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 3404 items.
Page 2 of 341
Tastevin
- Description
- A shallow, silver tasting cup, or tastevin, was traditionally used by winemakers to sample wine. Created centuries ago by cellarmasters in Burgundy, the tastevin was essential for judging the maturity of wine in cellars lit only by candles. The tastevin's indentations, and its shiny, convex bottom, reflected even dim candle light throughout the cup and allowed the winemaker to examine the liquid's characteristics. The tastevin is typically attached to a ribbon or chain and worn around the neck
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 2006.0157.04
- catalog number
- 2006.0157.04
- accession number
- 2006.0157
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
International Harvester Mechanical Cotton Picking Machine
- Description
- Built in 1943, Old Red was one of the first commercial spindle cotton picking machines. International Harvester developed the machine at the H. H. Hopson Plantation near Clarksdale, Miss., in the early 1940s and began manufacturing machines. According to date code numbers, Old Red was the 25th of 30 picking machines manufactured in 1943, and was sold to Producers Cotton Oil Company in Fresno, Calif. After further development there, the machine, usually operated at 2 mph, picked 8,000 bales of cotton before being retired in 1959. In 1970 Producers donated Old Red to the National Museum of American History. In 1978, the American Society of Agricultural Engineers awarded Old Red landmark status in agricultural engineering.
- Mechanical cotton harvesters transformed work routines on cotton farms. Using tractors to prepare the land and cultivate, herbicides to clean the fields of weeds, and mechanical harvesters to pick the cotton, the crop changed from one that required large amounts of labor to a capital-intensive operation. Millions of field hands in the South were thus unemployed and migrated to towns and cities across the country.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1943
- user
- Producers Cotton Oil Company
- maker
- International Harvester
- ID Number
- AG*70A01
- catalog number
- 70A01
- accession number
- 288163
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Desk
- Description (Brief)
- This standing desk has a hinged top and a drawer. Both the top compartment and the drawer can be locked. Even 19th century machine shops required record keeping, such as order information, costs, and inventory.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- MC*317972
- catalog number
- 317972
- accession number
- 228785
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Tool Chest, 19th century
- Description (Brief)
- Small hand tools used by machinists were kept in a tool chest like this one. Often these tools were personally owned by machinists.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- MC*321332
- catalog number
- 321332
- accession number
- 250998
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Horseshoe
- Description (Brief)
- This horseshoe is made of hand-forged iron. Horseshoes were often hung on a door for good luck, but tradition holds that they only brought good luck when they were hung open side up.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- MC*324261
- catalog number
- 324261
- accession number
- 1982.0064
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Funnel, early 19th century
- Description (Brief)
- This tin funnel was made and in use during the early 19th century.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- MC*326799
- catalog number
- 326799
- accession number
- 262288
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ink Bottle
- Description (Brief)
- This glass ink bottle was made in the early 19th century.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- MC*326801
- catalog number
- 326801
- accession number
- 262288
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
International Dial Time Recorder Clock
- Description
- Showing up for work punctually, at an official time, became expected behavior toward the end of the 19th century, as more and more people worked for others rather than for themselves. Not just the work force's punctuality was at issue. Cost accounting and analysis--recording and scrutinizing expenses for labor, materials and overhead--were getting more attention than ever before. Time was money.
- In the 1890s, timekeepers-- clerks who kept track of employees' hours in handwritten logs --found that machines were beginning to replace them, especially in workplaces with large numbers of employees. Thanks to the influence of the advocates of scientific management, nearly every industrial workplace had a time clock, after about 1910. So did many offices. By the early twentieth century the International Time Recording Company supplied an entire line of timekeeping devices, including master clocks, several types of time clocks, and time stamps. Founded in 1900, the firm continuously expanded its product line, underwent several reorganizations and name changes, and emerged in 1924 as the International Business Machine Corporation, familiar today as IBM.
- One of the firm's most popular products was the dial time recorder, a clock that could furnish a daily or weekly record of up to 150 employees. Based on the 1888 patent of physician Alexander Dey, the dial time recorder was essentially a spring-driven clock with a cast-iron wheel affixed to its dial side. The rim of the wheel was perforated with numbered holes. As employees pressed a rotating pointer into the hole at their assigned number, the machine recorded the time on a preprinted sheet and rang a bell with each punch. A two-color ribbon printed all regular time in green and all tardiness, early departures, and overtime in red.
- This International dial time recorder hung in a factory in the garment district of New York City.
- Date made
- ca 1912
- manufacturer
- IBM
- ID Number
- ME*336750
- catalog number
- 336750
- accession number
- 1978.2237
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Spinning Wheel
- Description
- Spinning is the simple act of drawing out a few fibers and twisting them together to form a yarn. The process predates written history, and was first done by hand and with sticks. Spinning wheels are believed to have originated in India between 500 and 1000 A.D. By the 13th century, they were seen in Europe and were a standard piece of equipment for those making fiber into yarn. By the 17th century, they were commonly found in homes in the colonies of North America, where the production of fabric was a cottage industry. Spinning was generally seen as a woman's job. Women spun yarn at home, as well as with friends at "spinning bees," where food was served and prizes might be given to the person who produced the most or best yarn. The Industrial Revolution brought mechanization to the textile industry, and eventually spinning was done on large machines in textile mills.
- This vertical flax wheel was made in France by George Beck, in 1694. Mr. Beck gave it to Adeline Beck, who passed it onto Margaret Beck in Paris, France in 1807. In 1822 she brought it to the United States and she used it in Cincinnati and Muskingum, Ohio, for spinnng fiber into yarn. It was given to the Museum by one of her descendents in 1886.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1600-1699
- 1694
- maker
- Beck, George
- ID Number
- TE*02507
- accession number
- 17300
- catalog number
- T2507
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Bread-slicing Machine
- Description
- This commercial bread-slicing machine was designed and manufactured in 1928 by Otto Frederick Rohwedder (1880-1960). It was used to slice loaves of fresh bakery bread at Korn's Bakery, in Rohwedder's home town of Davenport, Iowa, beginning in late 1928. This is Rohwedder's second automatic bread-slicer, the first having fallen apart after about six months of heavy use at Bench's Bakery, in Chillicothe, Missouri.
- The public loved the convenience of sliced bread and, by 1929, Rohwedder's Mac-Roh Company was feverishly meeting the demand for bread-slicing machines. By the following year, the Continental Baking Company was selling sliced bread under the Wonder Bread label. Having achieved success, Mr. Rohwedder reflected on his invention in the June 1930 issue of the Atlanta-based bakery trade journal, New South Baker: "I have seen enough bakers benefit in a big way from Sliced Bread to know that the same results can be obtained by any baker anywhere if he goes about the matter correctly. A good loaf, a proper presentation of Sliced Bread to the grocers and a truthful, clean advertising program based upon successful experiences and the baker can build his business far beyond what he could do without Sliced Bread. . . We are continuing our experimental and developmental work confident in the belief that the real possibilities of Sliced Bread have scarcely been scratched."
- This 1928 bread-slicing machine was manufactured by the Micro Machine Company, of Bettendorf, Iowa, for the Davenport-based Mac-Roh Sales and Manufacturing Company. It was donated to the Museum by Mr. Rohwedder's daughter, Mrs. Margaret R. Steinhauer, of Albion, Michigan, in 1974.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1928
- maker
- Micro Machine Company
- ID Number
- 1975.315261.1
- accession number
- 1975.315261
- catalog number
- 1975.315261.1
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- Next Page