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.
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button
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1981.0487.01
- accession number
- 1981.0487
- catalog number
- 1981.0487.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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sticker
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- c1980
- ID Number
- 1981.0434.14
- catalog number
- 1981.0434.14
- accession number
- 1981.0434
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Lewis Latimer Patent Drawing
- Description
- Electricity pioneer Lewis Latimer drew this component of an arc lamp, an early type of electric light, for the U.S. Electric Lighting Company in 1880.
- The son of escaped slaves and a Civil War veteran at age sixteen, Latimer trained himself as a draftsman. His technical and artistic skills earned him jobs with Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, among others. An inventor in his own right, Latimer received numerous patents and was a renowned industry expert on incandescent lighting.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1880-07-25
- maker
- Latimer, Lewis H.
- ID Number
- 1983.0458.21
- accession number
- 1983.0458
- catalog number
- 1983.0458.21
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Solar Power Bumper Sticker
- Description
- Many environmental groups in the 1960s and 1970s battled against the use of nuclear power to produce electricity because they considered it a dangerous source of pollution to humans and their environment. This bumper sticker promoted the use of solar power as an alternative and safer method for providing the world’s energy needs.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1970s
- ID Number
- 1981.0435.11
- accession number
- 1981.0435
- catalog number
- 1981.0435.11
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Campaign speeches are useful, at that
- Description (Brief)
- This pen-and-ink comic art drawing by Rube Goldberg from 1924 features the concept of using “windy” political speeches as free energy.
- Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was an engineer before he was a comic artist. After receiving an engineering degree, he started his career designing sewers for the City of San Francisco, but then followed his other interest and took a job as a sports cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle. After moving to New York in 1907 Goldberg worked for several newspapers, producing a number of short-lived strips and panels—many of which were inspired by his engineering background, including his renowned invention cartoons. In the late 1930s and 1940s he switched his focus to editorial and political cartoons and in 1945 founded the National Cartoonists Society. The Reuben, comic art’s most prestigious award, is named after him.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1924-10-31
- original artist
- Goldberg, Rube
- ID Number
- GA.23492
- catalog number
- 23492
- accession number
- 299186
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Model of Bucyrus-Erie Stripping Shovel
- Description
- In 1960, the Bucyrus-Erie Company of South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, presented this 14-inch-high, scale model of what was to become the world's largest stripping shovel to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Later that year, the President transferred this gift to the Smithsonian Institution. The Bucyrus-Erie Company had custom-designed this monster machine for the Peabody Coal Company. Bucyrus-Erie engineers anticipated that they would need two years to manufacture the behemoth, and an additional six months to assemble it at the site of the open-pit mine. (They planned to ship the machine's parts in over 250 railcars.) When finished, the shovel would weigh 7,000 tons, soar to the roofline of a 20-story building (some 220 feet high), and be able to extend its enormous 115-cubic-yard dipper over 460 feet, or about the length of an average city block. (The dipper's capacity would equal that of about six stand-sized dump trucks.) Fifty electric motors-ranging from 1/4 to 3,000 horsepower-would power the shovel, which was designed to be controlled by a single operator, perched in a cab five stories high. Publicists for Bucyrus-Erie called this the "largest self-powered mobile land vehicle ever built."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1960
- recipient
- Eisenhower, Dwight D.
- maker
- Bucyrus-Erie Company
- ID Number
- MC.317688
- catalog number
- 317688
- accession number
- 231557
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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White House Solar Panel
- Description
- During his term in office, President Jimmy Carter fought for clean energy using renewable sources. As a symbol of his faith in “the power of the sun,” Carter had 32 solar panels installed on the White House West Wing roof in the summer of 1979. These panels were used to heat water in the household for seven years until President Ronald Reagan had them removed in 1986. The panels were stored in a government warehouse until 1991, when they were acquired by Unity College in Maine. The college installed some of the panels to heat their cafeteria water.
- This solar panel is one of the original Carter White House panels and was donated to the National Museum of American History by Unity College in 2009.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1977
- user
- Carter, Jimmy
- maker
- Inter Technology/Solar Corporation
- ID Number
- 2009.0154.01
- catalog number
- 2009.0154.01
- accession number
- 2009.0154
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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