Work - Overview
The tools, rules, and relationships of the workplace illustrate some of the enduring collaborations and conflicts in the everyday life of the nation. The Museum has more than 5,000 traditional American tools, chests, and simple machines for working wood, stone, metal, and leather. Materials on welding, riveting, and iron and steel construction tell a more industrial version of the story. Computers, industrial robots, and other artifacts represent work in the Information Age.
But work is more than just tools. The collections include a factory gate, the motion-study photographs of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, and more than 3,000 work incentive posters. The rise of the factory system is measured, in part, by time clocks in the collections. More than 9,000 items bring in the story of labor unions, strikes, and demonstrations over trade and economic issues.
"Work - Overview" showing 15 items.
Page 1 of 2
Ship Model, Containership Emma Mærsk
- Description
- At launching in 2006, the Emma Mærsk was the world’s largest containership, a distinction held until her seven sister ships Estelle, Ebba, Edith, Eleonora, Elly, Evelyn, and Eugen Mærsk, were launched in 2007–08. Built at the Odense Steel Shipyard in Denmark, the ships are owned by the A. P. Moller-Maersk Group, the world’s largest global shipping company, whose beginnings date to 1904. Emma Mærsk is named for the late wife of Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, the son of the company’s founder, who served as the CEO from 1965 to 1993 and on its board until 2003.
- Containers are standardized, reinforced steel boxes that can be packed with a wide array of products and materials and transported on ships, trains, and trucks. Loaded into the vast holds and onto the massive decks of containerships, they can be used time and again to carry goods between manufacturing centers and consumer markets around the world.
- As globalized commerce expanded in the last half of the 20th century and into the first years of the 21st, ocean carriers grew as well. The first containerships in the 1950s were adapted freighters, the largest of which could carry about 800—1,000 containers. The standard designation for containers is teus—twenty-equivalent-units—or containers measuring either 20 or 40 feet in length. Ships specially constructed in the 1970s to carry containers in cellular sections of the hold could carry between 1,000 and 2,500 teus.
- The third generation ships were built to the maximum size that could be accommodated by the Panama Canal, an important throughway on global shipping routes. Built in the 1980s, these ships, called Panamax vessels, could carry between three and four thousand teus. Subsequent generations—the Post Panamax vessels of the 1990s (4,000–5,000 teus) and the Post Panamax Plus ships built between 2000 and 2005 (5,000–8,000 teus)—are too large to travel through the Panama Canal. With the increasing volume of global shipping during this period, other ocean routes became more important, especially those connecting Asian ports with the U.S. West Coast. However, as containerships increased in size, the number of ports worldwide that could accommodate them also decreased.
- The Emma Mærsk represents the sixth generation of containership, also called the New Panamax class, because it will be able to travel through the new Panama Canal after it opens around 2014. The vessel, with a capacity of 11,000 teus, is the first to be launched in Maersk’s PS-class. The ship has a waste heat recovery system, which uses exhaust gasses to generate some of the electricity needed aboard the vessel. Its hull is also covered with silicone-based paint, which improves fuel efficiency. The Emma Mærsk entered service on the Europe to Asia route in 2006.
- date made
- 2007
- ship launched
- 2006
- late wife of founder and CEO of the company
- Maersk, Emma
- ship's namesake
- Maersk, Emma
- built the ship
- Odense Steel Shipyard
- maker
- Modelos Navales Riera, S.L.
- ID Number
- 2008.0039.01
- catalog number
- 2008.0039.01
- accession number
- 2008.0039
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
New England Whale Ship
- Description
- This model represents a typical Massachusetts whaleship of the mid-19th century, fully rigged and ready for a long cruise that might last for as much as four years. The name “U.S. Grant, Edgartown” on the ship’s stern is fictional—no ship by that name ever sailed for the whaling fleet. The ship’s bottom is lined with copper sheathing, to keep out the teredo navalis, a tropical worm that bored into the wood of ship’s hulls and weakened the structure, as the termite does to wooden structures on land.
