Science & Mathematics - Overview
The Museum's collections hold thousands of objects related to chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, and other sciences. Instruments range from early American telescopes to lasers. Rare glassware and other artifacts from the laboratory of Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, are among the scientific treasures here. A Gilbert chemistry set of about 1937 and other objects testify to the pleasures of amateur science. Artifacts also help illuminate the social and political history of biology and the roles of women and minorities in science.
The mathematics collection holds artifacts from slide rules and flash cards to code-breaking equipment. More than 1,000 models demonstrate some of the problems and principles of mathematics, and 80 abstract paintings by illustrator and cartoonist Crockett Johnson show his visual interpretations of mathematical theorems.
"Science & Mathematics - Overview" showing 50 items.
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Holbrook's Geometrical Forms and Arithmetical Solids
- Description
- In the years before the Civil War, several Northern states opened free elementary or common schools. To communicate with large numbers of students, teachers used a wide range of objects, including these models of simple geometrical shapes. Connecticut school reformer and lecturer Josiah Holbrook developed a collection of apparatus for teaching by families and in schools. The models were part of this set. He designed them to help students learn the names of simple solids, basic rules for calculating the area of various flat surfaces, and elementary drawing. Holbrook advertised that his equipment was "Good enough for the best, and cheap enough for the poorest." It was used in thousands of schools. Even after Holbrook died in 1854, his family continued to manufacture school apparatus; these models date from about 1859.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1859
- maker
- Holbrook School Apparatus Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- 1986.1025.01
- accession number
- 1986.1025
- catalog number
- 1986.1025.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mathematical Table, J. D. Smith Machine For Multiplying Numbers
- Description
- This is the United States patent model for a multiplication table. It consists of a wooden disc pivoted to a wooden handle on which it revolves. The front of the part of the handle above the disc is a metal rod with the numbers 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1 through 10, and 20 engraved on it. The top of the disc has numbers engraved over its surface such that one can line up the handle with a number on the edge of the disc and find multiples of that number on the disc next to the engraved numbers on the handle.
- A mark painted on the back of the handle and written on the back of the disc reads: J.D. SMITH.
- This invention was patented in 1857 by James D. Smith (1834-1908), a native of Chatham, New York, who had moved to Brantingham in that state in 1841. He worked there in various businesses. In addition to this patent, Smith took out patents for an improvement in tool sharpeners (#87,212, February 12, 1869) and an improvement in station-indicators (#161170, March 23, 1875). No evidence has been found indicating that any of these inventions led to products.
- In 1881, Smith moved to Albany to study law. He spent the rest of his career as an attorney.
- References:
- James D. Smith, “Machine for Multiplying Numbers,” U. S. Patent 18711, November 24, 1857.
- “James D. Smith,” The Journal and Republican, Lowville, New York, June 4, 1908, p. 1.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1857
- patentee
- Smith, James D.
- maker
- Smith, James D.
- ID Number
- MA*252687
- catalog number
- 252687
- accession number
- 49064
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
J. T. Campbell Adding Machine
- Description
- This U.S. Patent Office model for a finger-operated adding machine has four metal wheels set flat into a wooden case with a metal top (the fifth wheel is missing). Around the top edge of each wheel are ten short pins labeled clockwise from 0 to 9. Above each wheel is a round opening in the case. The edge of this opening is also labeled clockwise from 0 to 9. The mechanism linking the wheels is out of order. The patent tag is tied to the machine. It reads: 24.990 (/) J.T. Campbell (/) Adding Mch. (/) Patented August 9, (/) 1859.
- John T. Campbell also took out patents for an "Improvement in Portable Fence," U.S. Patent 63,853, April 16, 1867; an “Improvement in Lifting-Tongs,” U.S. Patent 130,194, May 1, 1877; and a 'Revolving Cultivator," U.S. Patent 329137, October 27, 1885.
- According to U.S. Census records and a biographical account, Campbell was born in 1833. Raised near a saw mill in Parke County, Indiana, he worked variously as a carpenter, a surveyor and engineer, and a hotelkeeper. During the Civil War, he organized an infantry regiment to fight for the Northern cause. Captain Campbell was disabled by a war wound. On his return, he obtained various local and state offices. By 1880 he had moved to Indianapolis, where he worked briefly as a clerk in the Indiana State Bureau of Statistics. He then retired to Parke County.
- References:
- U.S. Patent 24990, August 9, 1859.
- A. T. Andreas, Atlas Map of Parke County, Indiana, Chicago, Illinois: by the author, 1874, p. 29.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1859
- patentee
- Campbell, J. T.
- maker
- Campbell, J. T.
