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 3398 items.
Page 332 of 340
Whaler's Whalebone Scraper
- Description
- This odd tool was used to scrape the flesh off the bones from a freshly caught whale. It was the last step in processing the whale’s body before the bone was partially dried on deck and then stowed below in the cargo hold. Once the ship was back in port, the bone was placed on end in large yards to dry further.
- The bone and baleen—rows of bony strips in a whale’s upper jaw that filter food from seawater—from a whaling voyage could yield as much as $50,000, or even greater profits than the oil itself. Baleen served a wide variety of purposes from buggy whips to umbrella ribs to women’s corset stays.
- date made
- 1880s
- ID Number
- AG*057778
- catalog number
- 057778
- accession number
- 012278
- 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
Hand Lance or Killing Iron
- Description
- A hand lance with a long iron shaft and a small oval or leaf-shaped tip was also known as a killing iron. It was designed to dispatch a whale quickly and efficiently, once the mammal came to the water surface for the last time.
- The hand lance was stabbed repeatedly into a whale’s thick neck arteries. The sharp leaf-shaped tip allowed easy removal for another thrust. Cutting these arteries prevented the whale from deep dives and hastened its bleeding to death.
- Normally, multiple hand lances were carried aboard a whaleboat, so that if one was lost it could be easily replaced without returning to the mother ship for a spare one. By the late 19th century, guns had replaced most hand-thrown harpoons and lances. They were more efficient, more accurate, and safer, for a whaler could shoot a dart at a greater distance from the dangerous whale than a harpoon could be thrown.
- ID Number
- AG*072825B
- catalog number
- 072825B
- accession number
- 10616
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Fishermen’s Woolen Nippers
- Description
- Fishermen working trawl lines in the 19th century often suffered cuts and rope burns on their hands. They typically wore mittens or gloves to protect themselves when hauling the long lines aboard and removing the fish. These sturdy but soft rings, called nippers, are knitted of woolen yarn and stuffed with more wool. They would have fit around a fisherman’s palms, protecting his hands while his fingers remained free for tasks requiring dexterity.
- These nippers were probably made in Gloucester, Mass., for use by local fishermen working on offshore schooners. The shallow, fertile banks stretching from Georges Bank east of Nantucket to the Grand Bank off Newfoundland, Canada, were prime fishing areas for Gloucestermen. Cod, haddock, and halibut were the principal species caught by fishermen working aboard schooners in these waters in the late 19th century.
- These nippers were among the fishermen’s clothing, tools, and apparatus featured by the United States in the 1883 International Fisheries Exhibition in London.
- Date made
- 1880s
- used
- late 19th century
- on exhibit
- 1883
- ID Number
- AG*102074
- catalog number
- 102074
- accession number
- 2009.0157
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Whaler's Cutting Spade
- Description
- After a whale was captured, killed, and brought alongside the mother ship, its carcass had to be processed. First, a heavy hook was set into its skin and the hook’s line was taken aboard. Set on a long wooden handle, the cutting spade was used to cut “blanket pieces,” or long, thick, wide slices of skin and blubber from the body. The whale’s flesh was then hauled aboard for further processing. This example is marked “J.D. Cast Steel.”
- date made
- mid-1800s
- ID Number
- AG*237778
- catalog number
- 237778
- accession number
- 045474
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Whale Hoist Patent Model
- Description
- After some species of whales were killed, their carcasses sank. Other species, like the right whale, floated. A whale that sank represented a major loss to the whaleship crews, who had risked their lives to capture the creatures.
- To prevent this sort of loss and maximize a whaleship’s efficiency, Thomas Roys of the whaling port of Southampton, on Long Island, N.Y., patented an apparatus for “Raising Dead Whales From the Bottom of the Sea.” There is little evidence that many American whalers tried the device or that it found widespread use in the industry.
- Date made
- 1862
- patentee
- Roys, Thomas W.
- ID Number
- AG*332326
- catalog number
- 332326
- accession number
- 94380
- patent number
- 35476
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Gold Nugget
- Description
- This small piece of yellow metal is believed to be the first piece of gold discovered in 1848 at Sutter's Mill in California, launching the gold rush.
- John Marshall was superintending the construction of a sawmill for Col. John Sutter on the morning of January 24, 1848, on the South Fork of the American River at Coloma, California, when he saw something glittering in the water of the mill's tailrace. According to Sutter's diary, Marshall stooped down to pick it up and "found that it was a thin scale of what appeared to be pure gold." Marshall bit the metal as a test for gold.
- In June of 1848, Colonel Sutter presented Marshall's first-find scale of gold to Capt. Joseph L. Folsom, U.S. Army Assistant Quartermaster at Monterey. Folsom had journeyed to Northern California to verify the gold claim for the U.S. Government.
