Domestic Furnishings - Overview
Washboards, armchairs, lamps, and pots and pans may not seem to be museum pieces. But they are invaluable evidence of how most people lived day to day, last week or three centuries ago. The Museum's collections of domestic furnishings comprise more than 40,000 artifacts from American households. Large and small, they include four houses, roughly 800 pieces of furniture, fireplace equipment, spinning wheels, ceramics and glass, family portraits, and much more.
The Arthur and Edna Greenwood Collection contains more than 2,000 objects from New England households from colonial times to mid-1800s. From kitchens of the past, the collections hold some 3,300 artifacts, ranging from refrigerators to spatulas. The lighting devices alone number roughly 3,000 lamps, candleholders, and lanterns.
"Domestic Furnishings - Overview" showing 42 items.
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Eli Terry Tall Case Clock
- Description
- Between roughly 1790 and 1820, American clockmaking changed from a handicraft to an industry. The principal setting for this transformation was western Connecticut, the principal product was the wooden clock movement, and the main character was Eli Terry (1772-1852).
- Terry began his clockworking career traditionally enough. He acquired the metalworking skills to make brass movements during an apprenticeship with Daniel Burnap of East Windsor, who in turn had been apprenticed to the British immigrant clockmaker Thomas Harland. Terry's teachers for wooden movements were probably Timothy or Benjamin Cheney, clockmaking brothers from East Hartford.
- Once on his own, Terry specialized in thirty-hour wooden movements for tall case clocks, although he accepted commissions for brass movements as well. Over a period of years, he experimented with many variations of thirty-hour movements, one of which is in this clock. The town of Plymouth, Connecticut, named on the dial, was incorporated in 1795; Terry made this clock some time between 1795 and 1807. After 1807 Terry's wooden movements had different characteristics. In that year he introduced large-scale factory methods and water-powered machinery into the manufacture of wooden tall case-clock movements. His pioneering application of mass-production technology to the clock industry and his highly successful mass-produced shelf-clock won Terry a prominent place in American history.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1795
- maker
- Terry, Eli
- ID Number
- 1984.0416.006
- accession number
- 1984.0416
- catalog number
- 1984.0416.006
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
A Pillar-and-Scroll Shelf Clock
- Description
- Eli Terry began to mass-produce his austere but serviceable box clock (See Cat. 317044) in 1816 and immediately proceeded to refine it. The plain box case acquired a pair of slender pillars on the sides, scrollwork on top, and a set of graceful feet. A dial was added, and the lower portion of the glass door was reverse-painted. In the movement, Terry experimented with modifications of the escapement, revised the gear trains, and replaced the rack-and-snail striking mechanism with the more economical count wheel. The result of these efforts, patented in 1823, was another wooden, weight-driven, hour-striking, thirty-hour clock that soon became widely known as the Connecticut pillar-and-scroll clock.
- As the design of the clock was perfected, Terry set about organizing its manufacture. Production was underway in 1822. By 1825, Eli Terry, in partnership with his brother Samuel and his sons Eli, Jr., and Henry, was operating three factories, each turning out two to three thousand pillar-and-scroll clocks a year. Originally, Terry's clock cost fourteen dollars, but before long its price dropped to under ten dollars.
- Other clockmakers, notably Seth Thomas, soon produced clocks after Terry's design. The output of the new clock industry soon became too large to be absorbed by the local market. Scores of traveling salesmen were dispatched to sell clocks in the rural West and South. "As to the Yankee clocks peddler," reported an English traveler in the 1840s, " in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and here in every dell of Arkansas and in every cabin where there was not a chair to sit on, there was sure to be a Connecticut clock."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1825-1828
- maker
- Eli & Samuel Terry
- ID Number
- 1984.0416.033
- catalog number
- 1984.0416.033
- accession number
- 1984.0416
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
An Acorn Clock
- Description
- The acorn clock, named for the whimsical, graceful shape of its case, is coveted by collectors for its rarity. Historically it is interesting as an example of mass-produced Connecticut clocks during their transition from weight- to spring-drive. The use of the spring-drive meant that manufacturers no longer had to build elongated cases to accommodate falling weights. This new freedom, along with the technique of laminating and bending wood, made possible the characteristic acorn shape of the case.
- Jonathon Clark Brown (1807-1872) was a prominent Bristol, Connecticut manufacturer, who operated a succession of clock factories. Last and best-known of these was the Forestville Manufacturing Company, which boasted an annual output of one hundred thousand clocks shortly before its bankruptcy in 1856. A cabinetmaker by trade, Brown offered an unusually diverse and imaginative range of case styles. The Forestville Manufacturing Company made acorn clocks like this one from 1847 to 1850.
