Agriculture - Overview
From butter churns to diesel tractors, the Museum's agricultural artifacts trace the story of Americans who work the land. Agricultural tools and machinery in the collections range from a John Deere plow of the 1830s to 20th-century cultivators and harvesters. The Museum's holdings also include overalls, aprons, and sunbonnets; farm photographs; milk cans and food jars; handmade horse collars; and some 200 oral histories of farm men and women in the South. Prints in the collections show hundreds of scenes of rural life. The politics of agriculture are part of the story, too, told in materials related to farm workers' unions and a group of artifacts donated by the family of the labor leader Cesar Chavez.
"Agriculture - Overview" showing 1739 items.
Page 1 of 174
Grape-picking Knife
- Description
- 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 wine grapes in the area. Although grape-picking machines are used in the large vineyards of California's Central Valley, hand tools like this are preferred on the estate vineyards in Napa. Fay personalized this knife, as do most workers who regularly pick grapes, by carving his name ("NAT") in the wooden handle and by filing the blade to sharpen its edge.
- Fay bought land in Napa Valley in 1953 and is credited with planting the first Cabernet Sauvignon vines in the Stag's Leap District. From the 1950s until 1986, he grew wine grapes for some of Napa's best wineries. In an oral history interview conducted by Museum staff in 1997, Fay described harvest time: "Maybe the most satisfying thing was I always would get out as soon as we got the crews ready in the morning, get out and start picking grapes with the crew. And two or three . . . would come pick near me and make me look pretty slow. [After] about two hours of this I was getting pretty exhausted and pretty tired, but by then a gondola would be full of grapes so I'd have to take them up to the winery. And that took an hour and a half to go up and get them unloaded and come back again. 'Course there'd be another gondola waiting as soon as I got back, so I'd pick only about an hour and a half or two hours every morning. But I enjoyed it—all the work and different things."
- user
- Fay, Nathan
- ID Number
- 1997.0304.01
- catalog number
- 1997.0304.01
- accession number
- 1997.0304
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Vineyard end post
- Description
- While vineyards are shaped by and reflect the natural contours of the land, their distinctive look-patterned rows of neatly ordered grapevines-reveal an intensely cultural landscape. Viticulturalists don't leave much to nature or chance; they calculate the orientation of the plants within a grid, as well as the spacing of the plants, the distances between rows, and the practices for training and managing the vines. Most of the grapevines in the U.S. are grown on trellis systems-a series of vertical posts and wires-that not only support the plants, but influence how they are tended throughout the year. Trellises contribute substantially to the uniform, regimented look of modern vineyards.
- ID Number
- 1998.3058.45
- nonaccession number
- 1998.3058
- catalog number
- 1998.3058.45
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
International Harvester Mechanical Cotton Picking Machine
- Description
- 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 the early 1940s and began manufacturing machines. According to date code numbers, Old Red was the 25th of 30 picking machines manufactured in 1943, and was sold to Producers Cotton Oil Company in Fresno, Calif. After further development there, the machine, usually operated at 2 mph, picked 8,000 bales of cotton before being retired in 1959. In 1970 Producers donated Old Red to the National Museum of American History. In 1978, the American Society of Agricultural Engineers awarded Old Red landmark status in agricultural engineering.
- Mechanical cotton harvesters transformed work routines on cotton farms. Using tractors to prepare the land and cultivate, herbicides to clean the fields of weeds, and mechanical harvesters to pick the cotton, the crop changed from one that required large amounts of labor to a capital-intensive operation. Millions of field hands in the South were thus unemployed and migrated to towns and cities across the country.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1943
- user
- Producers Cotton Oil Company
- maker
- International Harvester
- ID Number
- AG*70A01
- catalog number
- 70A01
- accession number
- 288163
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
International Harvester Model 1486 Tractor
- Description
- This 1979 tractor was owned by Gerald McCathern of Hereford, Tex., who used it in his fields for 700 hours before driving it 1,800 miles to Washington, D.C., to participate in the 1979 American Agriculture Movement demonstration. As wagon master, McCathern coordinated tractorcades that, while bringing the desperate situation facing American farmers to the attention of Congress, also substantially slowed rush-hour traffic. In the midst of the protest, a large snowstorm nearly paralyzed the city, and farmers used their tractors to pull cars out of snowbanks, earning the goodwill of many people.
- The American Agriculture Movement bought the tractor and presented it to the Smithsonian in 1986. The IH 1486 is representative of the technology that typifies modern agriculture. It has sixteen forward and eight reverse speeds, power steering and brakes, diesel turbocharged engine, wide adjustable front end, detachable front weights, air-conditioning, AM-FM radio tape deck, hydraulic adjustable seat, and an adjustable steering wheel.
