Transportation - Overview
Americans have always been a people on the move—on rails, roads, and waterways (for travel through the air, visit the National Air and Space Museum). In the transportation collections, railroad objects range from tools, tracks, and many train models to the massive 1401, a 280-ton locomotive built in 1926. Road vehicles include coaches, buggies, wagons, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and automobiles—from the days before the Model T to modern race cars. The accessories of travel are part of the collections, too, from streetlights, gas pumps, and traffic signals to goggles and overcoats.
In the maritime collections, more than 7,000 design plans and scores of ship models show the evolution of sailing ships and other vessels. Other items range from scrimshaw, photographs, and marine paintings to life jackets from the Titanic.
"Transportation - Overview" showing 32 items.
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1866 Dudgeon Steam Wagon
- Description
- The Dudgeon steam wagon is one of the earliest self-propelled road vehicles built in the United States. Richard Dudgeon, a machinist who was known for his commercially produced hydraulic jacks, designed and built a steam-powered wagon because he hoped to end the abuse and mistreatment of horses. The wagon resembles a small locomotive, but it has a steering wheel and seats for the driver and eight passengers. Dudgeon drove the vehicle on New York City streets and at his farm on Long Island. It burned coal and ran at a top speed of 25 to 30 miles per hour.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1866
- maker
- Dudgeon, Richard
- ID Number
- 1981.0328.01
- accession number
- 1981.0328
- catalog number
- 1981.0328.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Canoe, SAIRY GAMP
- Description
- This small canoe was built in 1882 by J. H. Rushton in Canton, New York, for writer and adventurer George Washington Sears. Under the name "Nessmuk," Sears penned essays on hunting, fishing, and camping for popular journals and magazines.
- Location
- Currently on loan
- date made
- 1882
- maker
- Rushton, J. H.
- ID Number
- TR*160315
- accession number
- 7809
- catalog number
- 160315
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model, Life Boat
- Description
- Many 19th-century inventors turned their attention to life boats, a large number of them focusing their efforts on simplicity of construction, ease of launching, and imperviousness to sinking. By contrast, two Bavarian immigrants living in New York City—George Tremberger, carpenter, and Michael Stein, patterns machinist—focused on the “comfort, convenience, and safety of the passengers.” Their main innovation was to design the boat as a cylinder in which the cabin rolled independently from the overall motion of the boat. A geared wheel inside allowed the crew to adjust the cabin’s tilt by hand or to lock it in place. The inventors also fitted a telescoping mast, hand-lever-operated propeller, and external rubber bumpers for increased buoyancy.
- This is a cutaway model of Tremberger and Stein’s idea. It shows seats and benches running lengthwise in the interior of the cabin. A wheel inside turns a gear that keeps the inner cabin from rolling as the outer hull rolls in the sea. Four hatches on deck slide open for access. The telescoping mast with sail can be operated from inside, while two interior levers activate the propeller. There is also a steering wheel forward connected by a line to the rudder.
- Date made
- 1879
- patent date
- 1879-01-28
- patentee
- Tremberger, George
- Stein, Michael Joseph
- inventor
- Tremberger, George
- Stein, Michael Joseph
- ID Number
- 1978.2282.06
- catalog number
- 1978.2282.06
- accession number
- 1978.2282
- patent number
- 211,807
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1934 Trav-L-Coach house trailer
- Description
- The Cate family of Lakeport, New Hampshire purchased this trailer in 1936 to serve as their vacation home. Cars and highways had created vast new recreational opportunities, and during the Depression many families who were financially stable still enjoyed driving to remote scenic areas. The Cates, like other trailer owners, thought of touring as an extension of home life, and they could afford the security, comfort, and intimacy of a manufactured cottage on wheels.
- Eben Cate was a rural mail carrier on a route through several villages near Lake Winnipesaukee. He earned two weeks of vacation time per year. In 1936 he saw this trailer in a showroom in Laconia, a few miles from his home, and purchased it for pleasure trips. Eben and Vernie and their children, Rudolph and Virginia, made one trip to Florida in their new trailer in 1937, staying one night in many different locations. Every summer during the 1940s, they spent a week at Decatur Motor Camp at York Beach on the southern coast of Maine. They kept house in the trailer, went for walks, and swam in the Atlantic Ocean. Vernie did the housekeeping — not much of a vacation for her, but a change of scenery nonetheless. The Cates also visited Vernie's relatives in East Corinth, Vermont and parked the trailer "out near the barn" with an electrical hookup. The wooden trailer came equipped with a bedroom, sofa beds, table, kitchen, closets, and cupboards.