- ID Number
- 1987.0107.01
- catalog number
- 1987.0107.01
- accession number
- 1987.0107
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mathematical Table, Young Rule For Calculating Interest
- Description
- This United States patent model has a rectangular wooden frame with five grooves, each of which holds a bar (made from a different kind of wood) that slides crosswise. Two flat wooden pieces cover much of the bars on the left side, with a gap between them. Each bar has a set of 12 evenly spaced holes that are numbered from 11 down to 1 (the “0” holes are not numbered). Each bar also is indented at the top to hold a slip of paper that slides under the top of the machine. There are 11 further, unnumbered, holes to the right of each slip of paper. Setting up a number on the rods (to represent an amount of money or a length of time) reveals a number on the paper slips that represents an amount of tax or interest.
- A piece of paper glued to the top of the device reads: S.S. Young’s Tax and (/) Interest Rule (/) Red March 18th 1851. The “d” in this mark is a superscript.
- Samuel S.Young of Eaton, Ohio, took out three patents for computing devices. This is the patent model for the second, a rule for calculating interest, patented September 2, 1851 (U.S. Patent 8323). The first was an add to addition or adder, patented July 24, 1849 (U.S. Patent 6602), the third an arithmetical proof rule, patented October 26, 1858 (U.S. Patent 21921). The U.S. Census for 1850 lists an S. S. Young of Eaton, Ohio, who was forty years old that year and living with his wife and two children. His occupation is given as “gardener.” Apparently by 1860 he had moved to the nearby town of Washington and is listed as being a “horticulturalist” by profession. Young assigned his patent to John R. Stephen of Eaton, who is listed in the 1860 Census as a farmer.
- Compare to the model for the first of his inventions, MA*252680.
- References:
- S. S. Young, “Rules for Calculating Interest,” U.S. Patent 8329, September, 1851.
- U. S. Census Records
- Robert Otnes, “Sliding Bar Calculators,” ETCetera, #11, June, 1990, p. 6.
- P. A. Kidwell, “Adders Made and Used in the United States,” Rittenhouse, May, 1994, p. 80.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1851
- patentee
- Young, Samuel S.
- maker
- Young, Samuel S.
- ID Number
- MA*252683
- catalog number
- 252683
- accession number
- 49064
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Hatfield Machine for Adding Numbers
- Description
- This patent model for an adder with mechanical carry has a wooden handle and circular base on which three concentric brass discs and a brass arm are mounted. The largest disc is glued to the base, and has the numbers from 1 to 99 indicated around the edge (there also is a blank space for zero). The middle and upper discs rotate about a central pivot, which has a smaller pin attached to it that holds the discs together. The middle disc is divided into 100 parts around the edge, with the parts numbered from 100 to 9,900 (again there is a blank division). The top disc has the numbers from 1 to 99 around the edge, as well as a blank. Next to each digit of the disc there is a small sunken tooth in the disc. A hole in the arm allows one to see numbers on the discs.
- To use the instrument, one sets up thousands by rotating the middle disc. To add 1- or 2-digit numbers, one moves the arm counterclockwise so that it is over the desired number on the outer rim. Then, rotating clockwise back to zero, a spring-ratchet attached to the arm engages a tooth on the inner disc and rotates it through the number set up. (The spring-ratchet is missing from the model). According to the patent description, when the inner disc goes a full revolution, a carry mechanism advances the middle wheel one unit.
- See U.S. Patent No. 11,726, issued September 26, 1854. There is an example of the instrument in the Home and Community Life collections. It's catalog number is 1978.939.07.
- ”Aron” L. Hatfield (about 1818-1898) is listed in the 1850 US Census as living in Lewisburg, Union County, Pennsylvania. Born in Pennsylvania, he was 31 years old, had a wife and two children, and worked as a watchmaker. The 1860 Census lists an Aaron L. Hatfield, 40 years old, born in Pennsylvania and living in Green Springs, Sandusky, Ohio. He worked as an ambrotypist. No family is listed. The 1880 Census lists an Aaron L. Hatfield, 61 years old, widowed, and a watchmaker, who was living in Constantine, St. Joseph County, Michigan.
- In addition to the patent for which this object is the model, Aaron L. Hatfield took out three other U.S. patents. The first, #103,327, was for an improvement in pruning shears, and was taken out May 24, 1870, when he was living in Clyde, Ohio. The second, #143,759, was for an improvement in pumps, and was taken out October 21, 1873, when he was still in Clyde. The third, #199705, was for an improvement in bag holders, and was taken out when he was living in Constantine.
- According to an obituary in The Jeweler’s Circular and Horological Review, Hatfield died December 9, 1898, in Three Rivers, Michigan, where he was working as a jeweler and music dealer. By then he was living a secluded life above his store.