- Date made
- 1979
- user
- McCathern, Gerald
- maker
- International Harvester
- ID Number
- 1986.0179.01
- catalog number
- 1986.0179.01
- accession number
- 1986.0179
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Budding Knife
- Description
- This knife was used by Nathan Fay (1914-2001), the California grape grower credited with planting the first Cabernet Sauvignon grapes in the Stag's Leap District of Napa Valley. Since Fay's first planting in 1961, the variety has become well established and the district is internationally known for its fine Cabernet Sauvignon vintages. When he donated this budding knife to the Smithsonian in 1997, Fay estimated he had used it to bud some 4,000 to 5,000 plants. He added that, in his prime, he was able to bud about 400 vines in a day, and, in his lifetime, he had probably budded some 12,000 plants.
- The first step in budding new vines is to plant rootstock resistant to phylloxera, the devastating insect that attacks the roots of Vitis vinifera, the Eurasian species of grapes from which the world's best table wines are made. Although grapes native to North America are phylloxera-resistant, their fruit does not equal the kind of complex, classical wine produced by the V. vinifera species. Consequently, American viticulturalists have learned to plant "resistant" rootstock, typically hybrids of species native to the New World. It is on this rootstock that they graft the buds from V. vinifera wood.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- maker
- Henkels Dansk
- ID Number
- 1997.0304.03
- accession number
- 1997.0304
- catalog number
- 1997.0304.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Knife
- Description
- This is a curved metal knife used by Isaias Sanchez to cut palm fronds and dates from date trees. Isaias Sanchez used this knife in California when he was brought in from Mexico under a Federal temporary guest worker program commonly known as the Bracero Program. More then 2 million guest workers were brought in between 1942 and 1964 under this program. Workers were used mainly in agricultural fields, orchards, and cotton fields. U.S. growers wanted a source of cheap, efficient, and temporary labor. American farm workers and union officials were worried about loss of jobs, lower wages, poor working conditions, and lack of representation. Communities on both sides of the border experienced periods of economic prosperity as workers spent money or sent money home. This program had a direct impact on immigration and labor policy but more importantly on the formation of thriving Mexican American communities here in the U.S.
- date made
- ca 1963
- ID Number
- 2007.0107.01
- accession number
- 2007.0107
- catalog number
- 2007.0107.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Cotton Planter
- Description
- Jim Nelson of Greenwood, SC, made this cotton planter before the turn of the twentieth century. Like many farmers, Nelson tinkered with available material. There were numerous patents for cotton planters, and factory-made planters were available.
- Nelson's planter is all-wood except for the furrow opener and the furrow closer and a rim that goes around the wheel at the center of the drum. The drum is made of soft wood and measures 20 inches in diameter and 13 inches by width. In operation, the drum was filled with cotton seeds that fell through 13 openings as the drum revolved. The two metal pieces used as a furrow opener are 13 ½ inches high by 3 ½ inches wide, and the furrow coverers measure 8 ½ inches high by 1 ½ inch wide. Both are bolted to the wooden frame and controlled by a cord on the handles.
- Ruben F. Vaughn bought the planter in 1902 and used it until he donated it to the National Museum of American History in 1937.
- Date made
- ca 1900
- maker
- Nelson, Jim
- ID Number
- AG*37A1
- catalog number
- 37A1
- accession number
- 145557
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Barbed Wire
- Description
- In the days of open range, cattle grazed freely over unfenced fields. Fencing especially disturbed western cattlemen who depended upon the open range, including private holdings, for grazing. Farmers fenced animals out of their crops, but as farm size increased and agriculture spread across the west, farmers needed a cheap substitute for scarce wood and stone. In 1874 Illinois farmers Joseph Farwell Glidden, Jacob Haish, and Isaac Ellwood almost simultaneously developed methods of attaching barbs to wire, a type of fencing that effectively kept cattle out of cropland. Despite patent fights and fierce competition, the barbed wire industry was launched and over time reconfigured rural geography. Both film and fiction depicted the often violent disagreement over fencing.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1883
- maker
- Goss, Joseph
- ID Number
- AG*66A1.045
- accession number
- 089797
- catalog number
- 66A1.045
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1949 GMC Pickup Truck
- Description
- Ira Wertman, a farmer in Andreas, Pennsylvania, raised fruits and vegetables and peddled them with this truck to retired coal miners near Allentown. He also used the truck to take produce to market and haul supplies from town to the farm. Pickup trucks have been versatile aids to a wide range of agricultural, personal, and business activities. Early pickup trucks were modified automobiles, but postwar models were larger, more powerful, and able to carry heavier loads. Some postwar pickups were used in building suburban communities. Others were used for recreational purposes such as camping, hunting, and fishing. By the 1990s, many people purchased pickups for everyday driving.
- date made
- 1949
- maker
- General Motors Corporation
- ID Number
- 1999.0057.01
- accession number
- 1999.0057
- catalog number
- 1999.0057.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Braceros Waiting at Processing Center
- Description
- Photograph: Beyond railroad tracks, braceros wait in a large group for processing at the Monterrey Processing Center, Mexico.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date photographed
- 1956
- photographer
- Nadel, Leonard
- ID Number
- 2004.0138.01.01
- accession number
- 2004.0138
- catalog number
- 2004.0138.01.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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