This model has a regular decagon on top and on one side face. The other faces are ten equilateral triangles, twenty squares, and ten regular pentagons. This includes the bottom, which is a pentagon.
On Berman's models of regular-faced convex polyhedra, see 1978.1065.01.
The top of this model is a regular decagon. Other faces are fifteen equilateral triangles, twenty-five squares, and eleven regular pentagons. One pentagon is the base. Compare 1978.1065.099.
On Berman's models of regular-faced convex polyhedra, see 1978.1065.01.
The top of this model is an equilateral triangle and the bottom a regular hexagon. Above the hexagon is a ring of twelve equilateral triangles in alternating directions. Above these triangles is a row of three equilateral triangles alternating with three squares. The model has a total of sixteen equilateral triangles, three squares, and one regular hexagon.
On Berman's models of regular-faced convex polyhedra, see 1978.1065.01.
Postcard showing a woman sitting on the observing chair in front of a large refracting telescope. The accompanying text reads, “Prof. Maria Mitchell in the Observatory at Vassar College. June 1878.” The back is divided, with space for the address on the right and space for a message on the left. It is marked “Printed in Germany for Henry S. Wyer, Nantucket, Mass., U.S.A. No. 582” and indicates that a 1¢ stamp is required for domestic use and a 2¢ stamp for foreign use.
Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) was America’s first woman astronomer, America’s first woman scientist of note, and the first professor of astronomy at Vassar College.
Henry Sherman Wyer (1847-1920) was a photographer from Nantucket who published many of the earliest postcards of that island community. He was also active in the Nantucket Historical Society and the Maria Mitchell Association.
While the photograph on this postcard was taken in 1878, the postcard was published between March 1, 1907, (when postcards with a divided back were first permitted in the U.S.) and 1917 (when the domestic postage for a postcard was raised to 2¢).
In the spring of 1803, Meriwether Lewis began to purchase scientific and mathematical instruments for a pending expedition into the northwestern region of North America. Among the items he purchased from Philadelphia instrument maker Thomas Whitney were three pocket compasses for $2.50 each, and this silver-plated pocket compass for $5. It has a mahogany box, a silver-plated brass rim that is graduated to degrees and numbered in quadrants from north and south, a paper dial, two small brass sight vanes, and a leather carrying case. Whether Lewis purchased the silver compass for himself or intended it as a special gesture for William Clark is not known.
Following the instructions of President Thomas Jefferson, the Corps of Discovery, under the leadership of Lewis and Clark, ascended the Missouri River in May 1804 to obtain detailed information on the natural resources of the region, to search for a northwest passage, and to make official diplomatic contact with Indian leaders.
By the time they returned to St. Louis in September 1806, few of the instruments that were purchased for the trip had survived the journey. The pocket compass, however, was kept by Clark as a memento. He later gave the compass to his friend, Capt. Robert A. McCabe, whose heirs donated it in 1933 to the Smithsonian Institution.
Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) used this bell jar in his Northumberland, Pennsylvania laboratory. Priestley, the noted chemist whose accomplishments include the discovery of oxygen, was born in England. He lived and worked in Birmingham for many years, but his views as a Dissenter and an advocate of the French Revolution incited an angry mob into burning down his house and laboratory. In 1794 he fled to America, eventually settling in Northumberland, near Philadelphia. His great-great-granddaughter, Frances Priestley, donated his surviving laboratory ware to the Smithsonian in 1883.
The transparent glass bell jar provided a useful shape for trapping and observing gases. A chemical sample could be suspended in the jar and ignited by passing a beam of focused light or heat through the glass. Any gases emitted from its burning would be collected for further study.
Glassmaker William Parker of 69 Fleet St., London or his son Samuel likely made this bell jar. The Parkers supplied Priestley with laboratory glassware free of charge, even after his move to the United States from London. Priestley wrote in a letter to Rev. Samuel Palmer, of his new home in Northumberland, Pennsylvania: “I have more advantages [in respect to experiments] than you could easily imagine in this remote place. I want hardly anything but a glass house.” Indeed, without a local supplier, getting glassware to Northumberland was quite a challenge. A letter to Samuel Parker dated January 20, 1795 details Priestley’s plan to have his most recent shipment brought from Philadelphia to Northumberland via a sleigh, “which is our best method of conveyance in winter.”