- The whaleboats are the most prominent features. After whales were sighted by lookouts perched at the mast tops, the boats were dropped over the sides of the mother ship to chase them. Also over the side are the cutting stages, where the whale’s fat, or blubber, was sliced off the body in long strips.
- The main feature on the ship’s deck is the try-works, or giant pots set into a brick framework, where the whale’s blubber, was boiled down into oil. After the blubber became liquid, it was drawn off to cool and then poured into heavy barrels and stored below in the ship’s cargo hold.
- This model was purchased in 1875 at Edgartown, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.; it was one of the first objects in the Smithsonian’s National Watercraft Collection.
- Date made
- 1875
- model was purchased
- 1875
- ID Number
- TR*025726
- catalog number
- 025726
- accession number
- 4353
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Half Model, Fishing Schooner Helen B. Thomas
- Description
- Unlike most of the half-hull models in the Smithsonian’s National Watercraft Collection, this one was not intended for use in shipbuilding. Instead, this half model of the fishing schooner Helen B. Thomas was made to show a radical design innovation to potential vessel owners. Its maker, Thomas F. McManus, a naval architect in Boston, adapted an idea from sailing yachts to the fishing schooners of New England. He eliminated the bowsprit, the spar projecting forward from the schooner’s bow, in an attempt to make the vessel safer for the fishermen working in treacherous conditions far offshore. In McManus’s new design, fishermen would not have to clamber out on the bowsprit to tend the jib (the vessel’s forward-most sail), a dangerous task especially in bad weather that, in McManus’s view, resulted too often in injury or death.
- McManus made this half-hull model and displayed it in his Boston office, hoping to attract a client. After nearly a year, Capt. William Thomas of Portland, Maine, decided to try the design and contracted with the Oxner & Story yard in Essex, Mass., to build the schooner. The Helen B. Thomas was launched in 1902 and measured 106’-7” overall, with a beam (width) of 21’-6” and 13’ deep. The vessel became a successful fishing schooner. While no other schooners were built to this exact design, many were built without the bowsprit, a schooner design that became known as the “knockabout.”
- date made
- 1901
- Associated Date
- early 20th century
- ship built from model design
- 1902
- Captain who contracted the design
- Thomas, William
- contractors who built the ship
- Oxner & Story
- maker
- McManus, Thomas F.
- ID Number
- TR*310888
- catalog number
- 310888
- accession number
- 131237
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ship Model, U.S. Lighthouse Service Tender, Greenbrier
- Description
- Built in 1924 in Charleston, West Virginia, the Greenbrier was meant to replace the Goldenrod (built in 1888) as a lighthouse tender on the Ohio and Kanawha rivers. Although the plans for the Greenbrier were originally authorized in 1917, the ship’s contract was delayed twice. Finally, in September 1922 the keel for the 164-foot Greenbrier keel was laid.
- As part of the Lighthouse Service, tenders performed a variety of tasks. Their main work was to attend to the needs of American lighthouses and navigational buoys. Sometimes this entailed the provision of supplies, fuel, mail and transportation to remote coastal lighthouses; other times it meant towing a lightship (or floating lighthouse) into a bay or harbor.
- Lighthouse tenders were designed to work in a specific service region. Because the Greenbrier was built to aid lighthouses along the inland rivers, its design was similar to shallow-draft Mississippi River steamboats. The Greenbrier had two main steam engines, three coal-fired boilers and a stern paddle wheel. Like all vessels in the service, it flew the triangular Lighthouse Service flag, and had a polished brass, miniature lighthouse affixed to its bow, for ease of identification.
- The Greenbrier serviced the Ohio, Kanawha and upper Mississippi Rivers until September 1947. After its sale in April 1948, the Greenbrier’s name was changed to Mississippi; it worked as a private river boat until 1975.
- This model was built by Arthur G. Henning, Inc.
- Date made
- 1962
- ID Number
- TR*320154
- catalog number
- 320154
- accession number
- 241746
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Model of Snagboat Charles H. West
- Description
- Introduced in the early 19th century, snag boats were designed to clear trees, stumps, and other obstructions from navigable rivers and channels. Most were in the form of a catamaran, with two parallel hulls between which trees were hauled in, cut up, and disposed of on land.