- Acorn clocks were among the first to use the locally made coiled-steel springs that had recently become available. These springs were not installed as integral parts of the movement. Instead they were attached to a conventional weight-driven movement in a notably rough-and-ready manner. Mounted at the bottom of the case, the springs exerted the same pulling force upon the clock as the falling weights had. The two springs, one for the going train and another for the hour-striking train, were each combined with a fusee, a cone-shaped pulley designed to equalize the changing force of the unwinding spring. Before long, Connecticut clockmakers dispensed with the fusees and incorporated the springs directly into the movements.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1849
- manufacturer
- Forestville Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- ME*311601
- catalog number
- 311601
- accession number
- 148588
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Jerome Brothers Ogee Clock
- Description
- The depression of 1837 hit Connecticut wooden clock manufacturers so hard that they feared the entire industry might collapse. On a trip to Virginia to collect old bills, Chauncey Jerome—a successful clock producer from Bristol, Connecticut—had a new idea. A simple one-day clock made of brass, he thought, could be produced far more cheaply and in much greater quantities than the standard wooden clock. When he returned home, he described the idea to his brother Noble, a talented clockmaker who quickly made a prototype and received a U.S. patent on it in 1839.
- A typical factory might produce several thousand wooden clocks per year, but the Jeromes—and their principal imitators and rivals—were soon mass-producing brass clocks in the hundreds of thousands. For these brass clocks, Chauncey Jerome adopted a simple case introduced by several other New England clockmakers. The case became famous as the "Ogee," named for its characteristic S-shaped moldings.
- Unlike wooden clocks, brass movements were unaffected by humidity and could be transported by ship. The entire world, clockmakers quickly recognized, was a potential market. The reception Chauncey Jerome's clocks received in England, home of some of the world's finest clockmakers, illustrates the impact of his innovation. When the first clocks arrived in 1842, valued at an improbable $1.50 each, English customs inspectors assumed that Jerome had set the figure far below cost to avoid paying the proper duties. To teach Jerome a lesson, the inspectors bought the whole shipment at the declared price. When a similar cargo at the same valuation arrived a few days later, they did the same. Only with the third shipment did they recognize that they were unwittingly becoming distributors for Yankee clock manufacturers. Jerome was content with the prices British customs agents had been paying him and would have happily supplied them indefinitely. From then on Jerome's clocks entered the English market unimpeded.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1840
- maker
- Jerome, Chauncey
- ID Number
- ME*318998
- catalog number
- 318998
- accession number
- 236076
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mousetrap
- Description
- This simple wood and coil-spring trap by an unknown maker has an unusual upright mechanism. Since the U.S. Patent Office was formally established in 1838, it has granted more than forty-four hundred mousetrap peatents, more than for any other device. John Mast heeded Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice to, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” and in 1899 built the more familiar snap trap, which received its patent in 1903. Simple and effective, Mast’s trap is the best-selling mousetrap of all time. However, inventors are still attempting to improve upon Mast’s design--the Patent Office grants about 40 patents for mousetraps a year, and it receives almost ten times as many patent requests!
- The simple mousetrap is a testament to American ingenuity. Inventors and innovators have sought to deal with the mice in different ways--some traps are “beheaders,” some “imprisoners,” and some are “mashers.” No matter the design, the mousetrap has an undeniable grasp on the American imagination, with board games, gambling apparatus, and even movies being based on this pervasive mammal and the attempts to capture it.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- mid 19th century
- ID Number
- 1982.0064.03
- accession number
- 1982.0064
- catalog number
- 1982.64.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mousetrap
- Description
- This canning jar with a funnel-shaped, one-way entrance cap used metal prongs to prevent mice from escaping. Since the U.S. Patent Office was formally established in 1838, it has granted more than forty-four hundred mousetrap patents, more than any other device. John Mast heeded Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice to, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” and in 1899 built the more familiar snap trap, which received its patent in 1903. Simple and effective, Mast’s trap is the best-selling mousetrap of all time. However, inventors are still attempting to improve upon Mast’s design--the Patent Office grants about 40 patents for mousetraps a year, and it receives almost ten times as many patent requests!
- The simple mousetrap is a testament to American ingenuity. Inventors and innovators have sought to deal with the mice in different ways–some traps are “beheaders,” some “imprisoners,” and some are “mashers.” No matter the design, the mousetrap has an undeniable grasp on the American imagination, with board games, gambling apparatus, and even movies being based on this pervasive mammal and the attempts to capture it.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- early 20th century
- referenced
- Mason, John Landis
- ID Number
- 1985.0847.01
- accession number
- 1985.0847
- catalog number
- 1985.847.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Tall Case Clock
- Description
- The earliest domestic clocks in the American colonies were English-made "lantern" clocks, with brass gear trains held between pillars. Along with fully furnished "best" beds, looking glasses, sofas, silver, and case furniture, such clocks were the household objects consistently assigned the highest monetary value in inventories of possessions.
