Military
The Museum's superb military collections document the history of the men and women of the armed forces of the United States. The collections include ordnance, firearms, and swords; uniforms and insignia; national and military flags and banners; and many other objects.
The strength of the collections lies in their enormous depth. Some 3,000 military small arms and 2,400 civilian firearms document the mechanical and technological history of the infantryman's weapons from the beginning of the gunpowder era to the present. Among the 4,000 swords and knives in the collection are many spectacular presentation pieces. The collections also include Civil War era telegraph equipment, home front artifacts from both world wars, early computers such as ENIAC, Whirlwind, and Sage, and materials carried at antiwar demonstrations.
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Album of WWI Photographs by Harry A. Spencer
- Description
- Album of photographs taken by Harry A. Spencer during his tour of service in the United States Army during World War I. The album has a black leather cover stamped with the word "Photographs" that has separated from the spine. A gelatin silver photograph of a piece of artillery is attached to the front below the title. The album is composed of fifty black paper pages on which silver gelatin photographs have been mounted with hand-written captions beneath. The pages are tied together near the spine with a black woven shoelace. The album details Spencer's life while he served in the military during the war, including his time at Camp Greene in North Carolina, and travels through Memphis, Tennessee, New York City, England, France, Belgium, Germany, and Colorado. See accession file for reference reproduction of Spencer's album created by the donor, Spencer's grand-daughter Kathi Wong.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1918-1919
- ID Number
- 2009.0129.01
- accession number
- 2009.0129
- catalog number
- 2009.0129.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Napoleon's Army in the Alps
- Description
- This lithograph, Passage de l’armé française à; l’hospice du Mont Saint-Bernard 15 Mai 1800 by Hippolyte Bellangé, shows Napoleon’s daring crossing of the Alps via the Great St. Bernard Pass on the Italian-Swiss border with his army of 40,000 men. It was published with eleven other military views, including the Battle of Marengo, in a portfolio. Entitled Souvenirs militaires de la Republique, du Consulat et de l’Empire (Military Memories of the Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire), the firm of Gihaut introduced the album in 1834. It was the last but one in an annual series that Bellangé inaugurated in 1823. The prints in these portfolios included military views and some genre scenes.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1833
- graphic artist
- Bellangé, Hippolyte
- ID Number
- GA.15317
- catalog number
- 15317
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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