Source:
Badash, Lawrence. 1964. “Joseph Priestley’s Apparatus for Pneumatic Chemistry.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences XIX (2): 139–55. doi:10.1093/jhmas/XIX.2.139.
National Museum of American History Accession File #13305
Priestley, Joseph, and John Towill Rutt. 1817. The Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Priestley. Vol. I Part 2. [London : Printed by G. Smallfield. http://archive.org/details/theologicalmisce0102prie.
This intriguing quilt, “Solar System,” was made by Ellen Harding Baker (1847-1886), an intellectually ambitious Iowa wife and mother. It came to the National Museum of American History in 1983, a gift from her granddaughters.
The maker, Sarah Ellen Harding, was born in Ohio or Indiana, in 1847, and married Marion Baker of Cedar County, Iowa, on October 10, 1867. In the 1870s they moved to Johnson County, where Marion had a general merchandise business in Lone Tree. Ellen had seven children before she died of tuberculosis on March 30, 1886.
The wool top of this applique quilt is embellished with wool-fabric applique, wool braid, and wool and silk embroidery. The lining is a red cotton-and-wool fabric and the filling is of cotton fiber. The design of this striking and unusual quilt resembles illustrations in astronomy books of the period. Included in the design is the appliqued inscription, “Solar System,” and the embroidered inscription, “E.H. Baker.” Mrs. Baker probably began this project in 1876, as per the “A.D.1876” in the lower right corner.
The “Solar System” quilt was probably completed in 1883 when an Iowa newspaper reported that “Mrs. M. Baker, of Lone Tree, has just finished a silk quilt which she has been seven years in making.” The article went on to say that the quilt “has the solar system worked in completely and accurately. The lady went to Chicago to view the comet and sun spots through the telescope that she might be very accurate. Then she devised a lecture in astronomy from it.” This information was picked up the by the New York Times (September 22, 1883).
The large object in the center of the quilt is clearly the Sun, and the fixed Stars are at the outer edges. Around the Sun are the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Moon, and Mars. Not shown are the two moons of Mars that were first seen, at the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1877. The four curious clumps beyond Mars represent the asteroids. The first asteroid (Ceres) had been found in 1801, and with the proliferation of ever more powerful telescopes, ever more objects came into view. Then there is Jupiter with its four moons first seen by Galileo, and Saturn with its rings. The six moons orbiting Uranus are somewhat confusing, as astronomers did not agree on the actual number. Neptune has the one moon discovered by an English astronomer in 1846, shortly after the planet itself was seen.
The large item in the upper left of the quilt is surely the naked-eye comet that blazed into view in the spring of 1874, and that was named for Jerome Eugene Coggia, an astronomer at the Observatory in Marseilles. Americans too took note. Indeed, an amateur astronomer in Chicago put a powerful telescope on the balcony of the Interstate Industrial Exposition Building (1872-1892), a large glass structure recently erected along the shore of Lake Michigan, and offered to show Coggia’s Comet to citizens of and visitors to the Windy City.
The New York Times described Mrs. Baker’s intention to use her quilt for pedagogical purposes as “somewhat comical”---but it was clearly behind the times. Most Americans knew that women were teaching astronomy and other sciences in grammar schools, high schools and colleges, in communities across the country. Mrs. Baker, for her part, may have been inspired by the fact that the famed Maria Mitchell, professor at Vassar College, had brought four students and piles of apparatus, to Burlington, Iowa, to observe a solar eclipse in August 1869.
This metal prototype for an electronic polar planimeter has an adjustable 12" tracer arm with lens. The top of the arm is divided to millimeters and numbered from 10 to 24 centimeters. The bottom is marked with a serial number: 45254. The arm slides into a painted metal holder for an electronic measuring unit with a plug. The holder has a vernier for the scale on the tracer arm and is marked: LASICO. The plug attaches to a Series 40 processor with a digital screen for displaying the measurement and a knob for setting the instrument to OFF, A, ACCU, or B. An AC adapter by Calrad, a Taiwanese company, powers the processor.