- Reference: In addition to U.S. Census and U.S. Patent Office records, see “Death of Aaron L. Hatfield," The Jewelers Circular and Horological Review, vol. 37, December 14, 1898, p. 15.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1854
- patentee
- Hatfield, Aaron L.
- maker
- Hatfield, Aaron L.
- ID Number
- MA*252684
- catalog number
- 252684
- accession number
- 49064
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Hill Arithmometer
- Description
- This U.S. Patent Office model for an early key-driven adding machine has a wooden case with two columns of keys. Each collumn has six wooden keys. At the back are two wooden discs. Around the edge of each disc is a paper slip with the digits from 0 to 9 printed. These digits repeat seven times on each disc. To the right of each digit is, in smaller type, its nines complement, which is used in subtraction and division. Each wheel of the machine has attached to its side a ratchet that rotates according to the motion of a pawl. The base of the pawl is attached to the end of a lever that extends forward the length of the machine and is pivoted near the front. Above each lever, on the outside of the machine, is a column of keys, numbered from 1 at the top to 6 at the bottom.
- To enter a number, the user depressed a key, which depressed the lever and moved the pawl, rotating the ratchet and wheel forward. Each wheel also had a toothed disc attached to it. After the wheel rotated forward past a "9" position, a tooth on the disc encountered a metal arm which drove a pawl on the adjacent wheel forward one position, causing a carry.
- Thomas Hill, who took out a patent on this machine, was a Unitarian minister and, for a time, president of Harvard University. This patent did not result in a product.
- References:
- Thomas Hill, "Improved Arithmometer," U.S. Patent 18692, November 24, 1857.
- Thomas Hill, "On a New Form of Arithmetical Complements," Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1857, 11:82;
- J. A. V. Turck, Origin of Modern Calculating Machines, Chicago: The Western Society of Engineers, 1921, pp. 22-29, 61-62.
- P. A. Kidwell, “Thomas Hill: Minister, Intellectual and Inventor,” Rittenhouse, 12 (October 1998): pp. 111-119.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1857
- patentee
- Hill, Thomas
- maker
- Hill, Thomas
- ID Number
- MA*252686
- catalog number
- 252686
- accession number
- 49064
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Burns Addometer
- Description
- This U.S. patent model for a lever-set non-printing adding machine has wooden sides and metal covers for the back and the lower front. Four large toothed wheels are used for setting numbers, with five registering wheels in front and below these. Between each of the large wheels is a strip of metal; the digits from 0 to 9 are indicated along the edges of these strips. Each of the four right registering wheels is attached to a spur wheel with ten teeth that meshes with a large toothed wheel. Placing a finger in one of the teeth of a large wheel and rotating it forward advances the registering wheel proportionally. The number entered is visible in a row of windows at the front of the model. The four registering wheels to the left have on their left side a ring of ten equidistant pins that are used in carrying.
- The patent tag for the machine reads: 21243 (/) J. Burns (/) Addometer (/) Patented Aug 24 (/) 1858 (/) Calculator.
- On March 26, 1867, Jabez Burns of New York City took out U.S. Patent 52934 for an improved powder mixer. The model for this patent is in the Medical Sciences collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. It seems likely that this is the same person who invented the addometer and the same Jabez Burns who was born in Ireland in about 1827, came to new York at age 18 in January of 1845, and worked variously as a cartman, peddler, accountant, and inventor. He had a son, also called Jabez Burns.
- References:
- Jabez Burns, "Addometer," U.S. Patent 21243, August 24, 1858.
- U.S. Census records 1850, 1860. Civil War draft regisration records, June, 1863. New York City directories.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1858
- maker
- Burns, Jabez
- ID Number
- MA*308911
- accession number
- 89797
- catalog number
- 308911
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model for Rule for Describing Polygonal Forms Invented by M. Jeff Thompson
- Description
- Meriwether Jeff Thompson (1826–1876) grew up in Harpers Ferry and attended military school in Charleston, Virginia (now West Virginia). After he was rejected for admission by West Point and Virginia Military Institute, he worked his way West. He settled in St. Joseph, Missouri, when he married at age twenty-two. He then found employment in civil engineering and rose to prominence with the construction of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, which was completed in 1859. In the late 1850s, he served as mayor of St. Joseph. On April 3, 1860, he gave a speech officially opening the Pony Express.
- Thompson's sympathies were with the South. As a brigadier general for the Missouri State Guard and, later, as a commander in the Confederate army, Thompson conducted raids and participated in battles. His exploits won him the nickname "Swamp Fox" of Missouri. He was a prisoner of war in 1863 and 1864. After the Civil War, he pledged allegiance to the Union and was hired by Albert L. Lee to work on swamp reclamation as Surveyor General and Chief State Engineer of Louisiana, where he contracted tuberculosis. He is buried in St. Joseph.
