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HENRY FORD Ml SEUM AND

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GREENFIELD VILLAGE
B\ .James S.

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HanyN.Abmms.

Im., Publishers,

New\hrk

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Cold t

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Capturing the essence of the first-flight year ut

1903. a one-cylinder Cadillac of that year passes the
Greenfield Village home of OrviUe and Wilbur Wright.
Pages 2-i.

K-.wrttfiii'iltntJir liti

1:

[BruiiM. Ill till' /I'iny ^'^'Uilr

IfHiitnl wilh nul
Burns
H-" Unn'Mn/c,
Sprains.

move the Wright home and shop

Dearborn m 1937. Such early Cadillacs, low-pnced and
smal\, were the creation of Henry M. Leiand

Orville helped Henry Ford

to

Titl page

The

Torch Lake

manufactured by the Mason

is

Mason

Fairlie

Fairlie

[hlutni \ril/i vlrr\

lC>U.

Sweliinjs./i/ H.iliitH-. S}nlt.

locomotive

Works of Taunton. Mas-

linih uMie timili

sachusetts, in 1873

Copynghi

made

page.

sfniffii' tin- .hiis.

This solid-gold presentation trumpet was

and Quinby of Boston for Rhodolph

'j^ol era

'iiir.

in 1866 by Hall

Proprietary medicine beetles display the labeling and

packaging of 1850-60. At left are obverse and reverse of

Righl

the same product,

De

7rtiAjjmi/i /iit

1fi\eumi.^smMitf/ii' /Miffs fr/f,'iYi'i}

^IN REMOVER

Cholic:. Jiih
j

Witt's Pain Reliever

These nineteenth-century cast-iron toys

and banks probably found their first owners in shops much
like the Elias Brown General Store, built in Waterford,
Michigan, in 1854. Today, its wirulows overlook The Green
of GreenfieU Village. With some one hundred structures,

'!

/ni//'7i'fmn/t>rii/'Hrti_^

Hall

*:8.eilii''^]

^ChilbU In

'^11111011''!'

/I'lit/iit/n'/niits
ili/litt'll

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ittdllirvw

i\i

FrAlfjuing pages

the village offers ideal perifKj settings for a wide range of

artifacts

i'i{>vnKKn.

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h-ice 2Scrs. a SoUtA

Contents

/?

Foreiuord:

Treasures o/

Henr}) Ford

Museum

aruf

Greenfield Village

By Harold K.

S>kramstad, ]r

IH" Introduction:
Henry Ford's

KNOWN,

IS

Amazing
Time Machine

30

The

Quest

for

Power

6Z

The Age of
Noah Webster

102

Lights

Come

on at

Menlo Park

IOLi

Triumphs

of Road

and Sky

Price

*J6

Cel

LtL'D Acknowledgpxents
and Credits

206

Index

'

S'^v

'f

z^

'-

Foreword:

uming the pages of this hook

m
#/
The Edison

Institute

treasure chest of tradition

ev
every
reader can find

some

is

like

opening a vast

and experience
rare

in

which

and valued personal

heirk)oms.
he:

Henry Ford Museum and

Greenfield Village

indeed a treasure, but of a uniquely American kind.

Our

is

treasure was not

created by kings and hoarded in royal vaults to be seen at a distance by

respectful subjects.
sents the

common

No,

it is

one in which we can

communities and discovered new ways

and

all

share since

it

repre-

experience of Americans as they worked to build

of

new

doing things that have changed

impr(.)ved our lives.

It is

important to remember this as you explore the wonderful objects

ot

and described by Jim Wamslcy in the

following pages. These objects, which delight and inform over a million visitors to Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village each year, are impor-

American

history that are pictured

tant not just in themselves but also in the grand stories they can
est of these stories

in

is

that of

tell.

Cjrand-

American change. No matter where one

kioks

our great treasure chest, from carriages to airplanes, from primitive pk)ws

from early printing presses to televisions, the.se objects

immediacy and eloquent power the ways in which America grew

to giant reapers,

reveal with

and changed

as

it

moved from

the rural, agricultural society of the colonial

period to the industrial, urban nation that surrounds us today.

Treasures of

Henry FordMuseum

and Greenfield Vdlage

theme of a changing America that guides not only our vast

many educational programs as well. This theme was part
of the vision of our founder, Henry Ford, and this book is a reminder that
in. addition to his industrial innovations he invented a new kind of
museum one that would collect and interpret things not generally associated with traditional museums. Ford recognized early on that the uniqueIt is

this large

collections but our

ness of America was to be found in the power of new ideas to shape our lives,

began a collection of objects and structures which would embody that

The result is a museum complex that offers us the new as well as the
the future as well as the past. To quote Ford, "The farther you look

so he

vision.
old,

back, the farther you can look ahead."

