ended, nylon stockings were brought back and quickly replaced silk and rayon in the stocking market.; This is the first pair of experimental nylon stockings made by Union Hosiery Company for Du Pont in 1937. The leg of the stocking is nylon, the upper welt, toe, and heel are silk, and cotton is found in the seam. The nylon section of the stocking would not take the silk dye, and dyed to black instead of brown.

Date made: ca 1937; 1937

maker: Union Hosiery Co.

ID Number: TE.T12049
accession number: 227591
catalog number: T12049

George Selden's dubious claim that he invented the automobile cast a shadow on the early auto manufacturing industry. His claim rested on a patent application for a "road-engine" that he had filed in 1879.

Description: George Selden's dubious claim that he invented the automobile cast a shadow on the early auto manufacturing industry. His claim rested on a patent application for a "road-engine" that he had filed in 1879. A lawyer schooled in science, Selden was intrigued by the challenge of devising an engine light enough to propel a road vehicle. He designed a small, improved version of George Brayton's compression engine of 1872 and filed a patent application for "a liquid-hydrocarbon engine of the compression type" combined with broadly defined chassis components. Selden deliberately delayed issuance of the patent until 1895, when automobiles were attracting more attention. Soon a patent-pooling association of auto manufacturing companies demanded and received royalties from other manufacturers for the right to produce Selden's "invention." Henry Ford, then just entering the automobile industry, became locked in a highly-publicized legal battle with the Selden interests when his application for a license was turned down in 1903. Ford blasted monopolistic control and exploitation by the "automobile trust" and forever fixed his image as an independent businessman fighting a corporate Goliath for the good of all. Ford's victory in court raised his standing in the automotive industry and made him one of the best known businessmen in America. In 1911 the Selden patent was limited to vehicles with Brayton-type engines as modified by Selden, and his influence quickly faded.
Location: Currently not on view

Date made: 1879
patent date: 1895-11-05

inventor: Selden, George B.

ID Number: TR.252678
catalog number: 252678
accession number: 49064
patent number: 549,160

One of the signature events of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 was the failure of the levees of New Orleans.

Description: One of the signature events of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 was the failure of the levees of New Orleans. Seemingly impregnable earthen walls surmounted by concrete barricades turned out to be no match for the surging flood waters that turned Lake Pontchartrain into a force that devastated one of the nation's major cities.; From the earliest years of the city's establishment several feet below sea level, New Orleans has been at risk of catastrophic flooding. And yet the city's vital location at the mouth of the Mississippi River, taking in raw materials and finished goods and distributing them to the world, was too strong an economic force to be turned away. The threat of water inundation was nothing that good engineering and a few pumps could not overcome.; But some of the largest drainage pumps in the world were rendered useless on the morning of August 30th when some eighty percent of New Orleans became a part of Lake Pontchartrain. The great pump houses stood silent beneath many feet of flood water. The city that depended upon strong walls and the pumps behind them in order to stay dry had encountered a force of nature unlike anything it had experienced before: a large, strong hurricane sweeping vast quantities of ocean water into the lake at high tide.; Geological studies would later reveal that some of the earthen levees of New Orleans had been built on soft, peaty soils and that many of the concrete flood walls that topped the levees were poorly anchored. Several of these levees and their walls were undercut and then destroyed by the ponderous weight and power of the lake water.; To acknowledge the key role of the levees and walls in the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, the Smithsonian selected several decorative chunks of concrete from the damaged floodwall along the London Avenue Canal at Mirabeau Street.; This floodwall's attractive concrete ribbing faced houses that stood within several feet of the canal, houses later destroyed by waters the levee intended to keep at bay.
Location: Currently not on view

Associated Date: 2005-08-2005-09

ID Number: 2006.3059.02
nonaccession number: 2006.3059
catalog number: 2006.3059.02

Thomas Edison used this carbon-filament bulb in the first public demonstration of his most famous invention, the first practical electric incandescent lamp, which took place at his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory on New Year's Eve, 1879.As the quintessential American inventor-

Description: Thomas Edison used this carbon-filament bulb in the first public demonstration of his most famous invention, the first practical electric incandescent lamp, which took place at his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory on New Year's Eve, 1879.; As the quintessential American inventor-hero, Edison personified the ideal of the hardworking self-made man. He received a record 1,093 patents and became a skilled entrepreneur. Though occasionally unsuccessful, Edison and his team developed many practical devices in his "invention factory," and fostered faith in technological progress.

