Energy & Power
The Museum's collections on energy and power illuminate the role of fire, steam, wind, water, electricity, and the atom in the nation's history. The artifacts include wood-burning stoves, water turbines, and windmills, as well as steam, gas, and diesel engines. Oil-exploration and coal-mining equipment form part of these collections, along with a computer that controlled a power plant and even bubble chambers—a tool of physicists to study protons, electrons, and other charged particles.
A special strength of the collections lies in objects related to the history of electrical power, including generators, batteries, cables, transformers, and early photovoltaic cells. A group of Thomas Edison's earliest light bulbs are a precious treasure. Hundreds of other objects represent the innumerable uses of electricity, from streetlights and railway signals to microwave ovens and satellite equipment.
34
Page 1 of 2
-
funnel
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1930
- ID Number
- 1977.0935.01E
- catalog number
- 1977.0935.01E
- accession number
- 1977.0935
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Caterpillar Diesel Engine, 1930
- Description
- This is the first mass-produced diesel engine ever made in the United States. The four-cylinder engine uses a variety of fuels, including furnace oil and generates 86.8 horsepower at 700 revolutions per minute.
- "Old Betsy" was employed to drive earth-moving equipment in the construction industry before its retirement in the mid-20th century. The transition from gasoline to diesel was preferred by manufacturers of heavy equipment due in part to the efficiencies available with the heavier classes of motor fuel, in addition to diesel's ability to run cleaner than ordinary gasoline.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1930
- maker
- Caterpillar Tractor Co.
- ID Number
- MC.335000
- catalog number
- 335000
- accession number
- 310685
- serial number
- 1-A-14
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
pump
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1930
- ID Number
- 1977.0935.01D
- catalog number
- 1977.0935.01D
- accession number
- 1977.0935
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Experimental fluorescent lamp
- Description
- The development of practical fluorescent lamps took decades, and many researchers contributed. Julius Plucker and Heinrich Geissler made glowing glass tubes in the 1850s, about the time George Stokes discovered that invisible ultraviolet light made some materials glow or "fluoresce." Alexandre Edmond Becquerel put fluorescent materials in a Geissler tube in 1859, though his tubes did not last long. Carbon dioxide-filled tubes by D. McFarlan Moore and mercury vapor tubes by Peter Cooper Hewitt around 1900 gave practical experience with gas-filled, discharge lamps and inspired the neon tubes of Georges Claude.
- In 1926 Friedrich Meyer, Hans Spanner, and Edmund Germer of Germany patented an enclosed glass tube containing mercury vapor, electrodes at either end, and a coating of fluorescent powders called phosphors. This incorporated all of the features we see in modern fluorescent tubes, but their employer did not pursue development. William Enfield of General Electric saw phosphor-coated neon tubes in France in the early 1930s, and heard that European researchers were developing a fluorescent lamp. An especially urgent 1934 letter from a consultant, Nobel-laureate Arthur Compton, coming on the heels of European breakthroughs in low-pressure sodium and high-pressure mercury lamps, spurred both GE and its licensee Westinghouse into combined action.
- Enfield created a team led by George Inman, and by the end of 1934 they made several working fluorescent lamps, including the one seen here. To save time, the team adopted the design of an existing tubular incandescent lamp in order to make use of available production equipment and lamp parts. Speed was important. In addition to European competitors, American companies like Sylvania were also working on fluorescents. A second GE group under Philip Pritchard worked on production equipment. Other GE groups in Schenectady and in Ft. Wayne assisted in developing ballasts and resolving problems of circuit design.
- In 1936 GE and Westinghouse demonstrated the new lamp to the U.S. Navy (that lamp is in the Smithsonian's collection). The public finally saw fluorescent lamps in 1939 at both the New York World's Fair and the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco. These early lamps gave twice the energy efficiency of the best incandescent designs. Production of fluorescent lamps, slow at first, soon soared as millions were installed in factories making equipment for the American military during World War 2.
- Lamp characteristics: Double-ended without bases. Flat presses with an exhaust tip near one press. A tungsten electrode, CC-6 configuration coated with emitter, is set at either end. A mercury pellet is loose inside the lamp. The clear T-7 glass envelope has a phosphor coating covering about 3 inches (8 cm) of the lamp near the center.