We

at

The Edison Institute

rearranging,

American experience

work adding

are constantly at

and reinterpreting our great

to speak in

to,

preserving,

historical treasure trove of the

new ways and

to tell

new

stories to

new

audiences.

and text, can show only a

Henry Ford Museum and
Greenfield Village. We invite not only all Americans but all who have an
interest in this country to visit us and discover the deep spirit of America
This book, rich

as

it is

in

both

illustrations

small part of the great national treasure that

that

is

held here in trust for us

is

all.

Harold K. Skramstad,

Jr.

The Edison

President
Institute

"Y-^=

Introduction:

Henry Fords

Amawig
Time Machine

rom the

front yard of

Noah

Webster's Connecti-

cut town house, the eye discerns a plantation

.

home, dozing

in

its

tobacco

land. Shift perspective

field,

and encounter the Ontario

to look,

mobile may

and focus

flicker at

patiently

beyond the bridge, a new experimental auto-

high speed across a distant

too fast to reveal a single detail, the silent

Motor Company's

test track,

is

more

hill. Tcio far

car, flashing in

surreal accent

away and moving

sunlight

on the Ford

than twentieth-century

intrusion.

Seen or unseen, the automobile is never far from Greenfield Village or

Henry Ford Museum, which together form The Edison Institute of Dearthe
born, Michigan. Mr. Ford's stupefying collection of Americana
initially began with the autoworld's largest indoor-outdoor museum
mobile. The great tycoon's original car, the very keystone of his empire, was
itself the first artifact he collected. Ford had built and successfully demonstrated the little Quadricycle in 1896; he then sold it and moved on to newer
the

experimental models. But in 1904, the year he established a new world

speed record in one of his cars, he repurchased the Quadricycle for $65.

With Ford

barely into his forties, his

of the marvelous

Model Ts

company only

a year old, and the

four years in the impenetrable future,

it

first

was

stream in

Greenfield Village, was originally built in the 1830s above

a

\i

from early Mary-

homestead of Thomas Edison's grandparents, the Massachusetts birthplace of

Luther Burbank, and a covered bridge from early Pennsylvania. If you know

where

Oppome. The Ackley Covered Bndge, crobsmK

branch

of

wheeling Creek

in southwestern Pennsylvania

hardly the time for gathering up memories. But already Ford had the

Opposite. William

would widen into a collecting passion. He began

assembling Edisonia in 1905 and McGuffey Readers in 1914. By 1919 he
essayed his first building restoration, the old family home at Dearborn,

Eclectic Readers,

instinct for saving that

Ford's own birthplace.

The job required removing
new highway was about to be

Henry

tions about

return

two hundred

the building from

feet away.

Here began

original site,

ordered an archeological sifting of the

soil,

it

to

where a

new founda-

a precise restoration to

when Ford was

to the condition of the 1870s,

it

its

constructed, and moving

a child.

He even

producing such discoveries as his

was an exercise in nostalgia in which few people are

and Ford, as usual, attacked the project with fervor.
He personally searched from rural Michigan to New England until he found
a duplicate of the 1867 Starlight stove that once warmed the Fords's parlor.
About the same time he began the homestead restoration, Ford became
the center of a newspaper tempest in which he was ridiculed as an ignoramus who believed "history was bunk." The point he had been trying to
make, and which had inadvertently stoked the adverse publicity, was that
orthodox history dealt with politics, wars, and treaties, and that historians
childhood

ice skates.

It

privileged to indulge,

actually

knew

or taught

precious

ished eras actually lived. Ford

history that

trial

little

about

how

the people of van-

began forming the idea of a museum of indus-

would help correct the imbalance. By 1922,

his prelimi-

nary collecting of tools and machines had broadened to include the totality

American antiques. He was hooked. In 1924 came an exercise that

expanded Ford's interest in historic restoration and fine antiques as well: he
bought the historic Wayside Inn in South Sudbury, Massachusetts. Soon he
was devoting as much as two days per week to collecting, and boxcar loads
of antiques started arriving at the Ford industrial complex in Dearborn for
of

storage in a former tractor plant.

