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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Patent Model for a Double Cylinder Flatbed Printing Press
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for various improvements on the English presses of Applegath, Napier, and others, especially methods of stopping and reversing the press bed in its travel and of raising the impression cylinders to allow the bed to pass underneath. The invention was granted patent number 2629.
- This was the patent for Hoe's Pony press, built specifically for the New York Sun to print 5-6,000 impressions per hour. Richard March Hoe (1812-1886) was the son of Robert Hoe, founder of the original company, which he took over in 1833 after his father's death. Among many outstanding inventions, his most famous press was the Lightning of 1846. He was also known for solicitous management of his employees, for whom he set up set up a free but compulsory apprentice school.
- Location
- Currently not on view (printing press fragment)
- date made
- ca 1842
- patent date
- 1842-05-20
- patentee
- Hoe, Richard March
- maker
- Hoe, Richard March
- ID Number
- GA.11023
- catalog number
- GA*11023
- accession number
- 48865
- patent number
- 002629
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