- date made
- ca. 1934
- Date made
- ca 1934
- manufacturer
- General Electric
- ID Number
- 1997.0388.41
- accession number
- 1997.0388
- catalog number
- 1997.0388.41
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
"Stopper" Lamp Replica
- Description (Brief)
- Replica "stopper lamp" made to the original 1893 specifications for the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1934
- maker
- Westinghouse Lamp Company
- ID Number
- 2002.0020.01
- accession number
- 2002.0020
- catalog number
- 2002.0020.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Mercury Vapor Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- A type S-2 sunlamp featured a cap placed over the bulb to increase the ultraviolet output and minimize glare.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1935
- maker
- General Electric Company
- ID Number
- 1997.0387.07
- accession number
- 1997.0387
- catalog number
- 1997.0387.07
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Mercury Vapor Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- A 100 watt mercury vapor lamp designed for alternating current operation with a reactive transformer.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1938
- maker
- General Electric Company
- ID Number
- 1997.0387.03
- accession number
- 1997.0387
- catalog number
- 1997.0387.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Linear Incandescent Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- GE incandescent Lumiline lamp, green-coated, ca. 1936. Characteristics: Double-ended with steel disc-bases. C-8 tungsten filament, with glass-bead insulated support-hooks attached to a spine paralleling the filament. Tubular envelope with an enamel, green coating. Color lamps were displaced by the development of the fluorescent lamp, though clear and frosted are still available as of 1997.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1936
- Maker
- General Electric
- ID Number
- 1997.0388.49
- accession number
- 1997.0388
- catalog number
- 1997.0388.49
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Linear Incandescent Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- GE incandescent Lumiline lamp, white-coated, ca. 1936. Characteristics: Double-ended with steel disc-bases. C-8 tungsten filament, with glass-bead insulated support-hooks attached to a spine paralleling the filament. Spine is crimp-connected to lead on one end, other end has a glass-bead insulator connecting to lead. Filament is crimp-connected to a support hook / lead prior to this insulator. Tubular envelope, coated with a white enamel finish. White Lumilines were replaced by fluorescent lamps for most uses.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1936
- Maker
- General Electric
- ID Number
- 1997.0388.52
- accession number
- 1997.0388
- catalog number
- 1997.0388.52
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Incandescent Test Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- GE tungsten lamp designed to emit a specific amount of light. For use in testing at the National Bureau of Standards.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1930
- maker
- General Electric Co.
- ID Number
- 1992.0342.27
- accession number
- 1992.0342
- catalog number
- 1992.0342.27
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
General Electric Demonstration Fluorescent Lamp
- Description
- In the late 1920s and early 1930s, reports began reaching GE and Westinghouse of French experiments with neon tubes coated with phosphors. A phosphor is a material that absorbs one type of light and radiates another. American scientist Arthur Compton, a consultant to GE, reported seeing a green French lamp giving 30 lumens per watt in 1934, and his report sparked an intensive, cooperative research program to make a fluorescent lamp. In 1936, this tube using low pressure mercury vapor and a coating of phosphors was quietly demonstrated to the Illuminating Engineering Society and the U.S. Navy.
- In 1939, GE and Westinghouse publicly introduced fluorescent lamps at both the New York World's Fair and the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco. Other lamp makers like Sylvania and Duro-Test soon followed. The need for efficient lighting in wartime factories brought rapid adoption of fluorescent lighting and by 1951 industry sources reported that more light in the United States was being produced by fluorescent lamps than by incandescent lamps.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1936
- maker
- General Electric Company
- ID Number
- EM.318197
- catalog number
- 318197
- accession number
- 232822
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Christmas Light Set
- Description (Brief)
- A set of 19 incandescent decorative Christmas lamps with cords, about 1937. Lamps are wired into 3 separate strings which are plugged into a common terminal block. The strings are disposable, with strings being replaced as they burn-out. Characteristics: Lamps: Double-ended glass with a lead emerging from each end. C-8 tungsten filaments with soldered-crimp connectors. Tipless, oval-shape envelopes with seams running lengthwise (clamshell assembly). All but three are enamel coated: colors as follows: 2 white, 3 blue, 7 red, 3 green, 4 yellow. Three of the red lamps are spray-coated. Two of the strings have 6 lamps each; the broken string has 7. Cord-set: 6 black-insulated plastic (?) plug-sockets which insert into a plastic block. Jacket is a green woven-fabric. Each sting is a series circuit with a connector at each end. There is space for four strings in the block, but only three were found. The block-leads are wired to a two-prong plug with an black plastic housing. "Mazda [GE logo] Lamps" printed on each string's end-connectors. Paper found in the bag with the set reads: "1937 Disposable string set".
