Natural Resources - Overview
The natural resources collections offer centuries of evidence about how Americans have used the bounty of the American continent and coastal waters. Artifacts related to flood control, dam construction, and irrigation illustrate the nation's attempts to manage the natural world. Oil-drilling, iron-mining, and steel-making artifacts show the connection between natural resources and industrial strength.
Forestry is represented by saws, axes, a smokejumper's suit, and many other objects. Hooks, nets, and other gear from New England fisheries of the late 1800s are among the fishing artifacts, as well as more recent acquisitions from the Pacific Northwest and Chesapeake Bay. Whaling artifacts include harpoons, lances, scrimshaw etchings in whalebone, and several paintings of a whaler's work at sea. The modern environmental movement has contributed buttons and other protest artifacts on issues from scenic rivers to biodiversity.
"Natural Resources - Overview" showing 16 items.
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Model of Bucyrus-Erie Stripping Shovel
- Description
- In 1960, the Bucyrus-Erie Company of South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, presented this 14-inch-high, scale model of what was to become the world's largest stripping shovel to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Later that year, the President transferred this gift to the Smithsonian Institution. The Bucyrus-Erie Company had custom-designed this monster machine for the Peabody Coal Company. Bucyrus-Erie engineers anticipated that they would need two years to manufacture the behemoth, and an additional six months to assemble it at the site of the open-pit mine. (They planned to ship the machine's parts in over 250 railcars.) When finished, the shovel would weigh 7,000 tons, soar to the roofline of a 20-story building (some 220 feet high), and be able to extend its enormous 115-cubic-yard dipper over 460 feet, or about the length of an average city block. (The dipper's capacity would equal that of about six stand-sized dump trucks.) Fifty electric motors-ranging from 1/4 to 3,000 horsepower-would power the shovel, which was designed to be controlled by a single operator, perched in a cab five stories high. Publicists for Bucyrus-Erie called this the "largest self-powered mobile land vehicle ever built."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1960
- recipient
- Eisenhower, Dwight D.
- maker
- Bucyrus-Erie Company
- ID Number
- MC*317688
- catalog number
- 317688
- accession number
- 231557
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger CI-IOX Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc water meter made by the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisc. It has a frost-proof bottom, fits a ⅝” pipe, and has a capacity of 26 gallons per minute. The serial number (2,335,475) dates from 1942.
- date made
- ca 1942
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325801
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325801
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger CC Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc water meter made by the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisc. It fits a ⅝” pipe and has a capacity of 26 gallons per minute. The serial number is no longer legible.
- According to the firm, this meter was “so constructed that the current of water completely fills the receptacle both above and below the measuring mechanism. The entire chamber is thus constantly flushed, preventing the secretion of sediment which might injuriously affect the working of the meter, or the unsanitary stagnation of water in a blind pocket.” The frost-proof bottom is a “plate of soft gray cast iron thoroughly galvanized and rust proof, with a low breaking strength of 600 pounds.” If the water in the meter should freeze, the bottom plate would break, “thus relieving all strain long before the pressure has reached a point where it is dangerous to the interior parts.”
- Ref: Badger Meter Manufacturing Company, Badger Water Meters<\i> (about 1925)
- date made
- ca 1904-ca 1960
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325803
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325803
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger SC-IOT Water Meter
- Description
- This is disc water meter was made by the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisc. It fits a ⅝” pipe, has a capacity of 26 gallons per minute, and was designed for use with corrosive waters. SC-IOT refers to a split case, interchangeable oil gear train. The serial number (2,636,483) dates from 1946.
- date made
- ca 1946
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325804
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325804
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger SC-SOT Water Meter
- Description
- This disc water meter was made by the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisc. SC-SOT stands for split case, sealed oil gear train.The split case could be used in warmer climates where there was no danger of freezing. It fits a ⅝” pipe, has a capacity of 26 gallons per minute, and was designed for use with corrosive waters. The serial number (828,438) dates from 1929.
- date made
- ca 1929
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325806
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325806
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger A-SOT Water Meter
- Description
- This disc water meter was made by the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisc. It fits a ⅝” pipe, and has a capacity of 26 gallons per minute. It has a frost-proof bottom, and could be used with corrosive waters. There is no serial number. A-SOT refers to sealed oil gear train.
- date made
- ca 1904-ca 1960
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325807
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325807
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger JET Water Meter
- Description
- This turbine water meter was made by the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisc. It has a split case and so could be used in areas where water did not normally freeze. The serial number (1,217,214) dates from 1934.
- date made
- ca 1934
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325808
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325808
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger Water Meter with Magnetic Drive
- Description
- This turbine water meter was made by the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisc. The serial number (1,889,599 ) dates from 1940. According to the donor, the first Badger magnetic-drive meters built on a production line basis were not introduced until the late 1950s. This example was probably specially built for an individual customer. Research on magnetic-drive motors began in the 1930s.
- date made
- ca 1940
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325809
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325809
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger Multijet Water Meter
- Description
- This turbine water meter was made by the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisc. The serial number (1,329,421) dates from 1936. It fits ⅝” or ¾” pipes, and has a capacity of 17.5 gallons per minute.
- date made
- ca 1936
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325810
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325810
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger AZTECA Water Meter
- Description
- The Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisc., developed the AZTECA water meter in the early 1930s after receiving an order for 30,000 water meters for Mexico City. The AZTECA was a rotary, multijet device that was simple, durable, and accurate. It had a split case, and so could be used in places where water did not normally freeze. This example fits a ⅝” pipe, and has a capacity of 15 gallons per minute. The serial number (1,544,940) dates from 1937.
- Ref: Badger Meter Manufacturing Company, The Azteca Rotary Multi-Jet Meter; and Rotary Type Multi-Jet.
- “Meter Co. Gets Order,” Wall Street Journal (April 21, 1933), p. 9.
- date made
- ca 1937
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325811
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325811
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center