- Designed by the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency responsible for maintaining the national waterways, Charles H. West was built at Nashville, Tenn., in 1933-34 by the Nashville Bridge Co. at a cost of $227,260.48. It measured 170’ in length and 38’ in beam but only drew 4’-6” of water. Instead of a catamaran design, the West had a normal, shallow sternwheeler hull. At the flat or scow bow, two A-frames hauled snags up a ramp for disposal. It cleared snags along the lower Mississippi River for many years.
- In 1969, the West was sold to a private party and converted to the restaurant boat Lt. Robert E. Lee in St. Louis, Mo. the following year. The name was fitting. Although best known as a Confederate general, in the late 1830s, Lee had been an officer in the Corps of Engineers. His work installing pilings and wing dams had helped the Mississippi currents to clear silt and keep open the main St. Louis landing.
- Moored on the Mississippi near the St. Louis Arch, the Lee was a successful restaurant until a 1993 flood devastated the waterfront. After several failed attempts to reopen, the vessel was auctioned on December 19, 2008, for $200,000. Its new owners plan to renovate and reopen the famous ship once again as a restaurant and nightclub in St. Louis.
- Date made
- 1966
- ID Number
- TR*326538
- catalog number
- 326538
- accession number
- 265606
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ship Model, Skipjack Gertrude Wands
- Description
- The skipjack is the last in a long line of sailing craft designed for work in the Chesapeake Bay oyster industry. First built in the late 1800s, this sloop-rigged, single masted vessel was easy to maneuver even in light winds, and its V-shaped hull allowed oystermen to work in shallow waters. This model represents the Gertrude Wands, a skipjack built by John Branford on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1899. It is named after a little girl who lived in the community of Inverness.
- Like bugeyes, skipjacks were built for oyster dredging under sail. But unlike the round-bottomed bugeye, the skipjack had a V-shaped hull, which was easier to build and did not require the huge logs of the traditional bugeye. Skipjacks were also smaller than bugeyes, ranging in size from 25 to 50 feet.
- By the early 20th century, skipjacks had replaced bugeyes and were the main dredging craft on the bay. An 1865 Maryland law restricting dredging to sail-powered vessels ensured the continued use of sailing craft for oystering. Only in 1967 was the law amended to allow the use of a gasoline-powered push boat on Mondays and Tuesdays of each week. A push boat is shown on davits at the stern (back) of this model.
- Maryland’s skipjacks are the last commercial fishing boats operating under sail in North America. In 1985, the skipjack was named Maryland’s official state boat. With the steep decline of the oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay, most skipjacks have become floating classrooms for public education programs about the bay. Several have been donated to museums for preservation. Still, many people who live in the Chesapeake region harbor a sense of longing and nostalgia for the days when the large white sails of skipjacks filled the horizon.
- date made
- 1968
- date Gertrude Wands was built
- 1899
- built Gertrude Wands
- Branford, John
- ID Number
- TR*328687
- accession number
- 276670
- catalog number
- 328687
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ship Model, Tobacco Ship Brilliant
- Description
- This is a 1/8-scale model of the tobacco ship Brilliant, a 250-ton vessel built in Virginia in 1775 for British owners. The Brilliant's first and probably only commercial venture from Virginia took place when it set sail for Liverpool, with a full hold of tobacco, in the summer of 1775. Typically the Brilliant would have returned with manufactured goods, but because of growing hostilities between Britain and the colonies, the ship remained in England. Records show that the Brilliant made one voyage to Jamaica and returned to London in 1776. Later that year, the Royal Navy purchased the vessel for just over £3,000 and converted it to a ship of war for service in the American Revolution.
- The ship Brilliant had three masts and square-rigged sails. Its lower deck was 89'-3" long, its breadth was 27'-1/2", and the depth of the hold was 12'-2". The ship was built of oak, pine, and cedar. When purchased for war service, the Royal Navy assessed its hull, masts, and yards at £2,143. The cordage, including halyards, sheets, tack, and anchor cables, were assessed at £340. Brilliant's sails, 27 in all, were valued at £143. Five anchors were assessed at £58, while a long boat with a sailing rig and oars was estimated to be worth £45. Other items aboard the Brilliant were inventoried, including block and tackle, metal fittings, iron-bound water casks, hour and minute glasses, compasses, hammocks, an iron fire hearth, and 10 tons of coal.