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1937
- Maker
- General Electric
- ID Number
- 1997.0388.39
- accession number
- 1997.0388
- catalog number
- 1997.0388.39
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Radon-beryllium neutron source used by E. Fermi & associates, 1933-34
- Description
- Object EM*N-08430 consists of radon gas and a beryllium rod, enclosed in a glass tube, all enclosed in an exterior brass cylinder. This apparatus was used in 1934-35 by Enrico Fermi and coworkers in producing slow neutrons in investigations on induced radioactivity.
- The brass rod pulls apart; inside is a glass tube sealed at both ends. Inside one end of the glass tube is a small sealed glass pod, prevented from sliding by wads of cotton. Inside the pod is a mass of black granules; the tube glass is discolored purple in this pod region. The outer brass rod/tube has internal pads at each end.
- History
- In their attempts to excite and transform atomic nuclei, physicists were limited throughout the 1920’s to bombarding atoms with particles, chiefly alpha particles, spontaneously emitted by sources consisting of naturally radioactive substances, for example radium. (Alpha particles consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together into a particle identical to a helium nucleus.) Disadvantages of using alpha particles included the limited supply and great expense of radium and similar substances, as well as the limited energy and uncontrollability of these spontaneous radiations. The situation was overcome by the use of neutrons, first discovered by James Chadwick in 1932. (See Chadwick ionization chamber replica; object ID no. - - - -) Chadwick recognized evidence of the particle in I. and F. Joliot Curie’s description of phenomena resulting from the bombardment of beryllium by alpha particles. Although the husband and wife team missed the neutron discovery, their continuing investigations of the bombardment of light elements by alpha particles led them in 1934 to recognize that in this process radioactivity was being induced artificially in the target nuclei. (See Joliot-Curie apparatus replica; object ID no. EM*N-09624.2)
- Based on the above discoveries, Enrico Fermi at the University of Rome immediately inferred that if alpha particles could induce artificial radioactivity, neutrons should do so - - and far more readily. He quickly gathered his group of young coworkers to help him exploit the field thus opened.
- Basic principles of Fermi’s neutron source
- When a radioactive element that emits alpha particles is mixed with a light element such as beryllium, neutrons are emitted because many of the alpha particles are absorbed by the nuclei of the light element. The radon-beryllium mixture in the tube of object no. EM*N-08430 was used as a source of neutrons by Fermi and his associates at the University of Rome in 1934-35 for their investigations of neutron-induced radioactivity, which showed that nuclear reactions could be produced in almost all elements by bombarding them with neutrons.
- In Fermi’s neutron source, radon gas (Rn 222) was bled from a solution of radium (Ra 226) and collected on and around the beryllium metal at one end of the tube. The radon decays with a half-life of 3.8 days to lead (Pb 210) by way of two short lived alpha-emitting isotopes. The three alpha particles resulting from the decay of the isotopes interact with the beryllium (Be 9) to produce neutrons.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1934-1935
- maker
- Fermi
- coworkers
- ID Number
- EM.N-08430
- catalog number
- N-08430
- accession number
- 247572
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Experimental Mercury Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Experimental tungsten lamp with mercury pool. This lamp’s purpose is unclear but it appears similar early sunlamps.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1930
- maker
- General Electric Lighting Company
- ID Number
- 1997.0388.62
- catalog number
- 1997.0388.62
- accession number
- 1997.0388
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Model of Snagboat Charles H. West
- Description
- Introduced in the early 19th century, snag boats were designed to clear trees, stumps, and other obstructions from navigable rivers and channels. Most were in the form of a catamaran, with two parallel hulls between which trees were hauled in, cut up, and disposed of on land.
- Designed by the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency responsible for maintaining the national waterways, Charles H. West was built at Nashville, Tenn., in 1933-34 by the Nashville Bridge Co. at a cost of $227,260.48. It measured 170’ in length and 38’ in beam but only drew 4’-6” of water. Instead of a catamaran design, the West had a normal, shallow sternwheeler hull. At the flat or scow bow, two A-frames hauled snags up a ramp for disposal. It cleared snags along the lower Mississippi River for many years.