Date made: 1879
used date: 1879-12-31

user: Edison, Thomas Alva
maker: Edison, Thomas Alva

ID Number: EM.181797
catalog number: 181797
accession number: 33407

Electricity pioneer Lewis Latimer drew this component of an arc lamp, an early type of electric light, for the U.S. Electric Lighting Company in 1880.The son of escaped slaves and a Civil War veteran at age sixteen, Latimer trained himself as a draftsman.

Description: Electricity pioneer Lewis Latimer drew this component of an arc lamp, an early type of electric light, for the U.S. Electric Lighting Company in 1880.; The son of escaped slaves and a Civil War veteran at age sixteen, Latimer trained himself as a draftsman. His technical and artistic skills earned him jobs with Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, among others. An inventor in his own right, Latimer received numerous patents and was a renowned industry expert on incandescent lighting.
Location: Currently not on view

Date made: 1880-07-25

maker: Latimer, Lewis H.

ID Number: 1983.0458.21
accession number: 1983.0458
catalog number: 1983.0458.21

Using custom stopwatches, specialized timers, and still and moving pictures, Frank Gilbreth and his wife Lillian created a system for analyzing human motion in time. Their main clients were industrial managers, who sought to increase worker output while saving time and money.

Description: Using custom stopwatches, specialized timers, and still and moving pictures, Frank Gilbreth and his wife Lillian created a system for analyzing human motion in time. Their main clients were industrial managers, who sought to increase worker output while saving time and money. Their study subjects were workers, whose job satisfaction the Gilbreths hoped to increase as they decreased wasted motions.; The Gilbreths did not invent stopwatch studies. Instead, in their system of motion study, watches were secondary, in direct reaction to worker resistance to earlier stopwatch studies conducted in industrial workplaces by management reformer Frederick Winslow Taylor beginning in the 1880s.; Taylor's approach came to be known as Taylorism or "scientific management" and included numerous measures to make industry more productive and cost-efficient. As a small part of this program, he advocated the stopwatch as the "scientific," objective arbiter of work, a means of measuring, controlling, and standardizing the amount of time a worker spent at a task. The popularity of stopwatch studies rose among industrial managers, and Taylor's work inspired generations of industrial engineers, who used stopwatches in their research well into the 1960s.; But as stopwatch studies spread at the beginning of the 20th century, craft unions mounted bitter campaigns against them in open revolt against the new techniques aimed at speeding up their work and controlling their time. The stopwatch became an object of contention between managers and workers, the single most visible manifestation of the new management systems.; In the short span of Taylor's lifetime, the stopwatch became the symbol of everything hated and revered about scientific management. Although the stopwatch no longer provokes the passions it once did, scientific management's compelling emphasis on standardization, order, and efficiency and its obsession with time persists in our own age.

associated date: 1910-1920

referenced: Gilbreth, Lillian Moller; Gilbreth, Frank Bunker

ID Number: 1980.0808.01
accession number: 1980.0808
serial number: 367102; 376880
catalog number: 1980.0808.01

In 1794, Eli Whitney patented a new kind of cotton gin.

Description: In 1794, Eli Whitney patented a new kind of cotton gin. His invention, using rotating brushes and teeth to remove the seeds from cotton, was quickly pirated by others.; Southern plantation owners depended on slaves for labor-intensive crops such as rice, sugar, tobacco, and especially cotton. As the market demand for cotton increased in the early 1800s, the Southern cotton industry expanded dramatically, as did the system of slave labor it relied on.
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: TE.T08791.000
catalog number: T08791.000
accession number: 48865

This "Tom Mix" style cowboy hat made by the John B. Stetson Company dates from 1910 to 1930. The huge ten-gallon Stetson hat was Tom Mix's trademark.

