Transportation

Americans have always been a people on the move—on rails, roads, and waterways (for travel through the air, visit the National Air and Space Museum). In the transportation collections, railroad objects range from tools, tracks, and many train models to the massive 1401, a 280-ton locomotive built in 1926. Road vehicles include coaches, buggies, wagons, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and automobiles—from the days before the Model T to modern race cars. The accessories of travel are part of the collections, too, from streetlights, gas pumps, and traffic signals to goggles and overcoats.

In the maritime collections, more than 7,000 design plans and scores of ship models show the evolution of sailing ships and other vessels. Other items range from scrimshaw, photographs, and marine paintings to life jackets from the Titanic.

This model represents a sailing dory, a small rowboat used by fisheries in New England during the late nineteenth century. This type was used near Rockport, Massachusetts. Dories were used both inshore and on the open sea in New England. Dory fishing could be for cod or halibut.
Description
This model represents a sailing dory, a small rowboat used by fisheries in New England during the late nineteenth century. This type was used near Rockport, Massachusetts. Dories were used both inshore and on the open sea in New England. Dory fishing could be for cod or halibut. This example had two oars and two sails, a sprit-mainsail and a jib. This model represents a dory 23 feet long and about 5 feet wide. It was built in 1882 and given to the Smithsonian by Captain J.W. Collins.
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
TR.160179
catalog number
160179
accession number
10380
This model represents a skiff, or a small boat which was used in streams or lakes near the Au Sable River in Michigan. This boat type was often used by anglers in the nineteenth century for trout and grayling fishing.
Description
This model represents a skiff, or a small boat which was used in streams or lakes near the Au Sable River in Michigan. This boat type was often used by anglers in the nineteenth century for trout and grayling fishing. Anglers were recreational fisherman who used an ‘angle,’ or a hook, usually with a fishing rod.
Some of these Au Sable skiffs had sails, but most were paddled or poled. As a lightweight boat, this skiff could carry a fisherman and a guide, along with two hundred pounds of gear. This model represents a skiff around 18½ feet long at the gunwale and 3½ feet wide. The model was built in 1876 and was given to the Smithsonian by D. H. Fitzhugh, Jr.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1876
ID Number
TR.25899
accession number
4996
catalog number
25899
This model represents a type of rowboat called a Whitehall boat. The Whitehall was developed in the 1820s and was named after its place of origin, Whitehall Street in New York City.
Description
This model represents a type of rowboat called a Whitehall boat. The Whitehall was developed in the 1820s and was named after its place of origin, Whitehall Street in New York City. The Whitehall was used for transportation in harbors and ports, and was not meant for the open sea. The people who used the Whitehall ranged from crimps, men who kidnapped or tricked people into working on ships, to newspaper reporters and ship chandlers, or retail dealers who sold supplies to ships in port. Although some Whitehalls were fitted with sails, this one was not. Instead, it used four oars and an outboard rudder to steer. This model represents an average size Whitehall boat, at 18 feet at the gunwale and 5 feet wide. The model was given to the Smithsonian in 1899 by the boat builders Nash & Sons.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1899
ID Number
TR.025001
accession number
4880
catalog number
25001
This model represents a skiff from the Cedar Keys of Florida. A Cedar Keys skiff was a small flat-bottom rowboat used for seine fishing. Seine fishing is a technique where a net with large wings encircles and directs a school of fish into a trap.
Description
This model represents a skiff from the Cedar Keys of Florida. A Cedar Keys skiff was a small flat-bottom rowboat used for seine fishing. Seine fishing is a technique where a net with large wings encircles and directs a school of fish into a trap. This model represents a skiff about 20½ feet long and 8 feet wide. It was given to the Smithsonian by the U.S. Fish Commission in 1893.
ID Number
TR.076270
catalog number
076270
accession number
28022
Bryant’s New Showboat was built at Point Pleasant, W. Va., in 1917. Launched in 1918, it could seat around 880 people in its theater.
Description
Bryant’s New Showboat was built at Point Pleasant, W. Va., in 1917. Launched in 1918, it could seat around 880 people in its theater. Most of the shows put on for Bryant’s patrons in small towns along the Kanawha, Ohio, Monongahela, Illinois, and Mississippi Rivers were vaudeville or follies productions.
The ornate stage of Bryant’s New Showboat was home to dozens of plays like Hamlet and Little Nell of the Ozarks, and even the antics of a trained bucking mule named January. Owner Billy Bryant offered $10 to anyone who could stay on the animal’s back, but he had to retract that offer in mining towns, as the miners were strong enough to stay on.
The vessel was sold to new owners in 1945, at the end of World War II. Movie theaters, personal automobiles and other developments had gradually ended the colorful showboat era on America’s rivers.
Date made
1976
ID Number
TR.335568
catalog number
335568
accession number
1977.0630
Grand is one of four boats used to survey the "ruggedest" 300 miles of the Colorado River's Grand Canyon during the 1923 expedition by the U.S. Geological Survey. Led by Col.
Description
Grand is one of four boats used to survey the "ruggedest" 300 miles of the Colorado River's Grand Canyon during the 1923 expedition by the U.S. Geological Survey. Led by Col. Claude Birdseye, the expedition's primary purpose was to survey potential dam sites for the development of hydroelectric power. Indeed, the survey party mapped twenty-one new sites.
