Natural Resources
The natural resources collections offer centuries of evidence about how Americans have used the bounty of the American continent and coastal waters. Artifacts related to flood control, dam construction, and irrigation illustrate the nation's attempts to manage the natural world. Oil-drilling, iron-mining, and steel-making artifacts show the connection between natural resources and industrial strength.
Forestry is represented by saws, axes, a smokejumper's suit, and many other objects. Hooks, nets, and other gear from New England fisheries of the late 1800s are among the fishing artifacts, as well as more recent acquisitions from the Pacific Northwest and Chesapeake Bay. Whaling artifacts include harpoons, lances, scrimshaw etchings in whalebone, and several paintings of a whaler's work at sea. The modern environmental movement has contributed buttons and other protest artifacts on issues from scenic rivers to biodiversity.
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jacquard loom
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- Jacquard attachment was made in the 1840s, the loom frame below was made in the late 18th century.
- inventor of jacquard attachment
- Jacquard, Joseph Marie
- ID Number
- TE.T11685.000
- catalog number
- T11685.000
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Sample book of Machine made lace; J. Gaillard, France; late 19th C.
- Description
- A sample book of machine-made lace, French, 2nd half 19th century. From: J. Gaillard, Pere et Fils. Saint-Pierre-lez-Calais, France. Blue cloth covered volume, 19.25” L x 12” W x ¾” D; Embossed gold lettering and border on front cover. Interior of 26 blue paper leaves with pasted in samples of machine-made lace in various styles, sizes, mostly black or white. More than one sample per page; each paper leaf has samples on both sides. Each sample has a small paper tag in the upper right corner with a style number and price per yard. Exquisite examples of Leavers-machine made lace trimmings for apparel and furnishing uses. The U.S. Leavers lace industry grew after the tariff on imported Leavers machines was removed for several months by the Payne-Aldrich Tariff of 1909.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1850-1899
- 1850-1900
- ID Number
- 2015.0324.01
- accession number
- 2015.0324
- catalog number
- 2015.0324.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Alençon Needle Lace Collar
- Description
- Grape and vine motifs with shadow effect decorate this cotton Alençon lace collar from the late 19th century. Horsehair is used to support picots on the outside edge and on some interior motifs. The entre-deux at the neck edge is made with Droschel bobbin lace. It is attributable to the Lefébure workshop, Bayeux, France, and the pattern for this collar is in Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle, Alençon, France. See Bruggeman, Kant in Europa, (L'Europe de la Dentelle), 1997 p. 169, and Dépalle, Brigitte Delesques, La Dentelle à l'aiguille, p. 81. It matches cuffs or borders TE*T17893B and TE*T17893C.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1855-1900
- designer
- Lefebure, Ernest
- designed and made by the workshop
- Lefébure, Ernest
- ID Number
- TE.T17893A
- catalog number
- T17893A
- accession number
- 319013
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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