Family & Social Life - Overview
Donations to the Museum have preserved irreplaceable evidence about generations of ordinary Americans. Objects from the Copp household of Stonington, Connecticut, include many items used by a single family from 1740 to 1850. Other donations have brought treasured family artifacts from jewelry to prom gowns. These gifts and many others are all part of the Museum's family and social life collections.
Children's books and Sunday school lessons, tea sets and family portraits also mark the connections between members of a family and between families and the larger society. Prints, advertisements, and artifacts offer nostalgic or idealized images of family life and society in times past. And the collections include a few modern conveniences that have had profound effects on American families and social life, such as televisions, video games, and personal computers.
"Family & Social Life - Overview" showing 4 items.
Satellite Lunch Box
- Description (Brief)
- The Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite in late 1957 sparked interest in the United States in science education even among elementary school children. In 1958, King Seeley Thermos produced this imaginative box evoking space travel and landings on distant moons and planets. Children provided a receptive audience to this imaginary yet hopeful view of scientific achievement in the early years of the space race. This is one of the few pop culture lunch boxes from the late 1950s not designed around a television show.
- Description
- The Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite in late 1957 sparked interest in the United States in science education even among elementary school children. In 1958, King Seeley Thermos produced this imaginative box evoking space travel and landings on distant moons and planets. Children provided a receptive audience to this imaginary yet hopeful view of scientific achievement in the early years of the space race. This is one of the few pop culture lunch boxes from the late 1950s not designed around a television show.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1957
- 1958
- maker
- American Thermos Products Co.
- ID Number
- 2001.3087.06.01
- nonaccession number
- 2001.3087
- catalog number
- 2001.3087.06.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
The Jetsons Lunch Box
- Description (Brief)
- This domed steel lunch was manufactured by Aladdin Industries in 1963. It features images from the popular television series, The Jetsons. The lunch box features images of the whole Jetson family, George, Jane, Judy, and Elroy, as well as Rosie the Household Robot and Astro the Dog. This box is one of the most coveted by collectors because of its great design, colorful art, and scarcity.
- Description
- Aladdin Industries profited from the success of The Jetsons television cartoon series in the fall of 1963 by introducing a domed lunch box featuring that space-traveling suburban family and their robotic maid. American notions of family life in the 1960s traveled effortlessly outward to interplanetary space on this fanciful box.
- Domed metal lunch boxes traditionally were carried by factory employees and construction workers, but Aladdin and other makers found the curved shape made an excellent young person's landscape, ocean scene, or starry sky. Despite the more earth-bound adult concerns of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the Kennedy assassination, The Jetsons box and bottle showcase the metal lunch box at the zenith of its design life and its popularity among school children.
- Date made
- 1963
- maker
- Aladdin
- ID Number
- 2003.3070.22.01
- nonaccession number
- 2003.3070
- catalog number
- 2003.3070.22.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Hallicrafters S-40 radio receiver
- Description
- Amateurs began making home radios to transmit and receive messages early in the 1900s. As part of the 1912 Radio Act, these "hams" were assigned to the short-wave part of the radio spectrum. Radio operators around the world learned code, formed clubs, and exchanged cards listing their license numbers.
- In 1933, radio enthusiast William (Bill) J. Halligan of Chicago founded The Hallicrafters, Inc. The firm sold radios and other electronic components. Ham radio operation in the U.S. was suspended during World War II, and Hallicrafters devoted its resources to producing military goods.
- After the war, it resumed production for consumers. Hobbyists bought receivers like this one. This sturdy object was owned by Charles E. Dennison, a longtime employee of the Smithsonian Institution.
- Reference: Max de Henseler, "When the Sky was the Limit, The Hallicrafters Story 1933-1975," unpublished manuscript.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1946
- maker
- Hallicrafters, Inc.
- ID Number
- EM*334935
- catalog number
- 334935
- accession number
- 315488
- model number
- S-40
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Digi-Comp 1 Toy Computer
- Description
- In the mid-1960s, most children had never seen an electronic computer. However, they had heard stories of the power of these giant instruments and knew that they were associated with space flight. This toy brought the mathematical principles of the digital computer into the home. The manual describes several problems that could be set up, including a basic check out of whether the device was functioning properly, counting down from 7 to 1 in binary, logical riddles, and the game of NIM. There is a special piece that can be used to represent the logical operation "or." The toy was made by E.S.R., Inc. of Orange and Montclair, New Jersey. It sold for about $5.00.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1965
- maker
- E.S.R., Incorporated
- ID Number
- 1978.0067.59
- catalog number
- 1978.0067.59
- accession number
- 1978.0067
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center