any
for

relics

"We have no Egyptian mummies

of the Battle of Waterloo, nor do

everything

we have

not prove to be

strictly

is

literally true,

we have any

American," Ford

but Henry did

hew

said.

to

here, nor

curios from Pompeii,

The claim would

an overwhelmingly

American theme. American craftsmanship, inventiveness, engineering,

and work habits never had a better champion.
In about 1926 Ford conceived the idea for a two-part "Edison Institute"

A great museum would display the artifacts of American culand out the door a village would preserve the community setting of
long ago. Pushed along by Ford's relentless energy and stupendous

at

Dearborn.

ture,

resources, matters

moved

quickly.

arrived at Dearborn in 1927,

The

first

and he made

old building, a general store,

a key decision; to reconstruct a

cluster of buildings central to the career of Thomas

a significant portion of the

from Menlo Park,

Edison,

Alva Edison, including

famous Edison research and development

facility

New Jersey.

who was

still

alive

and

in relatively

good health, journeyed

to

cabin,

Holmes McGuffey, author of McGu//c'

was horn in 1800 in this one-room

originally

Pennsylvania

located

in

Washington

Coun

New Jersey

with Ford to inspect what remained of the Menlo Park

lab.

photograph of the event captures the hlade-slim Ford, neatly dressed as

always, and Edison, in an equally characteristic state of dishevelment,
standing in the ruins of the laboratory as Ford was bellowing something into
the ear of the deaf old genius. Most of the buildings had vanished, hut Ford

obtained the original Sarah Jordan boarding house, where many of Edison's

crew had
blown.

lived, plus a small building

He

where the

first

glass lightbulbs

were

also retrieved tons of fragmented materials, including original

boards and bricks, fused masses of buried debris (such as broken bottles,
crucibles,

and experimental wiring), and the rotted stump of a

Edison once tied a pet bear. More than a dozen

clay that surrounded the buildings were sent.

Francis Jehl, agreed to

come

tree

where

with the red

former Edison assistant,

to Greenfield Village to direct the reconstruc-

September 1928, Edison came

tion. In

rail cars filled

to

Dearborn

to inspect the

comple-

tion of another of his reincarnated laboratories, the long-time winter head-

quarters in Fort Myers, Florida. Construction was beginning

museum

son plunged the spade of the

Then

late

Luther Burbank into a cube of wet cement.

the old inventor scratched his

One

on the new

building that would adjoin the village, and at Ford's bidding Edi-

name

later,

on October

the fiftieth anniversary of the invention of incandescent lighting. Henry

President and Mrs. Herbert Hoover, and Mrs. Ford and himself the last few

miles to Greenfield Village, a mid-nineteenth-century train was newly

restored to duplicate one

on which Edison had served

as a newsboy.

Steam-

ing to the village, the passengers dismounted at the very railroad station

moved from Smiths Creek, Michigan

on

where Edison had once been

ejected from the train for setting

it

evening included Orville Wright,

Madame

and Will Rogers, who would

fire.

The

guests for the events that

Eve Curie, John D. Rockefeller,

say afterward that

he was disappointed:

"I

thought they would give out Lincolns as souvenirs. Shoot, they didn't even
pass

around Fords."

Edison and Francis Jehl had the previous day made a duplicate of the
successful lightbulb,

two

full

1929, Edison returned for the dedication

21,

spared no expense and ignored no detail, lb carry Mr. and Mrs. Edison,

complement of horse-drawn

the yellow omnibus

year

of the Edison Institute, a star-studded event fixed by Ford to coincide with

Jr.

Opposite.

and

after

scientists in the upstairs

event of

fifty

McNamee,

first

dinner Ford and President Hoover joined the

Menlo Park

years before. Pioneer

laboratory for a reenactment of the

NBC

radio

newsman Graham

broadcasting from the scene, barked the description in his then-

familiar staccato: "Mr. Edison has the two wires in his hand;

reaching up to the old lamp;

now he

is

making the connection.

now he
It

is

lights!"

In a prearranged, elaborate national ceremony, lights switched on, bells

pealed, and horns sounded.