An adjustable 10" pole arm fits into the holder at one end and a rectangular painted metal pole weight at the other end. The weight is marked: LASICO (/) U.S.A. The arm is divided to millimeters and numbered by tens from 30 to 60 millimeters. The adjusting part of the arm is marked: LASICO. An additional tracer arm with a point instead of a lens has serial number: 45275. A business card for the designer, who also donated the instrument, an extra lens, and two plastic washers for the lens are inside a black plastic case lined with foam.
Maximilian Berktold (b. 1929) immigrated from Kempten-Allgäu, West Germany, in 1950 and almost immediately began working for the Los Angeles Scientific Instrument Company. He oversaw design and production of the firm's planimeters, integrators, pantographs, and various optical instruments until Lasico closed in 2008. He developed this prototype around 1970 from the company's model L30 mechanical planimeter, but the final version was sold as model series 40 and 50. These devices cost several hundred dollars.
An 18-page booklet, "LASICO Instruction Manual [for] Digital Compensating Polar Planimeters," was received with the instrument. It contains the calibration settings for a model L50-E, serial number 65879. For company history, see 2011.0043.01.
This pinwheel calculating machine has nine levers for setting numbers, ten wheels for recording numbers of revolutions of the large drum, and 18 wheels for recording results. The large handle for operating the machine is on the right at the top. The carriage has two zeroing handles. Lifting a movable bar zeros the levers. Depressing a knob at the front releases the carriage. The machine has a wooden base and a black metal cover that fits over it. The base has four rubber feet.
A mark on the front of the machine and on the front of the cover reads: RAPID (/) CALCULATOR. Another mark on the front of the machine reads: MADE IN (/) USA. The serial number, stamped on metal piece on right side and on pencil on wooden piece on inside of cover, is 3805. A mark on the front of the carriage reads: THE RAPID CALCULATOR CO. (/) PHILADELPHIA PENNA. A mark on the back of the case reads: PATENTED (/) THE RAPID CALCULATOR CO. MFRD. (/) PHILADELPHIA PENNA.
Otto P. Schuman (1891–1969) came to the United States from Germany in 1909 and founded the Rapid Calculator Company in 1919. He applied for U.S. patents on calculating machines in 1919 (1,508,257 - granted September 9, 1924 ) and 1924 (1,566,978 - granted December 22, 1925). The clearing mechanism for the entry levers patented in his second patent is used in this machine, hence the date of about 1925.
Many calculating machines were used in insurance companies. This machine was used by actuary John V. Hanna (1892–1982) of the United Life and Accident Insurance Company of Concord, New Hampshire. Hanna joined the company as its actuary in 1921, and became president in 1935. He became chairman of the board in 1955 and retired in 1957. The machine was given to the Smithsonian by Hanna’s son.
This silver metal canister once contained Eco RI, an enzyme commonly used in molecular biology. Eco RI belongs to a class of enzymes known as restriction enzymes, which are useful for their ability to cleave DNA only at locations containing specific sequences of nucleotides, the small chemical units that make up the longer DNA molecule. Eco RI recognizes the sequence GAATTC and will cut between the G and first A.
This particular canister of Eco RI was used to create recombinant DNA molecules at Genentech, a biotechnology company, in the early 1980s.
Source:
National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings. “Deoxyribonuclease EcoRI.” http://www.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/mesh/2011/MB_cgi?mode=&term=Eco-RI
This zip disk contains the text used for the "Our Stories" page on the NMAH website.
Web designer David McOwen, a member of the New Media Office at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, used these materials when designing sections of the NMAH website.
The entire Smithsonian website is preserved by the Smithsonian Institution Archives.
