Sports & Leisure - Overview
The nation's passion for sports is obvious every day—at NASCAR races, kiddie soccer matches, and countless other contests. From a handball used by Abraham Lincoln to Chris Evert's tennis racket to a baseball signed by Jackie Robinson, the roughly 6.000 objects in the Museum's sports collections bear witness to the vital place of sports in the nation's history. Paper sports objects in the collections, such as souvenir programs and baseball cards, number in the hundreds of thousands.
Leisure collections encompass a different range of objects, including camping vehicles and gear, video games, playing cards, sportswear, exercise equipment, and Currier and Ives prints of fishing, hunting, and horseracing. Some 4,000 toys dating from the colonial period to the present are a special strength of the collections.
"Sports & Leisure - Overview" showing 9 items.
Game Boy
- Description
- The Nintendo Game Boy was released in 1989. It was a handheld video game console that combined aspects of Nintendos successful Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) television video game console with their earlier handheld electronic games marketed under the name "Game & Watch." It contained an 8-bit Z80 processor with a monochrome LCD display and 4-channel stereo sound. Shortly after the introduction of the Game Boy, Sega and Atari released handheld games, the Sega Game Gear and the Atari Lynx. Both had superior color LCD displays but both also suffered from short battery life and limited game availability. The Game Boy has continued to be the most popular handheld video game console ever released in the U.S. Today, the display is in color and is sold under the name Game Boy Advance.
- All original Game Boys were bundled with Tetris, an addictive game developed in 1985 by Russian mathematician Alexey Pazhitnov, assisted by Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov. As with the NES, game software was stored on removable cartridges, allowing users to switch games at whim. Nintendo also marketed a number of accessories with this version of the Game Boy, including a camera and printer attachment.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1989
- user
- Huynh, Richard
- patent holder
- Nintendo Co., Ltd.
- maker
- Nintendo Co., Ltd.
- ID Number
- 2003.0344.01
- accession number
- 2003.0344
- catalog number
- 2003.0344.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Toy Fire Engine
- Description
- Cast-iron toys, such as this fire engine from about 1900, reflect many commonplace but often forgotten aspects of everyday life. The strength of the Museum's toy collection is an outstanding grouping of cast-iron and tinplate toys, 1870s to the 1950s, donated by Sears, Roebuck and Co. The collection was acquired by Sears, Roebuck and Co. from Kenneth Idle, a private collector. Gathered between 1915 and 1960, the collection numbers more than 1,400 cast-iron and tinplate examples of both American and European origins. Cast-iron toy manufacturers represented in this collection are Hubley, Kentontoys, and Kingsbury Toys. Subjects include the circus, horse-drawn vehicles, public transportation, mail delivery, home equipment, recreation, construction equipment, the farm, fire fighting, and police vehicles.
- Cast-iron toys are essentially American. Small foundries and factories were mass-producing them towards the close of the 19th century. These toys were sold in novelty stores, department stores, or mail order catalogs. One can follow along with shifts in technology by recognizing the changes in the different models of Sears toys. During the first half of the 20th century, tractors almost completely displaced the horse on American farms—and on the toy counter. Toy motor trucks replaced horse-drawn vehicles. The toy manufacturers were alert to new models and designs of vehicle and appliance manufacturers.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1900
- ID Number
- DL*295669.0749
- catalog number
- 295669.0749
- accession number
- 295669
- 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
Football, used in Super Bowl XIV
- Description
- This ball was used in Super Bowl XIV, held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on January 20, 1980. In the game, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Los Angeles Rams 31-19. It was the Steelers' fourth Super Bowl win and the second straight year that Terry Bradshaw took home the Most Valuable Player trophy.
- The Wilson Sporting Goods Company introduced the Wilson Duke football during the early 1940s. Wilson has provided the official ball for the National Football League's Super Bowl since Super Bowl II in 1968.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1979
- user
- Pittsburgh Steelers
- maker
- Wilson Sporting Goods Company
- ID Number
- 1980.0131.05
- accession number
- 1980.0131
- catalog number
- 1980.0131.05
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Plate 76. A Fancy Group - Scene in Front of Petersburg
- Description
- Text and photograph from Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of the War, Vol. II. Negative by David Knox, text and positive by Alexander Gardner.
- The monotony of camp life was relieved by every variety of amusement that was known, or could be devised. During the periods of inactivity, base ball, cricket, gymnastics, foot races, &c., were indulged in to a great extent, and on holidays horse races, foot races, and other games were allowed. Sometimes the men would put up a greased pole, with a prize on the top, for anyone who succeeded in climbing up to it, and not unfrequently a pig would be turned loose with a shaved and greased tail, for the men to catch. Any grip but a "tail hold" was illegitimate, but he who seized and held the pig by this appendage, carried it off in triumph to his mess.