The grand evening would always be the key event in the particular hismuseum and village. "Think of it," said Harold K. Skramstad,

tory of the

vehicles en-

hances the Greenfield Village scene, and some

deeply into the surface.

such

as

are used for visitor sightseeing

Above. Philadelphia's Independence Hall was copied

for

Henry Ford Museum, and the structure's

central tower became the chief landmark ot The Edison Institute. Behind the Georgian front, most ot the vast museum followed the lines of Ford's factory buildings of rhe
the faijade of the

late

1920s

opposite. Mrs. Daniel

Cohen

the late nineteenth century.

the shop

operated her Detroit store in

Moved

to Greenfield Village,

actively interprets a typical city millinery of the

time, demonstrating clothing and accessory styles, retail

president of Edison Institute in 1984, "how many times can you get the
same people hack for a dedication fifty years later? It was like getting George
Washington hack to re-create crossing the Delaware."

jr.,

techniques, the distribution of manufactured goods, and

the success of

women

in trade, all at a time

the critical years of the Wright brothers,

across the street

approximating

whose shop

is

It

was also the

last

national extravaganza of unalloyed happiness in the

week the stock market crashed and the nation began

Great Depression. Edison died less than two years later,
eulogized by Henry Ford as a great man who changed the world, and whose
every work was beneficial to mankind. "Mr.' Edison himself did not grow
1920s. In less than one

to sink into the

old.

He was

loss

is

young driver

like a

believe, to get

new

facilities to

in a

worn-out

has just gone,

very heavy. There was only one Edison."

Ford had revered Edison as a boyhood

idol

and gone on

nearly forty years. But other Americans amply

ments
if

He

car.

continue his work. But the sense of personal

for

enshrinement in his

possible,

razed in

some associated

New

village,

filled

to

know him

and he sought

their relics also and,

structure. Webster's house

was already being

Haven, Connecticut, when Ford learned about

patched experts

for a

hairbreadth rescue.

place of his educational hero, William

for

the car maker's require-

He obtained

it

and

dis-

the log cabin birth-

Holmes McGuftey, and

a former

where young Abraham Lincoln practiced law. Ford

even rebuilt the one-room schoolhouse where he received his own .short,
but cherished, formal education. The Wright brothers' home and shop,

courthouse from

moved

Illinois

to the village

with the assistance of Orville Wright himself, ranked

with the Menlo Park complex

ity.

first

Some

in significance,

buildings, such as the brick

and were

home where

of greater original-

H.J. Heinz created the

of his varieties, were added after Ford's death.

The

presence of the buildings and

relics

associated with such famous

Americans does create, inevitably, a pantheonic aspect which under other

circumstances might have been twerpowering but which is subdued by several restraints. One is implicit in the sorts of people Henry Ford admired,
whether renowned or humble: practical problem-solvers, men

o\ plain

speech and hard work, with generally low quotients of pretension and cant.
The ghosts of Thtimas Edison, George Washingttm Carver, or the Wrights
are

more inclined

to

Moreover, there are m)t

Village shades.

appear
ail

that

work clothes than in radiant tt)gas.

many famous names among the Greenfield
in

The former occupants

of these hundred-odd buildings

tended to be the middling kind, such as innkeeper Calvin

WhkI

t)f

the

and lively Eagle Tavern, or Mrs. D. Cohen of the millinery shop,

or a smudgy legion of namele.ss machinists, blacksmiths, and millers.
The village's complex interpretive program, .spanning four centuries,
puts its emphasis squarely on the changing lives of ordinary Americans
while keeping the famous in healthy perspective. The coiirthou.se where
restored

Abraham Lincoln

no longer presented as a shrine of Linci)ln

as a spotlight.
and as distracting
community's heart of legal and ^^overnmeiit

practiced law

is

memorabilia, which was as riveting

Now

20

it

is

interpreted as a

22

action.

Such changes

among

visitors.

The

in village tradition

curatorial staff

Lincolnize the Logan

can create unexpected reactions

was asked,

in effect,

how

dare

it

de-

County Courthouse?

More and more, Greenfield Village is perceived by the public as a living

community with its own sanctified traditions. A few visitors have come regularly for more than fifty years, a period longer than the span from Edison's
first bulb to the great re-creation in 1929. People who came as children in
the 1930s and '40s now bring their grandchildren. For such champions the
village becomes a sort of hometown of the soul. President Skramstad is convinced that such

owning

surrogate for

about the village

visitors develop a sense of proprietorship

and museum. "One buys

into the

whole American experience here.

historical objects. Unfortunately,

changes we're violating history as

far as they're

cept of the possession of history here

is

It is

when we make

concerned.

Still,

the con-

one of our greatest strengths."

Some of Ford's prejudices showed through in his disposition of the vilwhen he decreed three clock and watch shops (reduced now to one)

lage, as

but no banks. Regionally, the buildings and exhibits heavily favor the
northeast quarter of the United States. Yet such a basic range of American
life

spreads across these cunning 240 acres that

no

visitor

can depart with-

out a better understanding of the massive changes lived through by our

the Eagle Tavern again approximates

ancestors.