This one-sided wooden rule is faced with white celluloid and has a plastic indicator and metal endpieces. The base has A, D, and K scales; B, CI, and C scales are on the front of the slide, and S, L, and T scales are on the back of the slide. The back of the slide is visible on the back of the rule, but the back of the base has tables of equivalents instead of scales. So, the slide must be removed from the rule, turned over, and reinserted to use the S, L, and T scales with the A, D, and K scales. (There is, though, a hairline on the back of one endpiece for using the S, L, and T scales by themselves.) The tables of equivalents indicate how the slide should be set on the front to convert various units, such as centimeters to meters. The instrument fits in a brown synthetic leather case. The front of the base is marked: SR-105D CHARVOZ-ROOS MADE IN U.S.A. The back of the base is marked: ACU (/) DESIGN (/) PAT. PENDING.
Andre Charvoz (1892–1969) and his partners began to sell rebranded slide rules as well as slide rules assembled from parts in East Rutherford, N.J., around 1939. The company was called the Charvoz-Roos Corporation from 1946 until 1953, when it went bankrupt. The scales on the celluloid layers were apparently provided by the Acu-Rule Mfg. Co. of St. Louis, Mo., which either used Acu-Design as a brand name or as a separate business that supplied scales to other manufacturers. Acu-Rule's president, Wilfred Boos, applied for a patent on this rule in 1949 and received it in 1952.
References:
"Time Line for Charvoz-Roos Slide Rules," International Slide Rule Museum, http://sliderulemuseum.com/SR_Dates.htm#
Charvoz; Wilfred J. Boos, "Slide Rule" (U.S. Patent 2,594,897 issued April 29, 1952).
Professor Jonathan Wittenberg used this model of sperm whale myoglobin structure as a teaching tool at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in the Bronx. It was used beginning in the mid-1960s as part of his class on cell function, which would later come to be known as molecular biology. Wittenberg purchased the model from A. A. Barker, an employee of Cambridge University Engineering Laboratories, who fabricated the models for sale to interested scientists starting in May 1966 under the supervision of John Kendrew.
Between the years 1957 and 1959, John Kendrew, a British biochemist, figured out the complete structure of a protein. For his breakthrough he won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, an award he shared with his co-contributor Max Perutz.
Proteins are large molecules used for a vast variety of tasks in the body. Knowing their structure is a key part of understanding how they function, as structure determines the way in which proteins interact with other molecules and can give clues to their purpose in the body.
Kendrew uncovered the structure of myoglobin using a method known as X-ray crystallography, a technique where crystals of a substance—in this case myoglobin—are grown and then bombarded with X-rays. The rays bounce off the atoms in the crystal at an angle and hit a photographic plate. By studying these angles, scientists can pinpoint the average location of single atoms within the protein molecule and piece this data together to figure out the complete structure of the protein.
Interestingly, Kendrew had a hard time getting enough crystals of myoglobin to work with until someone was kind enough to give him a slab of sperm whale meat. Myoglobin’s purpose in the body is to store oxygen in the muscles until needed. Sperm whales, as aquatic mammals, have to be very efficient at storing oxygen for their muscles during deep sea dives, which means they require a lot of myoglobin. Until the gift of the sperm whale meat, Kendrew couldn’t isolate enough myoglobin to grow crystals of sufficient size for his research.
Sources:
Accession file
“History of Visualization of Biological Macromolecules: A. A. Barker’s Models of Myoglobin.” Eric Francouer, University of Massachusetts-Amherst. http://www.umass.edu/molvis/francoeur/barker/barker.html
The Eighth Day of Creation: The Makers of the Revolution in Biology. Horace Freeland Judson. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press: 1996.
This one-sided rule is made of two types of wood and painted white on top. The top edge is beveled and has a scale for 1:20,000 yards. The top of the base has scales for 100-yard shift, 33 1/3 yards, and range, with D and K scales at the bottom. The D scale is a standard logarithmic scale for multiplication, but the K scale is not a logarithmic scale for cubes. The bottom of the base is marked: GRAPHICAL FIRING TABLE. The top right corner is marked: B180971. The bottom right corner is marked: B180972. The clear plastic indicator has white plastic edges. A black wheel is inside the bottom edge of the rule.
