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 755 items.
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Carpenter-Dodge School Bus, 1939
- Description
- This bus carried rural children to the Martinsburg, Indiana school in the 1940s. Busing enabled children to attend consolidated schools, which were larger than one-room schools and had better curricula, teachers, and facilities. All-steel school buses like this one were safer than earlier school buses, which had wooden bodies. The paint color, double deep orange, was common at the time, but yellow later became the standard color for school buses. This body was built by Carpenter Body Works of Mitchell, Indiana in 1936 and later was attached to a 1939 Dodge chassis.
- date made
- ca 1936-1939
- used date
- 1936-1946
- maker
- Carpenter Body Works, Inc.
- Dodge Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- 1982.0600.01
- accession number
- 1982.0600
- catalog number
- 1982.0600.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Kramer Farm Wagon
- Description
- Versatile, sturdy, and dependable, horse-drawn farm wagons were common in rural America well into the 1920s. They carried crops, goods, and supplies and served as passenger vehicles for families. Guy McCartney of Simpson, West Virginia used this wagon to deliver coal to area homes for furnaces and stoves. Built by the Kramer Wagon Company in Oil City, Pennsylvania, it is believed to date from the 1920s. During America’s first oil drilling boom in the late nineteenth century, Kramer also built wagons that hauled oil and carriages for wealthy oil businessmen.
- date made
- ca 1925
- maker
- Kramer Wagon Company
- ID Number
- 1984.0743.01
- catalog number
- 84.0743.01
- accession number
- 1984.0743
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Bread Box
- Description
- This box was used to transport loaves of bread by wagon or train from Meinburg's Bakery of Washington DC to establishments in the city and outlying counties. Delivering goods by rail meant a larger customer base for businesses like this bakery. After reaching its destination and unloaded, the grocery would return the box to the bakery where it was reloaded for another shipment.
- The box is constructed of wood with rope handles and could be carried by one person. The box is numbered so agents could track the shipment.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1890-1900
- ID Number
- 1985.0709.01
- accession number
- 1985.0709
- catalog number
- 1985.0709.01
- 85.0709.01
- accession number
- 1985.0709
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1955 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon
- Description
- In the 1950s, the station wagon became a staple of America's new suburban landscape and a ubiquitous extension of the suburban home. This car reveals how one family adopted a mobile, active lifestyle and how station wagons shaped family life.
- Between the 1920s and 1940s, station wagons evolved from small wooden buses to wood-trimmed utility vehicles that carried people, luggage, and recreational gear at rural estates, country clubs, and private schools . Strong demand for used "woodies" among postwar, middle-class families alerted manufacturers to a larger market. The introduction of all-steel bodies eliminated maintenance of wooden panels, and sales soared. Sedan-type styling made the station wagon look at home in suburban driveways. Imitation wood decals preserved the rural, elitist look of the 1940s.
- Suburban families found countless uses for their station wagons: taking children to school, picking up lawn and garden supplies, carrying home project materials, and enjoying day trips and vacations. The station wagon quickly became a symbol of family activity and intimacy in the outdoors. It served as a mobile living room at drive-in theaters, a mobile dining room at drive-in restaurants, and a home on wheels during camping trips.
- Nancy Harder, a southern California housewife, drove this car to schools and doctors with her five children. She and her husband George used it extensively. On family outings, the cargo area was filled with picnic baskets, rubber rafts, beach towels, skis, hula hoops, tricycles, radios, and, of course, the family dog. On vacation trips to national parks, this area served as a playpen. When the children were older, they learned to drive this car, and George taught them to wash and polish the exterior and vacuum the upholstery.
- After the children were grown, George used the station wagon to commute to work and haul materials for do-it-yourself projects. It also served as a spare car when the children came home from college.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1955
- user
- Harder, Nancy
- Harder, George
- maker
- Ford Motor Company
- ID Number
- 1989.0211.01
- accession number
- 1989.0211
- catalog number
- 1989.0211.01
- serial number
- U5LY-125372
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
U. S. 66 Route Marker
- Description
- Cyrus Avery, a highway advocate in Tulsa, Oklahoma, founded Route 66 while helping to plan a national highway system in the 1920s. New, long-distance highways crossed the nation east to west and north to south, superseding short, local roads. Roadside markers with route numbers, like this example from Clinton, Oklahoma, directed motorists and replaced road names. Avery’s proposal for a route from Chicago to Los Angeles through his home state was approved and designated U. S. 66 in 1926. Route 66 became a corridor for important migrations by Dust Bowl victims, military personnel, veterans, and vacationers.
- ID Number
- 1993.0282.01
- catalog number
- 1993.0282.01
- accession number
- 1993.0282
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1929 Oakland sedan
- Description
- This car belonged to George W. Hibbs, who worked in his uncle's stock brokerage, W.B. Hibbs and Company, in Washington, D.C. The car was last driven in 1950; it was stored in a home garage until 1993, when it was added to the Smithsonian collection as a bequest of Audrey H. Thomas, Hibbs's granddaughter.