- The gold samples then traveled with U.S. Army Lt. Lucien Loeser by ship to Panama, across the isthmus by horseback, by ship to New Orleans, and overland to Washington. A letter of transmittal from Folsom that accompanied the packet lists Specimen #1 as "the first piece of gold ever discovered in this Northern part of Upper California found by J. W. Marshall at the Saw Mill of John A. Sutter."
- By August of 1848, as evidence of the find, this piece and other samples of California gold had arrived in Washington, D.C., for delivery to President James K. Polk and for preservation at the National Institute. Within weeks, President Polk formally declared to Congress that gold had been discovered in California.
- In 1861, the National Institute and its geological specimens, including this gold and the letter, entered the collections of the Smithsonian Institution. The Marshall Nugget remains in the collections as evidence of the discovery of gold in California.
- Date made
- 1848
- Associated Date
- 1848
- referenced
- Sutter, John
- Polk, President James K.
- Loesser, Lucian
- ID Number
- CL*135(1861).01
- accession number
- 135
- catalog number
- 135(1861).01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Scrimshaw Panbone
- Description
- This panbone, or section of the back of a sperm whale’s jaw, served as the canvas for a whaleman’s freehand drawing of a busy whale hunt off the coast of the volcanic island of Ternate, one of the Spice Islands in Indonesia and the world’s main source of cloves until the 18th century.
- In the lower left, a woman reaches out for her whaleman, who symbolically stands across the sea with one hand over his heart and a harpoon in the other. In her background is a tranquil domestic scene, probably their home. In the center, a fenced precinct labels the main scene. Above, on the right are the named whalers Margaret of London and Sophia of Nantucket. The remainder of the lively scene portrays seven whaleboats chasing a pod of six whales.
- The artist has managed to convey loneliness between loved ones, great distance from home, an exotic and remote tropical locale, and a busy whale hunt on a single stretch of whalebone.
- Date made
- mid 19th Century
- depicted
- late 18th century
- ID Number
- DL*057605A
- catalog number
- 057605A
- accession number
- 2009.0206
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
USS Alaska Scrimshaw Sperm Whale Tooth
- Description
- The wooden screw sloop of war USS Alaska was built in 1868 and spent much of her career in the southern Pacific and Far East representing the American nation in foreign ports. In June 1878, she cleared New York for San Francisco and stopped at several South American ports on the way.
- One of Alaska's port calls from 20-29 September 1878 was to Talcahuano, in the center of Chile's coast and that nation's main naval port. It also was one the principal stops for American whalers in the Pacific seeking fresh supplies and entertainment. This massive sperm whale's tooth was probably purchased there and engraved by one of Alaska's crew to commemorate his visit. While the carver of this tooth is unknown, it may have been one of the officers who kept the official ship's logbooks, because the calligraphy on the covers of the logs for this voyage is exceptionally elaborate and colorful.
- As this tooth indicates, the Talcahuano visit and liberty calls were memorable. Sent ashore on liberty, 54 of Alaska's crew went AWOL (Absent WithOut Leave), and three more were confined to double irons (feet and hand cuffs) for drunk and boisterous behavior or fighting.
- Date made
- 1878
- USS Alaska port call to Chile, Talcahuano
- 1878-09
- ID Number
- DL*374477
- catalog number
- 374477
- accession number
- 136263
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Corset and Whalebone Scrimshaw Busk
- Description
- For much of the nineteenth century, ladies' fashion required very small waists. The most common way to achieve this was to wear a tight laced corset, which could be adjusted according to the specific garment it accompanied. Like this example, many of them were handmade to fit an individual, although they were also available in shops.
- One of the most intimate pieces of scrimshaw a whaleman could produce was a bone or baleen busk, or corset stiffener. These were carved and given to a crewman's loved one, who then inserted it into a matching sleeve on her corset as a unique memento of her beloved's feelings.
- One side of this whalebone busk contains three cityscapes, two of which have busy ports with lots of shipping. The other side has eight vertical pictures, topped by a full frontal portrait of a beautiful young woman. She may represent the recipient of this busk. Below her is a city scene with multiple church steeples over a flag in a precinct. A multi-colored circular geometric pattern is at the center, above a garden scene over a delicate basket of flowers. Next is a three-masted warship, and at the bottom is a large rural villa overlooking a walled garden. Can these pictures be woven into a story?
- date made
- mid-nineteenth century
- mid-1800s
- fashion
- 19th century
- ID Number
- DL*374478
- catalog number
- 374478
- accession number
- 136263
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center