Description: This "Tom Mix" style cowboy hat made by the John B. Stetson Company dates from 1910 to 1930. The huge ten-gallon Stetson hat was Tom Mix's trademark. He was the top cowboy movie star of American silent films, known for his daring stunts and his equally famous elaborate cowboy outfits. More than any other star before 1930, Tom Mix had great influence on western wear.; Tom Mix was born on January 6, 1880 in Mix Run, Pennsylvania. His given name was Thomas Hezikiah Mix, but when he enlisted in the Army in April 1898, he listed his name as Thomas E. Mix. Mix appeared in over three hundred western films until his movie career ended when silent films were replaced by talking films. He then worked in rodeos and circuses until his death in 1940 from a freak automobile accident.; The average cowboy wore a hat called a "JB," which stood for John B. Stetson, a hatter who started his company in 1865. He built one of America's most well known and successful businesses and created hats that stood for innovation, quality, and durability. This cowboy hat is one of the styles that the John B. Stetson Company was known for producing. It is made of an off-white felt with a matching ribbon band and measures seven inches high by fourteen inches wide by eighteen inches deep.
Location: Currently not on view

Date made: 1910 - 1930

maker: Stetson

ID Number: CS.112055.001
catalog number: 112055.001
accession number: 112055

In the fictional universe of George Lucas' Star Wars films, robots called droids (short for android) come in many shapes and served many purposes. Two droids—R2-D2 and C-3PO—have won enormous popularity for their supporting roles in all six of the series.

Description: In the fictional universe of George Lucas' Star Wars films, robots called droids (short for android) come in many shapes and served many purposes. Two droids—R2-D2 and C-3PO—have won enormous popularity for their supporting roles in all six of the series. In the collections of the National Museum of American History are costumes of R2-D2 and C-3PO from Return of the Jedi, released in 1983 and the third film in the Star Wars series.; Designed from artwork by Ralph McQuarrie in 1975, R2-D2 looks more like a small blue-and-white garbage can than a human being. In the films, R2-D2 is the type of droid built to interface with computers and service starships--a kind of super technician suited for tasks well beyond human capability. By turns comic and courageous, this helpmate communicates with expressive squeals and head spins, lumbers on stubby legs, and repeatedly saves the lives of human masters.; Several R2-D2 units, specialized according to function and edited into a final composite, were used for making a single movie scene. Some units were controlled remotely. Others, like this one, were costume shells, in which actor Kenny Baker sat and manipulated the droid movements.; R2-D2's sidekick and character foil, also based on art by Ralph McQuarrie, is C-3PO. Termed a protocol droid in the films, C-3PO can speak six million languages and serves the diverse cultures of Lucas' imaginary galaxy as a robotic diplomat and translator. Where R2 is terse, 3PO is talkative. Where R2 is brave, 3PO is often tentative and sometimes downright cowardly. Where R2 looks like a machine, 3PO—in spite of the distinctive gold "skin"—more closely resembles a human in movements, vision, and intelligence.; In each of the films, actor Anthony Daniels wore the C-3PO costumes. Like the R2-D2 units, more than one C-3PO costume was used for each movie.; The Star Wars films are much more than pop entertainment. Since the first of the series was released in 1977, they have been so immensely popular that they have become cultural reference points for successive American generations. And like other popular works of science fiction, they play a powerful role in shaping our vision of the future.; Likewise, the droids are more than movie stars in these influential films. They are also indicators of the place of robots in the American experience. Conceived at a time when more robots inhabited the imaginative worlds of science fiction than the real world, R2-D2 and C-3PO represent the enduring dream of having robots as personal servants, to do things we will not or cannot do for ourselves. Today, real robots are more numerous. They mostly work on industrial production lines, but researchers are working to extend the use of robots for tasks not humanly possible. It is likely we will see more of them in the future—as aids for medicine and surgery, for military and security, and even for exploring, if not a galaxy far away, at least the far reaches of our own solar system.
Location: Currently not on view

Associated Name: LUCASFILM Ltd.

ID Number: COLL.DROIDS.006000
accession number: 1984.0302
catalog number: 1984.0302.01; 1984.0302.02

John L. Lewis, one of America's foremost labor leaders, wore this badge at the 1936 United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) convention. It is a metal gold-colored pin with "President" printed in blue. A red, white, and blue ribbon attaches badge to pin.

Description: John L. Lewis, one of America's foremost labor leaders, wore this badge at the 1936 United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) convention. It is a metal gold-colored pin with "President" printed in blue. A red, white, and blue ribbon attaches badge to pin. The badge features a gold-colored relief of the U.S. Capitol Building with an eagle perched on a shield. “UMW ORG 1890” is printed in blue at the bottom.; Born in an Iowa coal-mining camp, Lewis went to work in the mines as a teenager. He rose quickly as a labor leader, becoming president of the UMWA in 1920, and later helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Lewis led a successful struggle to organize industrial workers, improving wages, safety, and benefits.

associated date: 1936

referenced: United Mine Workers of America
associated person: Lewis, John L.
maker: United Mine Workers of America

ID Number: 1989.0693.3777
catalog number: 1989.0693.3777
accession number: 1989.0693

Levi's Brown Duck Trousers1873-1896The brown cotton trousers shown here were made by Levi Strauss & Co. of San Francisco, California sometime during the two decades after the company's founding in 1873.