- The 1929 Oakland All-American Six sedan was a moderately priced, mass-produced luxury car. Its fine body work, luxury accessories, and styling accents distinguished it from lower-priced sedans. These features reflected middle-class motorists' desire for greater sophistication and General Motors' focus on the sales appeal of artistically designed, comfortable, closed-body cars. Another selling point of GM sedans and coupes was its Fisher Body Division, which brought a heritage of carriage and closed body skills and artistry to mass-produced automobiles.
- In the 1920s, General Motors introduced a marketing strategy that featured a spectrum of makes and models with graduated prices and levels of quality. This strategy enticed motorists to "step up" to the next level of price and luxury when their means allowed. Oakland was placed between Oldsmobile and Buick in price, quality, and body details. GM discontinued the Oakland line in 1931, during the Depression, because of declining sales and the popularity of other GM cars, including one of Oakland's own products, the Pontiac.
- Image from sales brochure in division object files.
- date made
- 1929
- maker
- General Motors Corporation
- Oakland Motor Car Company
- General Motors Corporation. Fisher Body Division
- ID Number
- 1993.0483.01
- accession number
- 1993.0483
- catalog number
- 1993.0483.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1939 Plymouth coupe
- Description
- In the late 1920s and 1930s, Chrysler Corporation successfully marketed Plymouth as a low-priced rival to Ford and Chevrolet. Strong sales of the new make constituted a bright spot in the automotive industry during the Depression. Plymouth stood at number three in production volume by 1931, and output reached a half million cars per year five years later. Several other auto manufacturers had introduced "companion" makes in the 1920s, but only Plymouth achieved high volume and found a lasting place in the market.
- The streamlined styling of the 1939 Plymouth is among the best examples of art deco automotive form and ornamentation developed in the 1930s. The P-8 Deluxe Coupe was among the first cars that featured a gearshift lever on the steering column instead of its traditional location on the floor.
- The coupe body became popular in the late 1920s, when more people were shopping for closed cars at low prices. Coupes were popular among traveling salesmen, young people, single women, and others who needed room for only one or two people. Open runabouts and roadsters preceded coupes and evolved into sporty convertibles. The word "coupe" is French for "cut," meaning a standard vehicle cut in size. It was first applied to downsized horse-drawn carriages that held one or two passengers.
- maker
- Chrysler Corporation
- Plymouth Motor Corporation (Division of Chrysler Corporation)
- ID Number
- 2003.0223.01
- accession number
- 2003.0223
- catalog number
- 2003.0223.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
EV1 Electric Car, 1997
- Description
- In 1996, General Motors began leasing a new generation of electric cars to consumers. This car was leased to an individual in California from 1998 to 2000. It is the last one produced in the first series, which had lead-acid batteries; the second series had nickel-metal hydride batteries with greater range. GM developed the EV1 to meet a requirement for emission-free vehicles in California. It was aerodynamic and had a sophisticated, computer-controlled energy management and propulsion system. Many drivers liked the EV1, but GM chose not to mass-produce the car because of its projected high price and limited market.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1997
- maker
- General Motors Corporation
- ID Number
- 2005.0061.01
- accession number
- 2005.0061
- catalog number
- 2005.0061.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Model of a Brigantine
- Description
- This is a three-masted, wooden planked model of an unnamed 19th century French brigantine, fully rigged and armed with six cannons. A French description of the model in the original accession file indicates that this sort of fine-lined, swift vessel was used by pirates or as messenger vessels, due to its speed and maneuverability.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 19th century
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 2005.0279.067
- accession number
- 2005.0279
- catalog number
- 2005.0279.067
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ship Model, George W. Neare
- Description
- This model is incorrectly named after George W. Neare, a former steamboat captain who went into the insurance business in 1865. By 1889, Neare, Gibbs, and Company were the main river agents for the Insurance Company of North America, whose successor company CIGNA, donated this model to the Smithsonian.
- According to a CIGNA article, this model constructed by the boat’s engineer is actually of the steamboat J. S. Pringle, which Neare captained in the 1850s. Measuring 307 tons, J. S. Pringle was built in 1854 in Brownsville, PA for Captain William Stoops, who ran a ferry service across the Ohio River. It was sold in 1855 and moved to the Missouri River. J. S. Pringle ran from St. Louis to St. Joseph under Captain William Conley. In 1861 it carried army supplies from Cincinnati to Nashville under Captain George W. Neare. Captain Hazlett ran it from Louisville on the Tennessee River in Spring 1862. In March 1865 it was acquired by the US Quartermaster’s Department. Steamboats on the western rivers were notoriously bad risks, having relatively explosive high-pressure engines, wooden hulls, and flammable cargo.
- A gold finial, projecting uprights and four smokestacks painted black have red and gold spiked crowns. An eagle on a gold ball is on top of the captain's cabin. Two lanterns hang from the smokestacks, and there is a bell on the upper deck. A red, blue and gold emblem is on the bow and an American flag flies at the stearn.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1920
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 2005.0279.068
- accession number
- 2005.0279
- catalog number
- 2005.0279.068
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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