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. |
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Selected Objects |
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Bun Gauge
One hallmark of the American fast food industry has been customer convenience in knowing precisely what one's food will look and taste like. The lack of variation has extended to ...
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Cesar Chavez's Union Jacket
Cesar Chavez inspired a nation to seek justice for the poorest of America's laborers. A migrant worker since childhood, Cesar Chavez pledged his life to improving the lives of his ...
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Factory Gates
This pair of iron gates from the 1870s hung in the Dobson textile mill in Philadelphia, Penn., until 1991.
In the late 18th century most workers were farmers ...
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Falsified Passport
This Thai passport was seized in the well-publicized 1995 El Monte, Calif., sweatshop raid. The passport is part of a larger Smithsonian collection of artifacts documenting apparel industry sweatshops, focusing ...
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Grape-picking Knife
This grape-picking knife was owned and used by Nathan Fay of Napa, Calif. Its short, curved blade and lightweight handle are typical of knives used during the annual harvest of ...
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International Harvester Mechanical Cotton Picking Machine
Built in 1943, Old Red was one of the first commercial spindle cotton picking machines. International Harvester developed the machine at the H. H. Hopson Plantation near Clarksdale, Miss., in ...
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Motion Study
This time-elapse photograph of a woman assembling buttons is part of the Gilbreth scientific management collection. Taken between 1910 and 1924 to enable a new breed of managers to bring ...
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Pullman Porter's Blanket
Part of a Pullman porter's job was to make up the sleeping berths in his assigned sleeping car, and to provide extra blankets to passengers requesting them. The standard Pullman ...
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Reeves Vacuum Cleaner Company Suction Sweeper
This hand-powered vacuum cleaner, made for cleaning dirt from household carpets and floors, was one of many innovations introduced in the early years of the 20th century to bring greater ...
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Sewing Machine Patent Model
This is a patent model of a sewing machine invented by John Bachelder of Boston, Mass., who was issued Patent No. 6439 on May 8, 1849. In his patent specification ...
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Spinning Wheel
Spinning is the simple act of drawing out a few fibers and twisting them together to form a yarn. The process predates written history, and was first done by hand ...
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Related Items from the Archives Center |
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Industry on Parade Film Collection, 1950-1960
During the 1950s, the National Association of Manufacturers sponsored a series of documentary films “to show the marvels of American industrial technology in operation….” Broadcast on television and screened in schools, theatres, and other locations, the films often included industrial workers, like these women in an Arkansas bow and arrow factory.
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Branock Device Company Records, 1925-1998
Since the 1920’s, the familiar Brannock foot measuring device has been manufactured in small machine shops in upstate New York.
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