Grand is eighteen feet long, with a beam of four feet, eleven inches. Heavily built of oak, spruce, and cedar, the boat weighs about 900 pounds. Grand is one of three boats ordered in 1921 by the survey's sponsors, the Edison Electric Company, and built at the Fellows and Stewart Shipbuilding Works in San Pedro. The vessels were patterned after those designed by the Kolb brothers, who had based their boats on vessels used by trappers in the upper Colorado River canyons.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1921
associated date
1923
associated institution
US Geological Survey
maker
Fellows and Stewart Shipbuilding Works
ID Number
TR.034381
catalog number
034381
34381
accession number
71541
This model represents the type of small boat used for gill-netting salmon on the lower Columbia River around 1876.
Description
This model represents the type of small boat used for gill-netting salmon on the lower Columbia River around 1876. Known as sailing gillnetters, these vessels were well suited to the tasks of fishermen working drift nets, which were walls of netting set across the path of salmon swimming upstream. The round-bottom hull is sharp on both ends, a feature that allowed the boat to ride more easily while the net was adrift. Its sprit rig was used for sailing to and from the fishing grounds and was easily stowed while fishing. The boats ranged between 23 and 28 feet in length. This model represents a vessel of 25 feet 6 inches in length, 6 feet 3 inches abeam, and 2 feet 3 inches in depth.
The sailing gillnetter type was introduced to the Columbia River region between 1869 and 1872 and quickly replaced the smaller skiffs then in use. The early gillnetters were shipped north from boat builders in San Francisco, but by 1875 the type was being built locally. While a few fishermen purchased their own boats, the vast majority were owned by salmon canneries, which rented the vessels to local fishermen. When this model was made in 1876, there were about 500 sailing gillnetters on the river. By 1905 there were some 2,700.
This model was donated by Livingston Stone, an early advocate of fish hatcheries, who served as Deputy Commissioner of Fisheries for the Pacific coast from 1872 to 1898, and senior fish culturist of the U.S. Fish Commission from 1898 to 1903.
Date made
before 1876
ID Number
TR.22216
accession number
5201
catalog number
22216
This model of a Chesapeake Bay log canoe was built in 1880 and displayed at the Great International Fisheries Exhibition in London in 1883. It shows a two-masted log canoe with a mustard-colored hull.
Description
This model of a Chesapeake Bay log canoe was built in 1880 and displayed at the Great International Fisheries Exhibition in London in 1883. It shows a two-masted log canoe with a mustard-colored hull. Although this model may look more like a recreational sailboat than a traditional paddling canoe, its roots can be traced back to the dugouts built and used by American Indians. Native Americans along the bay used dugouts, made by hollowing out a single tree trunk, to spear fish, gather oysters, and travel from one village to another. Europeans adopted the log-canoe technology shortly after arriving in the region in the early 1600s. By the start of the 18th century, colonists had modified the standard, single-log dugout, by hewing and shaping several logs and fitting them together to enlarge the craft. They added masts and sails, providing the means to travel farther and giving the vessels their distinctive appearance.
Despite the widespread use of frame-and-plank shipbuilding techniques around the Chesapeake, watermen continued building and using log canoes well into the 20th century. The canoes were ideal for oyster tonging in the many protected creeks and rivers that flow into the bay. This model includes a pair of hand tongs of the sort made by local blacksmiths for oystermen. A waterman would anchor his canoe over an oyster bed and lower the tongs into the water. With a scissoring motion, he would rake the tongs together until the iron basket was full and ready to be lifted onboard.
In terms of construction, the log canoe is the forerunner to the bugeye, which is essentially an enlarged canoe built of seven or nine logs with a full deck added over the hold. While log canoes are no longer used in commercial fishing, they can still be seen in special sailboat races on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake.
date made
1880
Date made
1875
ID Number
TR.25003
catalog number
025003
accession number
4586
This model represents a sail scooter. Scooters were used for winter recreation and racing along the Hudson River, as well as other frozen bodies of water in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Description
This model represents a sail scooter. Scooters were used for winter recreation and racing along the Hudson River, as well as other frozen bodies of water in Michigan and Wisconsin. Designed like a sailboat, a scooter has runners like a sled together with sails, which propel it across ice. The model is rigged with sails and has two white paddles. It was donated to the Smithsonian in 1961 by William H. Harless of East Moriches, NY.
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
TR.319028
catalog number
319028
accession number
236176
These two models represent launches, a type of motorboat used during Prohibition to smuggle liquor. Using crates filled with hay, liquor bottles were disguised as hams and stored in the holds of the launch. The Viola and Ruby smuggled goods from supply ships to the shore.
Description
These two models represent launches, a type of motorboat used during Prohibition to smuggle liquor. Using crates filled with hay, liquor bottles were disguised as hams and stored in the holds of the launch. The Viola and Ruby smuggled goods from supply ships to the shore. Rumrunners were fast, with speeds up to 30 knots, and quiet, with movable exhaust pipes which could be lowered underwater to muffle the sound. The Viola and the Ruby were powered by single-screw Sterling Viking gasoline engines. Both launches were built in Essex, CT around 1930, and were 55 feet long and 11 feet wide. The models were built in 1962 from the designer’s plans by Major John W. Moroney of the U.S. Air Force.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1962
ID Number
TR.319929
catalog number
319929
accession number
241523

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