Industry & Manufacturing - Overview
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.
"Industry & Manufacturing - Overview" showing 3 items.
Adams Cottage Press No. 4, patented 1861
- Description
- Every Man His Own Printer! advertised the makers of the Lowe and Adams presses. Easy to use, these presses inspired military and amateur printers during and after the Civil War to make use of the portable presses to print military orders, receipts, billheads, and other documents.
- Albert Adams's New York cylinder press was described as useful for the armed forces and merchants. It was patented on March 19, 1861, and manufactured and distributed by entrepreneur Joseph Watson and the Adams Press Company in New York.
- The Adams Cottage Press was designed without a frisket. The frisket, a separate inner frame hinged to the cloth-covered tympan, served to hold the paper in place and protect the printed sheet. The press included an automatic tympan which closed with the movement of the cylinder. The Adams Cottage Press and other portable presses did not include a self-inking system. The type was inked by hand, a sheet of paper was placed over the inked type, and the bed of the press was cranked below the cylinder to produce an impression and the printed sheet.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1861
- maker
- Adams, Albert
- manufacturer
- Adams Press Company
- ID Number
- 1982.0203.2740
- accession number
- 1982.0203
- catalog number
- 1982.203.2740
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Brochure for Cooley's Cabinet Printing Office, dated July, 1862
- Description
- Like other portable presses sold at this time, J. G. Cooley's New York Cabinet Press was sold with accompanying equipment in more than one size. This 1862 advertisement for the Cooley press calls for its use by small country printers, merchants, druggists, grocers, bankers, and the army and navy &c.
- The advertisement states: Gen. McClellan, upon the recommendation of Capt. Irwin, of his staff, who was detailed especially to examine it, ordered two complete offices for his head-quarters, Col. Ferris, of the Conn. Fifth, has one; Col. Mix, of the New York Cavalry, has one; Gen. Burnside has one; Gen. Porter, one; Rev. G. D. Crocker, Chaplain of Ira Harris Bridgade, has one; Capt. Tallmadge has one at Fortress Monroe . . . .
- No known examples of this press still exist.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1862
- printer
- Cooley, J. G.
- ID Number
- 2007.0162.010
- accession number
- 2007.0162
- catalog number
- 2007.0162.010
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Advertisement for the Adams Cottage Press, about 1864
- Description
- Kits for the Adams Cottage Press were sold in five different sizes, enabling the production of different-sized documents. The kits, along with the press, included printing equipment such as type, rollers, and ink.
- The advertisement reads: To the army and navy . . . they will be found very useful. They can be packed within the compass of a common traveling trunk, and transported any distance without injury. We have supplied quite a number of regiments with portable printing offices, and they have given universal satisfaction. Rear-Admirals Farragut, Goldsborough and Bailey have each one of our printing offices in their respective fleets.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1864
- manufacturer
- Adams Press Company
- Watson, Joseph
- ID Number
- 2007.0162.011
- accession number
- 2007.0162
- catalog number
- 2007.0162.011
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center