- By the 18th century, the most common style of domestic clock came to look more like a piece of household furniture. A wooden case enclosed the movement, weights, and pendulum. Through a glass window the dial was visible.
- In 1769, Pennsylvania clockmaker and millwright Joseph Ellicott completed this complicated tall case clock. On three separate dials, it tells the time and shows the phases of the moon; depicts on an orrery the motions of the sun, moon, and planets; and plays selected twenty-four musical tunes on the hour.
- The musical dial on the Ellicott clock allows the listener to choose from twelve pairs of tunes. Each pair includes a short tune and a long one. On the hour only the short tune plays, but every third hour, both play. During a tune, automaton figures at the top of the dial appear to tap their feet in time to the music, and a small dog between them jumps up and down.
- Joseph Ellicott moved from the Philadelphia area to Maryland in 1772 and, with his brothers Andrew and John, set up a flour-milling operation in what is now Ellicott City. The clock was a centerpiece in Ellicott family homes for generations.
- Who else owned clocks in early America? Clock owners, like the American colonists themselves, were not a homogeneous group. Where a person lived influenced the probability of owning a timepiece. In 1774, for example, New Englanders and Middle Atlantic colonials were equally likely to own a timepiece. In those regions, roughly 13 or 14 adults out of 100 had a clock in their possessions when they died. Among Southern colonists at that time, only about 6 in 100 had a clock.
- Date made
- 1769
- user
- Ellicott, Joseph
- maker
- Ellicott, Joseph
- ID Number
- 1999.0276.01
- accession number
- 1999.0276
- catalog number
- 1999.0276.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mousetrap
- Description
- This homemade mousetrap was found in a home in Amityville, New York and donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1891. Since the U.S. Patent Office was formally established in 1838, it has granted more than forty-four hundred mousetrap patents, more than any other invention. John Mast heeded Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice to, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” and in 1899 built the more familiar snap trap which received its patent in 1903. Simple and effective, Mast’s trap is the best-selling mousetrap of all time. However, inventors are still attempting to improve upon Mast’s design--the Patent Office grants about 40 patents for mousetraps a year, and it receives almost ten times as many patent requests!
- The simple mousetrap is a testament to American ingenuity. Inventors and innovators have sought to deal with the mice in different ways — some traps are “beheaders,” some “imprisoners,” and some are “mashers.” No matter the design, the mousetrap has an undeniable grasp on the American imagination, with board games, gambling apparatus, and even movies being based on this pervasive mammal and the attempts to capture it.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- early 19th century
- ID Number
- DL*152509
- catalog number
- 152509
- accession number
- 24186
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mousetrap
- Description
- This mousetrap was manufactured by the Oneida Community, Ltd., know for producing silverware. It is a mouse-sized version of the company’s larger steel animal traps. Since the U.S. Patent Office was formally established in 1838, it has granted more than forty-four hundred mousetrap patents, more than any other invention. John Mast heeded Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice to, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” and in 1899 built the more familiar snap trap which received its patent in 1903. Simple and effective, Mast’s trap is the best-selling mousetrap of all time. However, inventors are still attempting to improve upon Mast’s design—the Patent Office grants about 40 patents for mousetraps a year, and it receives almost ten times as many patent requests!
- The simple mousetrap is a testament to American ingenuity. Inventors and innovators have sought to deal with the mice in different ways - some traps are “beheaders,” some “imprisoners,” and some are “mashers.” No matter the design, the mousetrap has an undeniable grasp on the American imagination, with board games, gambling apparatus, and even movies being based on this pervasive mammal and the attempts to capture it.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- early 20th century
- maker
- Animal Trap Company
- ID Number
- DL*210336
- catalog number
- 210336
- accession number
- 38088
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mousetrap
- Description
- The Animal Trap Company of Lititz, Pennsylvania manufactured the “Victor Choker Mouse Trap” with four trap mechanisms around 1925. Since the U.S. Patent Office was formally established in 1838, it has granted more than forty-four hundred mousetrap patents, more than any other invention. John Mast heeded Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice to, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” and in 1899 built the more familiar snap trap which received its patent in 1903. Simple and effective, Mast’s trap is the best-selling mousetrap of all time. However, inventors are still attempting to improve upon Mast’s design—the Patent Office grants about 40 patents for mousetraps a year, and it receives almost ten times as many patent requests!
- The simple mousetrap is a testament to American ingenuity. Inventors and innovators have sought to deal with the mice in different ways - some traps are “beheaders,” some “imprisoners,” and some are “mashers.” No matter the design, the mousetrap has an undeniable grasp on the American imagination, with board games, gambling apparatus, and even movies being based on this pervasive mammal and the attempts to capture it.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1925
- maker
- Animal Trap Company
- ID Number
- DL*318955.0001
- catalog number
- 318955.0001
- accession number
- 318955
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center