Work - Overview
The tools, rules, and relationships of the workplace illustrate some of the enduring collaborations and conflicts in the everyday life of the nation. The Museum has more than 5,000 traditional American tools, chests, and simple machines for working wood, stone, metal, and leather. Materials on welding, riveting, and iron and steel construction tell a more industrial version of the story. Computers, industrial robots, and other artifacts represent work in the Information Age.
But work is more than just tools. The collections include a factory gate, the motion-study photographs of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, and more than 3,000 work incentive posters. The rise of the factory system is measured, in part, by time clocks in the collections. More than 9,000 items bring in the story of labor unions, strikes, and demonstrations over trade and economic issues.
"Work - Overview" showing 1731 items.
Page 1 of 174
Drawing of Hall Mark Quirk Quality
- Description
- This original artwork in pencil, ink, and wash was created for a printed piece advertising the services of Chicago wood engraver Nicholas J. Quirk about 1900. The design, including a wood block, engraving tools, and a woodpecker as a symbol of the trade, was modified for use as a logo by the Brotherhood of Engravers in 1902.
- The Quirk Collection represents a significant body of work by N. J. Quirk (1863–1940) and his son Nicholas Paul Quirk (1898–1983), together with numerous business cards and specimen sheets from their fellow wood engravers and printing concerns, mostly in the midwestern United States, but also from Canada and Japan. Engraved wood blocks, electrotype plates, photographs, original artwork, proofs, prints, brochures, catalogs and other examples of commercial illustration and wood engraving, plus associated reference material, are included. Subjects represented include portraits (including six Presidents, Joseph Conrad, and Charles Lindbergh), machinery, jewelry, maritime and military work, holiday offerings, and printing trade and union-related items. Most of the 454 catalogued items date from the 1880s up through the 1970s.
- Evidence in the collection suggests that Nicholas J. Quirk worked as superintendent of the wood-engraving department of Henderson-Achert Lithography Company in Cincinnati and had his own business there as Quirk & Co., before moving to Chicago in the 1890s. He had his own business at several Chicago addresses and worked for the Globe Engraving and Electrotype Company and the Hawtin Engraving Company. Around 1900 he styled himself as a "marine illustrator." Nicholas Paul Quirk spent his entire working life in Chicago, first with his father and later at the Zacher Engraving Company, where wood engraver Judith Jaidinger Szesko also worked during the 1960s. Mrs Szesko donated the Quirk Collection to NMAH in 1996.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1900
- graphic artist
- Quirk, Nicholas J.
- ID Number
- 1996.0197.031
- catalog number
- 1996.0197.031
- accession number
- 1996.0197
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Braceros Waiting at Processing Center
- Description
- Photograph: Beyond railroad tracks, braceros wait in a large group for processing at the Monterrey Processing Center, Mexico.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date photographed
- 1956
- photographer
- Nadel, Leonard
- ID Number
- 2004.0138.01.01
- accession number
- 2004.0138
- catalog number
- 2004.0138.01.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Braceros on Railroad Tracks
- Description
- Photograph: Braceros stand beside railroad tracks while waiting to enter the Monterrey Processing Center, Mexico.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date photographed
- 1956
- photographer
- Nadel, Leonard
- ID Number
- 2004.0138.01.02
- accession number
- 2004.0138
- catalog number
- 2004.0138.01.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Braceros on Railroad Tracks
- Description
- Photograph: Braceros stand beside railroad tracks while waiting to enter the Monterrey Processing Center, Mexico.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date photographed
- 1956
- photographer
- Nadel, Leonard
- ID Number
- 2004.0138.01.03
- accession number
- 2004.0138
- catalog number
- 2004.0138.01.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Braceros at Processing Center
- Description
- Photograph: Beyond barbed wire, an official armed with a rubber truncheon directs braceros while others wait in line at the Monterrey Processing Center, Mexico.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date photographed
- 1956
- photographer
- Nadel, Leonard
- ID Number
- 2004.0138.01.04
- accession number
- 2004.0138
- catalog number
- 2004.0138.01.04
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Braceros Waiting at Processing Center
- Description
- Photograph: Braceros, holding their belongings, wait in lines organized by state of origin at the Monterrey Processing Center, Mexico.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date photographed
- 1956
- photographer
- Nadel, Leonard
- ID Number
- 2004.0138.01.05
- accession number
- 2004.0138
- catalog number
- 2004.0138.01.05
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reviewing Braceros' Documents
- Description
- Photograph: An official standing in a wooden shed reviews one bracero's documents while more wait in line at the Monterrey Processing Center, Mexico.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date photographed
- 1956
- photographer
- Nadel, Leonard
- ID Number
- 2004.0138.01.06
- accession number
- 2004.0138
- catalog number
- 2004.0138.01.06
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reviewing Braceros' Documents
- Description
- Photograph: An official standing in a wooden shed reviews one bracero's documents while more wait in line at the Monterrey Processing Center, Mexico.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date photographed
- 1956
- photographer
- Nadel, Leonard
- ID Number
- 2004.0138.01.07
- accession number
- 2004.0138
- catalog number
- 2004.0138.01.07
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reviewing Braceros' Documents
- Description
- Photograph: An official standing in a wooden shed reviews one bracero's documents while more wait in line at the Monterrey Processing Center, Mexico.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date photographed
- 1956
- photographer
- Nadel, Leonard
- ID Number
- 2004.0138.01.08
- accession number
- 2004.0138
- catalog number
- 2004.0138.01.08
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Braceros Waiting to Board Buses
- Description
- Photograph: At the Monterrey Processing Center, Mexico, braceros wait in a long line to board buses to the Hidalgo Processing Center, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date photographed
- 1956
- photographer
- Nadel, Leonard
- ID Number
- 2004.0138.01.36
- accession number
- 2004.0138
- catalog number
- 2004.0138.01.36
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center