- In 1969, the West was sold to a private party and converted to the restaurant boat Lt. Robert E. Lee in St. Louis, Mo. the following year. The name was fitting. Although best known as a Confederate general, in the late 1830s, Lee had been an officer in the Corps of Engineers. His work installing pilings and wing dams had helped the Mississippi currents to clear silt and keep open the main St. Louis landing.
- Moored on the Mississippi near the St. Louis Arch, the Lee was a successful restaurant until a 1993 flood devastated the waterfront. After several failed attempts to reopen, the vessel was auctioned on December 19, 2008, for $200,000. Its new owners plan to renovate and reopen the famous ship once again as a restaurant and nightclub in St. Louis.
- Date made
- 1966
- ID Number
- TR.326538
- catalog number
- 326538
- accession number
- 265606
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Linear Fluorescent Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- A fluorescent "Mazda" lamp rated at 15 watts. This is a first generation commercial fluorescent lamp.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1938
- ID Number
- 1997.0387.17
- accession number
- 1997.0387
- catalog number
- 1997.0387.17
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Incandescent Test Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- GE tungsten lamp designed to emit a specific amount of light. For use in testing at the National Bureau of Standards.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1930
- maker
- General Electric Co.
- ID Number
- 1992.0342.26
- accession number
- 1992.0342
- catalog number
- 1992.0342.26
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
handle
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1930
- ID Number
- 1977.0935.01G
- catalog number
- 1977.0935.01G
- accession number
- 1977.0935
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Linear Incandescent Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- GE incandescent Lumiline lamp, orange-coated, ca. 1936. Characteristics: Double-ended with steel disc-bases. C-8 tungsten filament, with glass-bead insulated support-hooks attached to a spine paralleling the filament. Tubular envelope with an enamel, orange coating. Color lamps were displaced by the development of the fluorescent lamp, though clear and frosted were still available as of 1997.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1936
- Maker
- General Electric
- ID Number
- 1997.0388.50
- accession number
- 1997.0388
- catalog number
- 1997.0388.50
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Mercury Vapor Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- The type S-1 sunlamp combined incandescent and mercury vapor technology into one lamp. Used for tanning.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1935
- maker
- General Electric Company
- ID Number
- 1997.0387.06
- accession number
- 1997.0387
- catalog number
- 1997.0387.06
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
Pages
Filter Your Results
Click to remove a filter:
-
topic
- Energy & Power 34
- Lamps 19
- Household Tools and Equipment 7
- Heating 5
- Cooking 2
- Industrialization 2
- Manufacturing industries 2
- Mathematics 2
- Modern Physics 2
- Science 2
- Scientific apparatus and instruments 2
- Transportation 2
- Ecology 1
- Great Depression, 1929-1939 1
- Laundry 1
- On the Water exhibit 1
- Road Transportation 1
- WW II 1
- World War, 1939-1945 1
-
object type
- Incandescent lamps (lighting device components) 9
- discharge lamp 8
- fluorescent lamp 6
- Apparatus, Artificial Radioactivity 1
- Engine, Diesel 1
- Flatiron with Stand 1
- Funnels 1
- Handles 1
- Models 1
- Neutron Source, Radon-Beryllium 1
- Pumps (machinery) 1
- Ships 1
- Toasters (cooking and heating devices) 1
- burner, bunsen 1
- connector 1
- demonstration kit 1
- discharge lamp; Fluorescent 1
- discharge lamp; Lighting Devices; Mercury Vapor 1
- flatiron 1
- flatiron, carbide gas 1
- date
- place
-
set name
- Work and Industry: Electricity 22
- Electric Lamps 19
- Home and Community Life: Domestic Life 7
- National Museum of American History 4
- Industry & Manufacturing 2
- Lighting a Revolution 2
- Measuring & Mapping 2
- Medicine and Science: Modern Physics 2
- Modern Physics 2
- Science & Mathematics 2
- Transportation 2
- America On The Move 1
- America on the Move 1
- Natural Resources 1
- On the Water 1
- On the Water exhibit 1
- Road Transportation 1
- Work 1
- Work and Industry: Maritime 1