The

last

building to be

moved

to the village in Ford's lifetime was,

moving safely
from the highway's path, the house had served through the 1920s and '30s
as an occasional social retreat for Henry and Clara Ford and their friends.
Donning period costumes, the group gamboled through American country
strangely, the first

one he

restored: the family farm. After

dances under the direction of Ford's private dancing master,

for the

unabashedly enjoyed the music and steps of America's past.

1944, the old

the

man

decided the time had

come

tycoon

Finally, in

to gather his birthplace into

American town of his dreams.

Greenfield Village, through

its

human

scale, skilled interpretation,

and

undeniable charm, speaks in a different vocabulary from that of the Ford

Museum

next door. There, the

full force

of

Henry

reveals itself indoors across twelve acres of artifacts.

are the world's best

and

largest.

Ford's collecting fever

Many of the collections

Automobiles, furniture, watches and

clocks, agricultural implements, musical instruments,

devices, lighting,

power equipment, ceramics,

communications

glass, metals,

domestic

appliances of every kind are deployed to the horizon.

Ford backed his omniverous collecting with vast wealth and his far-flung
staff, many of them with engineering
Thus Herbert F Morton, an English engineer, was able
to comb the British Isles for such rarities as the museum's eighteenth-century Newcomen steam engine from England. Most of the objects Ford col-

organization of clever and resourceful

or mechanical

lected were

Above and uppuMc. The Bnak- Tavern was built m the 1830s
at Chnton, Michigan, and served stagecoach passengers on
the Detroit-Chicago road. Moved to Greenfield Village,

skills.

American, however, and dated

after 1800,

with the greatest

23

War

its

years of pre-Civil

hospitality. "Living History" interpreters serve period

food and beverages in a

lively setting

strength in the years from 1850 to the very early 1900s.

therefore

and

fall

change

social

The

collections

naturally through the peak years of America's technological

as

we moved from the

traditional, agricultural society of

the eighteenth century to the urhanized, techntilogical world that endures

today.

No hetter exhibit on

the Industrial Revolution can be found, but the

Ford collections go beyond technology to address the entire subject of

changing America.

Henry

on those changes was altogether

Ford's viewpoint

positive;

he

believed that innovation and technology would lead inevitably to a better

As one

future.

of the world's mightiest influences for change, having done

more than anyone

Ford

else to give mobility to the average person,

is

often

pictured as concerned by the rapidity with which his works were altering
the face ot older,

more

America. That might explain some of his

traditional

interest in old buildings.

Much

what he collected was,

ot

at the time, of

no

such significance, but merely twenty- to fifty-year-old merchandise: obsocarpet sweepers, milk bottles, steam engines, reapers, printing

lete stoves,

presses.

It

was an astonishing performance. Only

ing such things.

works by French Impressionists, Ford

"the

common

a few others

were collect-

While other wealthy men indulged themselves by amassing

objects, the things that

one

at least

bound

side of Ford

gathered

us together, rather than the

things that separated us," in Skramstad's description.

Another

side of the tycoon, however,

went

was remarkable,

Winterthur and Colonial Williamsburg. Amer-

ican antique furniture was not as coveted as

Israel

it.

declarative arts. That, too,

1920s was a pioneering time for major antiques col-

for the

lecting, before the days of

about

straight for the finest tradi-

and

tional, pre-Industrial Revolution furniture

it is

today,

and

was known

little

Ford received rock-solid help from a visionary antiques dealer,

Sack, ot Boston and later ot

New

York. Ford bought

many

ot the best

antiques from the Sack firm for decades, but initially there were

awkward

Henry Ford ordered his

staff to strip the old finish and apply shiny new varnish on his acquisitions,
even on a piece in good original ctmdition. "He started to refinish things,
moments,

as recalled by

and my father

told

him, 'Don't you do

Nobody

to Mr. Ford like that.

'He's taking off

Harold Sack, son

ot Israel.

His secretary

that!

said, 'Don't talk

talks to Mr. Ford like that.'

one hundred and

fifty

My

father said,

years of patina; I'm telling him.'

And

so he stopped."

Harold Sack recalled Ford's many

the 1930s. "Every time he
eyelid, pull

it

down,

leading a clean
clocks.

father

footraces.

