Industry & Manufacturing - Overview
The Museum's collections document centuries of remarkable changes in products, manufacturing processes, and the role of industry in American life. In the bargain, they preserve artifacts of great ingenuity, intricacy, and sometimes beauty.
The carding and spinning machinery built by Samuel Slater about 1790 helped establish the New England textile industry. Nylon-manufacturing machinery in the collections helped remake the same industry more than a century later. Machine tools from the 1850s are joined by a machine that produces computer chips. Thousands of patent models document the creativity of American innovators over more than 200 years.
The collections reach far beyond tools and machines. Some 460 episodes of the television series Industry on Parade celebrate American industry in the 1950s. Numerous photographic collections are a reminder of the scale and even the glamour of American industry.
"Industry & Manufacturing - Overview" showing 35 items.
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Columbian Press
- Description
- The Columbian iron hand press was invented in 1813 by George Clymer (1754–1834), a Philadelphia mechanic. From about 1800 Clymer built wooden presses and versions of new iron presses from Europe. The extravagant design, incorporating levers and counterweights, was quite original, but Clymer did not find a market in the United States. Perhaps printers were not ready to give up their old wooden presses. He moved to England in 1818 and acquired a partner. By the 1840s their presses were being manufactured by several dozen firms across Europe, including Ritchie & Son of Edinburgh, which made this press about 1860. It is a super-royal Columbian and its platen size is 21 by 29 inches.
- Clymer's Columbian presses were widely used in European printing offices during the 19th century, and today they are found in a number of European museums. Although Clymer made several dozen presses before leaving Philadelphia, no American Columbians are known to survive. The only Columbians in the U.S. today were made in Europe and brought over here some time later. American printers preferred the Washington iron hand press, which occupied the place in 19th-century American printing offices that the Columbian and Albion presses held in Britain.
- The Columbian press is covered with symbols, including its name as a reference to the United States. An American eagle in full relief serves as a counterweight at the top of the frame. He holds in his talons Jove's thunderbolts combined with the olive branch of peace and the cornucopia of plenty. The press was adopted in 1819 as the emblem of Washington, D.C.'s Columbia Typographical Society, a local union of journeyman printers, and it represented their republican sentiments both in the larger political sense and as their expression of pride and independence in their craft. The Society met at the "Press and Eagle" Tavern, and members carried banners emblazoned with images of the Columbian press in their parades.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1860
- maker
- Ritchie & Son
- ID Number
- GA*21028
- accession number
- 237265
- catalog number
- 21028
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model for Bed-and-Platen Printing Press
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a bed-and-platen power press with two friskets which carried paper under the platen alternately. The platen was drawn down by toggles against a fixed bed; it was to be powered by man, steam, horse, or water. The invention is considered an unnumbered patent.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1834
- patent date
- 1834
- maker
- Tufts, Otis
- ID Number
- GA*11025
- catalog number
- GA*11025
- accession number
- 48865
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model for a Flatbed Cylinder Press
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a flatbed cylinder press which was granted patent number 3551. This presses’ tapered bearers were attached to the bed to prevent slurring of the impression at the ends of the form
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1844
- patent date
- 1844-04-17
- patentee
- Hoe, Richard March
- maker
- Hoe, Richard March
- ID Number
- GA*89797.003551
- accession number
- 089797
- catalog number
- GA*89797.003551
- patent number
- 003551
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model of a Platen Printing Press
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a self-inking press which was granted number 3917. The press has a vertical bed and platen, and sheet grippers traveling on an endless chain. The model is damaged.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1845
- patent date
- 1845-02-20
- maker
- Kneeland, J. C.
- ID Number
- GA*89797.003917
- accession number
- 089797
- patent number
- 003917
- catalog number
- GA*89797.003917
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model of a Platen Printing Press
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a platen printing press which was granted patent number 7413. The platen jobbing press was manufactured as Hawkes's Lion.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1850
- patent date
- 1850-06-04
- maker
- Hawkes, Charles W.
- ID Number
- GA*89797.007413
- patent number
- 7413
- accession number
- 89797
- catalog number
- GA*89797.007413
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model for a Flatbed Cylinder Press
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a stop cylinder press with inking apparatus and sheet fly; the invention was granted patent number 9408.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1852
- patent date
- 1852-11-16
- maker
- Northrup, Joel G.
- ID Number
- GA*89797.009408
- patent number
- 009408
- accession number
- 089797
- catalog number
- GA*89797.009408
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model of a Rotary Printing Press
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a rotary printing press; it was granted patent number 9987. The press had several impression cylinders and inking stations arranged around a large type cylinder. A web of paper was moistened and folded concertina-fashion for feeding. It was printed at the first series of impression cylinders and refolded. Then it was turned, and printed on the other side at the next series. Finally, it was cut into sheets. According to Stephen D. Tucker’s History of R. Hoe & Company, this patent was bought by R. Hoe & Co., probably more to keep it out of the market than with a mind to its development.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1853
- patent date
- 1853-09-06
- patentee
- Beaumont, Victor
- ID Number
- GA*89797.009987
- patent number
- 009987
- accession number
- 089797
- catalog number
- GA*89797.009987
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model for a Hand Lever Printing Press
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a hand-lever printing press which was granted patent number 10717. The press is a self-inking hand press with a fixed bed. The paper was carried into position by a double frisket carriage with inking rollers. The carriage was propelled by a crank handle turned continuously in one direction.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1854
- patent date
- 1854-03-28
- maker
- Underhill, Henry
- ID Number
- GA*89797.010717
- accession number
- 089797
- patent number
- 010717
- catalog number
- GA*89797.010717
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent model for copper plate press
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a plate attached to an endless chain that was carried past stations for automatic inking, wiping, and printing; the invention was granted patent number 12213. There was provision for applying bands of different colors. According to Tucker, this press was built by R. Hoe & Co. for D. Steffens in 1858. Robert Neale, an American, was living in London when he took out this patent. He patented the press there in 1853.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1855
- patent date
- 1855-01-09
- maker
- Neale, Robert
- ID Number
- GA*89797.012213
- patent number
- 012213
- accession number
- 089797
- catalog number
- GA*89797.012213
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model of a Bed-and-Platen Printing Press
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a perfecting machine with two printing plates, two platens, and a rotary carrier to convey the paper between them; the invention was granted patent number 14558.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1856
- patent date
- 1856-04-01
- maker
- Folsom, George F.
- ID Number
- GA*89797.014558
- accession number
- 089797
- patent number
- 014558
- 014558
- catalog number
- GA*89797.014558
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center