- Thompson also engaged in a variety of creative activities, including writing poetry, crafting a cipher, and inventing this instrument. This example of his invention is the patent model he submitted with his application, which was awarded Patent No. 21,784 on October 12, 1858. The device consists of a metal quadrant of a circle on a movable arm. The edge of the quadrant bears equidistant, unlabeled divisions which are approximately 1/4" apart. These marks permit the instrument to be classified as a protractor. On the interior of the quadrant are engraved lines intended to permit the user to lay out regular polygons without first inscribing the polygons in a circle. The instrument bears settings for polygons of 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 sides. The movable arm is engraved: Mitre Guage [sic].
- The movable arm fits between a handle made from two pieces of wood and two pieces of metal that are fastened together. One side of the handle is engraved with a table for the sides of regular polygons per foot of the interior diameter of a circle. An equilateral triangle circumscribed around a circle is depicted. The object is signed: M. Jeff. Thompson (/) St. Joseph Mo. The other side of the handle is engraved with a table for the sides of regular polygons per foot of the exterior diameter of a circle. An equilateral triangle inscribed in a circle is depicted. The markings have oxidized and turned green, particularly on the table values. The patent model tag has been lost.
- References: Barbara Suit Janssen, Patent Models Index: Guide to the Collections of the National Museum of American History, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2010), 23; Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Year 1858: Arts and Manufactures, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: 1859), 104; M. Jeff Thompson Papers, 1848–1959, Louisiana Research Collection Manuscripts Collection 72, Tulane University Special Collections, New Orleans, http://specialcollections.tulane.edu/archon/?p=collections/findingaid&id=32&q=&rootcontentid=111913; Meriwether Jeff Thompson Papers, 1860–1940, 01566, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/t/Thompson,Meriwether_Jeff.html; Missouri History Museum, "Meriwether Jeff Thompson," The Civil War in Missouri, http://www.civilwarmo.org/educators/resources/info-sheets/meriwether-jeff-thompson; Doris Land Mueller, M. Jeff Thompson: Missouri's Swamp Fox of the Confederacy (Columbia: University of Missouri, 2007); Cathy Barton, Dave Para, and Bob Dyer, "The Swamp Fox," Civil War Music of the Western Border, http://www.bartonpara.com/civilwar/rebel/swamp.htm.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1858
- Associated Date
- 1858-10-12
- maker
- Thompson, Meriwether J.
- ID Number
- MA*315262
- accession number
- 219305
- catalog number
- 315262
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Scheutz Difference Engine
- Description
- This is the first printing calculator sold. From ancient times, scientists and mathematicians have calculated numerical tables. These tables were often rife with error, both from incorrect calculations and from errors in reproduction. In the early 1800s, the English mathematician Charles Babbage proposed a machine called a difference engine that would compute and print automatically a large class of tables. Although Babbage's machine was never completed, it inspired the Swedish publisher Georg Scheutz and his son Edvard to build this instrument. It was exhibited at the world's fair held in Paris in 1855 and sold to the Dudley Observatory in Schenectedy, New York. It also was the first computing machine to carry out computations under U.S. government contract.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1853
- maker
- Georg and Edvard Scheutz
- ID Number
- MA*323659
- catalog number
- 323659
- accession number
- 250163
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Schilt Adding Machine
- Description
- This is one of the oldest surviving key-driven adding machines. Victor Schilt, a little-known clock maker from the Swiss canton of Solothurn, sent it for exhibition at the first of the great world’s fairs, the Crystal Palace Great Exhibition held in London in 1851. The entry received an honorable mention, and Schilt reportedly received an order for 100 machines, which he declined to fill.
- The front, top and mechanism of the machine are steel, and the case is wood. The plate and zeroing knobs on the top and the nine digit keys across the front are made of brass. The machine adds numbers up to 299. Only one-digit numbers may be entered. The result is visible in a window in the plate. The plate is marked: V. Schilt (/) Mechaniker in Solothurn.
- The Schilt machine closely resembles an adding machine patented in France in 1844 and sold by Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué and his son Charles. Schilt had worked for the elder Schwilgué before building his machine. Schilt’s machine was part of the collection of Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company, and was given to the Smithsonian by the successor to that firm, Victor Comptometer Corporation.
- References:
- J. A. V. Turck, Origin of Modern Calculating Machines, Chicago: Western Society of Engineers, 1921.
- Denis Roegel, “An Early (1844) Key-Driven Adding Machine,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 30 #1 (January-March 2008), pp. 59-65.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1850
- maker
- Schilt, Victor
- ID Number
- MA*323660
- accession number
- 250163
- catalog number
- 323660
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center