Description: Levi's Brown Duck Trousers; 1873-1896; The brown cotton trousers shown here were made by Levi Strauss & Co. of San Francisco, California sometime during the two decades after the company's founding in 1873. Levi Strauss was a 24-year old, newly minted American citizen from Bavaria when he set sail for San Francisco in 1853 to open a branch of his brother's New York City dry-goods business. He prospered by supplying blankets, handkerchiefs, and clothing to merchants in the West for the next two decades. In 1872, he received a business proposition from Jacob Davis, a Latvian-born tailor in Reno, Nevada. Davis had invented a way to strengthen trousers by reinforcing their pocket openings with copper rivets in order to help a customer who complained about his constantly torn pockets. He asked Levi Strauss to join him in patenting the process; then they would go into business together to sell their patented riveted pants.; Patent number 139,121 was granted on 20 May 1873, and production began immediately. The printed leather label at the center back waistband of these "waist overalls," as they were known in the late nineteenth century, suggests that the product was instantly popular with hard-working men who needed indestructible trousers. The label proclaims "Levi Strauss & Co." of "14 & 16 Battery Street SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. " to be the "Sole Proprietors and Manufacturers" of "PATENT RIVETED DUCK & DENIM CLOTHING. . . EVERY PAIR GUARANTEED. None Genuine Unless Bearing This Label. Any infringement on this Patent will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. LABEL COPYRIGHTED."; The company's patent expired in 1890, but the popularity of their riveted trousers became an American legend. Iron-clad cotton "duck" canvas (mentioned on the label, and seen in this pair of pants) was gradually phased out in favor of flexible cotton denim, a fabric that was much like the twilled cotton "jean" that had long been used for men's work clothes. By 1960, Levi's had come to be called "jeans" in both corporate advertising and the public's imagination.; Made of a heavy cotton canvas known as "duck," the pants feature a pair of short tapered belts with a buckle to cinch the back waist yoke, and white top-stitching everywhere except along the outside leg seams below the two front pockets. A small watch pocket is set inside the right front pocket, and a single back patch pocket with Levi's now-famous double arcuate stitching is placed on the right hip. A printed leather label is centered on the back waistband.; The patented copper rivets that reinforced the upper corners of each pocket and the base of the fly set these trousers apart from all other work clothing of their day. Each rivet is inscribed "L. S. & CO. S. F. PAT. MAY 1873." The pants were fastened and supported by four-hole metal buttons; the two buttons hidden in the concealed fly are unmarked, but the rims of the one at the front waist, and the six suspender buttons around the waistband, are marked "LEVI STRAUSS & CO. S. F. CAL."
Location: Currently not on view

Date made: 1873 - 1896

maker: Levi Strauss and Company

ID Number: CS.256979.002
catalog number: 256979.002
accession number: 256979

Artist J. Howard Miller produced this work-incentive poster for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company.

Description: Artist J. Howard Miller produced this work-incentive poster for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company. Though displayed only briefly in Westinghouse factories, the poster in later year has become one of the most famous icons of World War II.; As women were encouraged to take wartime jobs in defense industries, they became a celebrated symbol of female patriotism. But when the war ended, many industries forced women to relinquish their skilled jobs to returning veterans.
Location: Currently not on view

Date made: ca 1942

commissioner: Westinghouse Electric Corporation
distributor: War Production Coordinating Committee
maker: Miller, J. Howard

ID Number: 1985.0851.05
accession number: 1985.0851
catalog number: 1985.0851.05

Industry & Manufacturing

"What Hath God Wrought" Telegraph Message

Patent Model for Paper Bag Machine

Microscope

Berliner Gramophone Record

Morse-Vail Telegraph Key

Experimental stockings

Selden Automobile Patent Model, 1879

Levee Wall Fragment

Edison "New Year's Eve" Lamp

Lewis Latimer Patent Drawing

Gilbreth Stopwatch

Reproduction of Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin Model

"Tom Mix" Style Cowboy Hat

Movie Costumes, R2-D2 and C-3PO

John L. Lewis' Union Badge

Levi's Brown Duck Trousers

"We Can Do It!"