- House trailers were so appealing that thousands of itinerant people lived in them full-time in the 1930s. But early residential trailer camps had poor sanitary conditions and no landscaping. Some observers believed that traditional communities were threatened by the existence of these ad hoc, transient communities. Trailers created contradictory feelings of pride and disapproval —a far cry from the euphoric autocamping outings of the 1920s.
- Date made
- 1934
- user
- Cate, Eben
- Cate, Vernie
- maker
- Trav-L-Coach
- ID Number
- 1981.0524.01
- accession number
- 1981.0524
- catalog number
- 1981.0524.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Moby Dick, or The Whale
- Description
- In early 1841 at the age of 21, Herman Melville shipped out on a voyage to the Pacific Ocean aboard the Massachusetts whaler Acushnet, which he deserted in the Marquesa Islands after only 18 months. He then served briefly on the Australian whaler Lucy Ann; the Nantucket whaler Charles & Henry, and in the US Navy. His whaleship experience supplied the background for his sixth and most famous novel, Moby-Dick, or the Whale, published in 1851. The first American edition of Moby-Dick of 2,915 copies did not sell well at $1.50 and only netted Melville lifetime earnings of $556.37.
- Although he continued to write poetry and fiction, Melville supported himself as a New York City customs inspector for 19 years before dying in 1891 at the age of 72. It was not until the 1920s that Melville achieved recognition as one of the icons of American literature. This 1930 edition of Moby Dick, published by Random House and illustrated by Rockwell Kent, introduced Melville to thousands of Americans.
- Date made
- 1930
- author
- Melville, Herman
- illustrator
- Kent, Rockwell
- publisher
- Random House, Inc.
- ID Number
- 2007.0071.1
- catalog number
- 2007.0071.1
- accession number
- 2007.0071
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Presentation Vase
- Description
- This elegant silver vase was presented to Willard A. Smith, Chief of the Department of Transportation exhibits at the World’s Colombian Exposition in 1893. The Exposition was held in Chicago to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of America. The Exposition was a great success as a world’s fair, and demonstrated to the international community that Chicago had recovered from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
- Presenting silver objects has always been a means of expressing gratitude and acknowledging deeds and accomplishments in American culture. It took Tiffany & Co. six months to construct this costly Art Nouveau style vase. Its decoration takes the form of the Transportation Building. The distinct semi-circular arches are the work of architect James Sullivan, who designed the building that housed the Department of Transportation exhibits. Medallions circling the vase celebrate the progress in the modes of land and water transportation, while representations of the Department of Transportation exhibitions adorn the vase as well.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1894
- user
- Smith, Willard A.
- maker
- Tiffany & Co.
- ID Number
- DL*63.821
- catalog number
- 63.821
- 63.281
- accession number
- 245502
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Half Hull Model of Clipper Ship Young America
- Description
- This is the original builder’s half hull model of the famous ship Young America, constructed by the renowned shipbuilder William Webb in 1852/53 at his New York shipyard. Measuring 243 feet long on deck and 1,961 tons, the Young America was an extreme clipper, characterized by a sharp bow and long, narrow hull. Constructed lightly for speed and commonly sailing the harsh waters of Cape Horn off the southern tip of South America with crews of up to 100 men, clippers often lasted only about ten years before being sold to foreign owners.
- Costing $140,000 to build, the Young America set a number of speed records. It sailed from New York to San Francisco 20 times, averaging 118 days per trip. Its reputation for strength and speed earned high freight rates—its maiden voyage from New York to San Francisco earned $86,400. The clipper traded mainly between Liverpool, New York and San Francisco, but also sailed to China, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, the Philippines, Mauritius and other countries. After a very long and profitable 30-year career, the Young America was sold to Austrian owners in 1883 and renamed the Miroslav. In February 1886, the ship cleared Delaware for a trading voyage and was never seen again.
- Half hull models were the first step in the construction of a ship. They were carved out of horizontal strips of wood known as lifts, and only one side was needed since ships are symmetrical. After a model was approved, its lines were taken (measured) and it was disassembled. Then the lines were lofted, or drawn at full scale on the floor. The actual ship’s frames were cut to fit the lines on the floor and then set in place along the keel during the construction process. Sometimes the models were discarded or even burned as firewood after use, but many original examples are preserved today.
- Date made
- 1853
- sold and renamed
- 1883
- ship disappeared after setting sail from Delaware
- 1886
- maker
- Webb, William H.