Originally the instrument would have had three slides, including one with a standard logarithmic C scale, but this example has only one slide. The slide was used to position an 8-inch M1-type howitzer armed with high explosive M106 shells, M51 and M67 fuses, and charges of 5, 6, or 7. The howitzer was a U.S. Army cannon introduced around 1942 and used into the 1950s. One side of the slide is for setting the cannon at a high angle and has scales labeled ELEV., 10 M Si (change in elevation), DRIFT, and TF (time of flight). The other side is for setting the cannon to fire at long range and has scales labeled ELEV., c, DRIFT, and FS (fuse setting). The left end is marked: LONG RANGE (/) FT 8-J-1. This mark indicates the corresponding firing table. The right end is marked: GFT M17 (/) C81758.
The back has tables for accounting for the influence of changes in temperature and wind direction. A third table provides range limits for charges from 1 to 7. The right end is marked: TABLE, GRAPHICAL FIRING, (/) M17 (/) STOCK NO. 6574317 (/) 81873. A dark brown leather case has a belt loop and a strap for tying it to the leg. Two additional vertical pockets inside the case held the additional two slides. The flap is marked: CASE, CARRYING (/) M23 (/) D4130. Clark McCoy attributed the rule to Keuffel & Esser, a prominent New York slide rule manufacturer. For another graphical firing table, see 1977.1141.25. One use for the ENIAC and other early electronic digital computers was to compute artillery firing tables.
This example of the firing table was owned by Willard H. Eller (1892-1974), who chaired the physics department at the University of Hawaii from 1931 until 1957.
References: Dr. Ing. Federico Ramirez Santa-Pau, "The Artillery Graphical Firing Table: A Description of a Specialized Slide Rule," Journal of the Oughtred Society 9, no. 2 (2000): 17–20; Clark McCoy, "Graphical Firing Table Slide Rule," http://www.mccoys-kecatalogs.com/KECollection/GraphicalFiring/K&E_GF_1.htm.
Robert M. Kamins and Robert E. Potter, Malamalama: A History of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998.
This device combines a cylindrical table for multiplying numbers from 2 to 12 by numbers from 2 to 12 with a mechanical pencil. It has a wooden exterior painted red with a metal piece near the writing end (there is no lead in this example) and a yellow plastic cover for the table. A mark on the pencil reads: MAGIC (/) MULTIPLYING (/) PENCIL (/) TURN HERE (/) PAT. PEND. APEX PRODUCTS CORP. N Y C.
The pencil is stapled to a paper display card that reads in part: Sensation (/) of the (/) School Year! (/) MAGIC (/) MULTIPLYING (/) PENCIL. It also reads: [copyright symbol] Apex Products Corp., N. Y. C. (/) 1939 Made in U.S.A. Patent Pending.
References:
[Advertisement], The Hartford Courant, September 1, 1946, p. sm 16. Magic Multiplying Pencil selling for 15 cents.
[Advertisement], Chicago Daily Tribune, August 24, 1947, p. 90. Magic Multiplying Pencil advertised as selling for 14 cents.
William Dougal (1822–1895) of Washington, D.C. engraved this print of three fish species after original sketches by John H. Richard (c.1807–1881) of Philadelphia. The engraving was printed as Plate 19 in "Ichthyology of the Boundary” by Charles Girard (1822-1895), published in Volume 2, Part 2 of the Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey. The volume was printed in 1859 by Cornelius Wendell of Washington, D.C. The fish species illustrated include: Ictiobus tumidus [Grd], Ptychostomus albidus [Grd], and Luxilus leptosomus [Grd].
Description
William Dougal (1822–1895) of Washington, D.C. engraved this print of “Ictiobus tumidus [Grd], Ptychostomus albidus [Grd], and Luxilus leptosomus [Grd]”—now "Ictiobus bubalus" (Smallmouth buffalofish), "Moxostoma albidum" (Longlip jumprock), and "Notemigonus crysoleucas" (Golden shiner or Golden shiner minnow); from an original sketch by John H. Richard (c.1807–1881) of Philadelphia. The illustration was printed as Plate 19 in the “Fishes” section of the second part of volume II of the Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, written by Charles Girard (1822–1895). The volume was printed in 1859 by Cornelius Wendell of Washington, D.C.