- Cock fighting, however, was quite unusual, and seldom permitted, except when some of the contrabands incited their captured Shanghais, or more ignoble fowls, to combat. Such displays were always ludicrous, and were generally exhibited for the amusement of the mess for whom the feathered bipeds were intended. Horses and mules perished by hundreds from ill-usage, but with thin exception it would be exceedingly difficult to cite an instance of cruelty to animals in the army. Fowls, dogs, kittens, and even wild animals, were made pets of, and were cared for most tenderly. Sometimes a regiment would adopt a dog, and woe to the individual who ventured to maltreat it. Several of the Western regiments carried pet bears with them, and one regiment was accompanied by a tame eagle in all its campaigns.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1864-08
- maker
- Gardner, Alexander
- ID Number
- 1986.0711.0283.26
- accession number
- 1986.0711
- catalog number
- 1986.0711.0283.26
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Baseball
- Description (Brief)
- Professional League baseball, style No. 2000, with original box. Made by the Stall and Dean Company of Brockton, Massachusetts.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1965-1975
- maker
- Stall & Dean
- ID Number
- 1998.0324.08
- accession number
- 1998.0324
- catalog number
- 1998.0324.08
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1945 Cushman Motor Scooter
- Description
- Founded in 1901 as a manufacturer of small internal-combustion engines for farm equipment and boats, the Cushman Motor Works added motor scooters to its product line in 1936. Filling a gap between bicycles and motorcycles, the Cushman scooter was popular among high school students, adults (as an economical "second car") and small businesses. Passenger and cargo models were available. Farmers, salesmen, housewives, and many other people ran errands, made deliveries, and enjoyed pleasure trips. In particular, the Cushman scooter provided expanded personal mobility for two generations of young people. Some states required a driver's license, and some did not require one.
- Production of Cushman Airborne military scooters aided the Army during World War II. Consumer production resumed full-force after the war; by 1950 Cushman was manufacturing 10,000 motor scooters per year, and in that year the company introduced its popular Eagle model. Production peaked at about 15,000 scooters per year in the late 1950s. In the early 1960s, imported motor scooters began to erode the company's market share. Cushman stopped building motor scooters in 1965 and diversified into golf carts, utility carts, and other small motorized vehicles.
- Thomas Bracco of Springfield, Illinois purchased this scooter in 1945 and rode it to high school, social activities, and the locomotive roundhouse of the Chicago and Illinois Midland Railroad, where he worked as a hostler. He rode the scooter several years and sporadically thereafter before donating it to the National Museum of American History.
- date made
- 1945
- maker
- Cushman Motor Works
- ID Number
- 2000.0235.01
- accession number
- 2000.0235
- catalog number
- 2000.0235.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Bernice Palmer's Kodak Brownie camera
- Description
- Sometime around her 17th birthday, Canadian Bernice Palmer received a Kodak Brownie box camera, either for Christmas 1911 or for her birthday on 10 January 1912. In early April, she and her mother boarded the Cunard liner Carpathia in New York, for a Mediterranean cruise. Carpathia had scarcely cleared New York, when it received a distress call from the White Star liner Titanic on 14 April. It raced to the scene of the sinking and managed to rescue over 700 survivors from the icy North Atlantic. With her new camera, Bernice took pictures of the iceberg that sliced open the Titanic’s hull below the waterline and also took snapshots of some of the Titanic survivors. Lacking enough food to feed both the paying passengers and Titanic survivors, the Carpathia turned around and headed back to New York to land the survivors. Unaware of the high value of her pictures, Bernice sold publication rights to Underwood & Underwood for just $10 and a promise to develop, print, and return her pictures after use. In 1986, she donated her camera, the pictures and her remarkable story to the Smithsonian.
- date made
- ca 1912
- user
- Ellis, Bernice P.
- maker
- Eastman Kodak Company
- ID Number
- 1986.0173.38
- accession number
- 1986.0173
- catalog number
- 1986.0173.38
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Fox and Geese Game Board
- Description
- This 9-inch square board with 32 holes was made for playing Fox and Geese, a game of strategy between two players. The 19 pegs representing geese and a single longer peg for the fox are long gone from this particular board made in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Fox and Geese was among the games played by fishermen during idle times on sailing schooners working in the North Atlantic fisheries. This board was part of a display on “Habits of Fishermen,” at the International Fisheries Exhibition in London in 1883. Other games in the display, all from Gloucester, included cards, a checkerboard, backgammon, and a diamond puzzle.
- The rules of play for Fox and Geese are simple: one player controls the fox, while the other controls the geese. The fox can move in a straight line in any direction and, as it jumps over geese, the geese are removed from the board. To win, the fox must break through the entire line of geese. The geese are only allowed to move forward or sideways. To win, they must corner the fox so it cannot move.
- The Oxford English Dictionary cites a 1633 reference to the game from a play called Fine Companion by Shackerley Marmion: “Let him sit in the shop . . . and let him play at fox and geese with the foreman.” The game was played in colonial America and, with minor variations, well into the 19th and 20th centuries.
- This game board was one of several items donated to the Smithsonian by Capt. George Merchant Jr., of Gloucester.
- Date made
- 1883
- ID Number
- AG*057950
- catalog number
- 057950
- accession number
- 12158
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center