- ID Number
- TR*160135
- catalog number
- 160135
- accession number
- 15059
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model, Method of Building Wood Boats
- Description
- The inventor Joseph Francis (1801-93) was best known for developing corrugated-iron lifesaving boats. This 1841 patent model reveals his ideas about a new method for constructing boats made of wood.
- Trade and communication in 1840s America relied heavily on waterborne transportation, and boat building was an important related industry. With this invention, Joseph Francis sought to reduce the cost of constructing boats by simplifying the process. He proposed setting up a reusable frame over which very narrow planks would be bent to form the hull. The planks would be fastened together by bolts or nails driven through their edges, and no complicated joinery was to be done where the curves of the hull converged at bow and stern. “Ordinary workmen and machinery” could build this simple boat, he wrote. It would save on material, as none of the planks would overlap, and it would not require caulking, “as the narrow planking is drawn so closely together by the . . . nails . . . .” Finally, Francis claimed that the boat’s metal fasteners, buried between the planks, would not be likely to corrode and loosen the structure. Francis may have used this technique in his own boat works, but it was otherwise ignored by the nation’s many skilled boat builders.
- date made
- 1841
- patent date
- 1841-10-11
- patentee
- Francis, Joseph
- inventor
- Francis, Joseph
- ID Number
- TR*308538
- accession number
- 89797
- catalog number
- 308538
- patent number
- 2,293
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model, Life Boat
- Description
- In 1845, Joseph Francis patented the use of stamped corrugated metal to make boats. Through collaboration with the Novelty Iron Works in New York, he began to manufacture lifeboats, military cutters, and coastal rescue craft, along with other marine safety gear. His sturdy products proved popular, and he sold many to commercial steamship operators, life-saving stations, and the United States Navy. By 1853, strong sales warranted the construction of a dedicated factory at Green Point, New York, where each hydraulic press could turn out parts for 40 boats a day. Francis continually experimented with new designs for his stamping process, and this patent model reflects changes to the shape of his boats’ corrugations that he developed in the late 1850s.
- Joseph Francis (1801-93) is best known today for designing an enclosed rescue craft called a life-car, which was extensively used in coastal life-saving stations in the second half of the 19th century. The first life-car he made was used to spectacular effect in the rescue of all but one of the passengers and crew of the immigrant vessel Ayrshire, which ran aground on the New Jersey shore in a storm in January 1850. The Smithsonian preserves that life-car in addition to numerous models and ephemera documenting Joseph Francis’s work.
- Date made
- 1858
- patent date
- 1858-03-23
- patentee
- Francis, Joseph
- manufacturer
- Novelty Iron Works
- inventor
- Francis, Joseph
- ID Number
- TR*308546
- catalog number
- 308546
- accession number
- 89797
- patent number
- 19,693
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Rigged Model, Steamship George Law (Central America)
- Description
- The ocean steamer George Law was built in 1852/53 at New York, NY by William H. Webb for the United States Mail Steamship Company. Named after the company president, the Law measured 278 ft. long and 2,141 tons. It was built to sail the New York-Panama route for the California gold rush; on its return maiden voyage from Panama, it brought 465 passengers and $872,831 in gold to New York. Over more than 40 bi-monthly trips, the Law averaged slightly less than nine days per leg. In 1857, the ship went aground and returned to the Webb yard for a major overhaul.
- The Law’s name was changed to the Central America during the rebuilding, possibly to reflect its most common route and because George Law had sold his interest in the company. On the vessel’s second trip under the new name, it cleared Havana, Cuba for New York on 8 September 1857. Two days later, during a gale south of South Carolina, a bad leak was discovered and the main boilers had to be shut down. On the 12th, some passengers were rescued by passing ships, but the Central America sank that night with 425 passengers and $2,189,000 in gold bullion from the San Francisco Mint. The loss helped fuel the Panic of 1857, which sent the nation into an economic recession that lasted into the Civil War.
- In 1987 the wreck of the Central America was discovered in more than 8,000 feet of water depth, and treasure salvors recovered much of the gold bullion and coinage.
- date made
- 1961
- ship built
- 1852-1853
- ship sank
- 1857-09-12
- wreck discovered by treasure salvors
- 1987
- owned ship
- New York and Liverpool United States Mail Steamship Company
- designer
- Webb, William H.
- maker
- Webb, William H.
- Boucher-Lewis Precision Models, Inc.
- ID Number
- TR*318465
- catalog number
- 318465
- accession number
- 236170
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center