- After its conversion in 1776 as a ship of war in the Royal Navy, the Brilliant was commissioned as the HMS Druid. Its first voyage westbound across the Atlantic was as an escort for a convoy to the West Indies. The vessel served as the Druid until 1779, after which it became the fire ship Blast. In 1783, it was sold out of the service for £940 and, for the next 15 years, the former Virginia tobacco ship served as a whaler in Greenland. The vessel was lost in the Arctic in 1798.
- This model was built by Charles and N. David Newcomb of Bolingbroke Marine in Trappe, Md. The model makers began their work in March 1975, scaling every timber to size and making everything out of the same type of wood as the original. They devised miniature rope-making equipment to manufacture the 5,000 feet of rigging and anchor cable required in 20 different sizes. Women from the Newcomb family and the surrounding community made the rigging and sails.
- The model makers left the starboard side of the vessel unplanked to reveal the timbering and joinery of the hull and to permit a view of the vessel’s living accommodations in the stern and cargo stowage, complete with tobacco hogsheads.
- Date made
- 1978
- ship built
- 1775
- voyage to Jamaica
- 1776
- became a ship of war in Royal Navy
- 1776
- ship lost at sea
- 1798
- maker
- Newcombe, Charles J.
- Newcomb, N. David
- ID Number
- TR*335672
- catalog number
- 335672
- accession number
- 1978.0403
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Abraham Lincoln Patent Model Replica
- Description
- Abraham Lincoln had considerable maritime background, although it is usually eclipsed by his political heritage. At the age of 19 in Anderson Creek, Ind., he built a flatboat for $24, loaded it with a local farmer’s produce, and floated it 1,000 miles down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, where he sold both the boat and its cargo. When he was 22, he was hired by an Illinois store owner to take some goods down the Mississippi and sell them in New Orleans. Lincoln built another flatboat and successfully piloted it from New Salem, Ill. to New Orleans over a three-month period.
- In the mid-1840s, as a lawyer in Springfield, Ill., his law partner William Herndon recalled watching Lincoln working on a large boat model with a local craftsman. A Springfield resident recalled Lincoln demonstrating the idea for his model in public. His model embodies an idea Lincoln had for raising vessels over shoal waters by increasing their buoyancy. That idea became patent #6,469 in May 1849—the only patent ever obtained by an American president. After he became president in 1860 and moved to Washington, he visited his model in the nearby Patent Office at least once. He also enjoyed reviewing naval vessels and ideas, and he personally approved inventor John Ericsson’s idea for the ironclad warship Monitor.
- Lincoln’s original patent model was acquired by the Smithsonian in 1908 and has left the Mall only once since then, for an exhibit at the US Patent Office. This replica was built by the Smithsonian in 1978 for long-term display to preserve the fragile original.
- date made
- 1978
- ID Number
- TR*336769
- accession number
- 1978.2284
- catalog number
- 336769
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Whale Hoist Patent Model
- Description
- After some species of whales were killed, their carcasses sank. Other species, like the right whale, floated. A whale that sank represented a major loss to the whaleship crews, who had risked their lives to capture the creatures.
- To prevent this sort of loss and maximize a whaleship’s efficiency, Thomas Roys of the whaling port of Southampton, on Long Island, N.Y., patented an apparatus for “Raising Dead Whales From the Bottom of the Sea.” There is little evidence that many American whalers tried the device or that it found widespread use in the industry.
- Date made
- 1862
- patentee
- Roys, Thomas W.
- ID Number
- AG*332326
- catalog number
- 332326
- accession number
- 94380
- patent number
- 35476
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ship Model, Chesapeake Bay Log Canoe
- 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
- ID Number
- TR*025003
- catalog number
- 025003
- accession number
- 4586
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- Next Page