Then

It

trips to the

Sack establishment early

into the store, he'd

and

say, 'Well,

young

was

very

good

fellow,

see you're

he'd go around and stick his head in

the ckick doors and looked

friends.

a different era, a

They used

nine vvlun

in

come up and grab my

in.

He had

was sure he was going to get his head stuck

became

ple -to -people."

24

l(K)k ck)se,

He opened up

head, but

my

life.'

came

...

the

small

Henry Ford and

to race together.

ol lee turs

all

a very

They'd run

and dealers were peo-

The scope

of Ford's collections challenges the

museum

produce

staff to

meaningful interpretive techniques. Ford believed that almost any

could he read
study

like a

He was

it.

book, conveying

its

story to

personally familiar with

much

artifact

anyone taking the time

to

of what he collected. Later

generations of the public would not understand what they were seeing.

These

days, the pleased cry of

"Look

there,

we had one

of those,"

often in the galleries. For each generation, the need

less

to

is

is

heard

convey the

meaning and excitement of certain key artifacts, even introducing the

new vocabularies and systems of thought. On the other
hand, collectors
whose enthusiasms are already fixed and stimulated,
whether for old radios, cars, furniture, or whatever want to see as many
artifacts as possible crammed into the smallest space. "If we're to do our job
viewer to entirely

well, history

we have

to

must speak

Harold Skramstad

to a large audience,"

make people aware

says,

that whether they've thought about

"and

or not,

it

they live in a world that was a result of this transformation."

of

With collections spanning four centuries and ranging from masterpieces

Queen Anne furniture to a power plant from Henry Ford's main Model
factory, the interpretive techniques vary There isn't much that can be

done with the

mammoth Highland

Some

there.

artifacts

Washington's portable

seem

Park factory generator of 1912 but

own ad hoc

let it

on an
exclusive plane, such as the Indian spinning wheel presented to Henry Ford
(in an exchange of mutual admiration) by Mohandas K. Gandhi, or George
sit

to

have their

existence

camp bed from the Revolutionary War.

the broader stories emerge majestically.

One

In other areas

of the most successful, the

museum's big chronological display of furniture masterpieces, creates

sense of heightened awareness not possible in period settings.

the sort

It is

of exhibit that Ford himself might have loved; rich, encyclopedic, not gussied

up with

artifice.

Ford never threw anything away, and the written records of his long

documents of his world-wide manufacturing empire, piled

Meanwhile, he became interested in collecting rare
books and documents, a logical extension of his original trove of McGu^e^i

career, plus the

up

in a dense mass.

Readers.

The Edison

combined archives and research

Institute's

library

today holds (in addition to Henry's original 250 different McGu^e^^s) thou-

sands of rare books, including more than

fifty

New England Primers,

English Bible printed in America, and such later rarities as a

Wizard of Oz- While emphasis

is

on American imprints, the

the

first

first

edition

library has

two

sets of Diderot's ErKyclopedie.

Priceless as

hend

such items may be, books are nevertheless easier to compre-

as artifacts

than the

institute's holdings in still

more

exotic ephemera.

Consider a group of some three thousand trade catalogues, mostly of the

nineteenth century, with related gatherings of posters, trade cards, and
advertisements, together forming a core study of the early history of American advertising.

Add thousands

of old almanacs, complete

files

of once-

25

26

prominent periodicals, hundreds

of yellowed broadsides,

about one thou-

sand Currier and Ives lithographs. The music collection includes a com-

opposite.

It

plete

ot

file

Stephen

Foster's first editions.

The map

collection, beginning

with the sixteenth century, includes the supremely important 1755 John
Mitchell plan of North America used at the Treaty of Paris negotiations

ending the Revolutionary War. Less glamorous, hut perhaps no

tant, are tons of business

H.

J.

and personal records from, among

Heinz, the Boston

brothers.

And, of course,

& Sandwich

less

impor-

others, Edison,

Glass Company, and the Wright

the incomparable records of

Henry Ford and

his

company.
"We're going to start something," he said in 1919. "I'm going to

start

up

museum and give people a true picture of the development of the country."
He also promised that "When we are through, we shall have reproduced

American

as lived." Building a gerfect time machine was too great a

Henry Ford, but no one ever made a nobler effort, and it is
fairly certain that no one ever will. How well did he succeed? In the case
of one visitor, at least, perhaps too well. On departing Greenfield Village
he wrote on a visitor's comment card: "I never knew that Henry Ford,
Thomas Edison, and the Wright brothers all lived on the same street."
They didn't, of course. And yet they did.
Sometimes, the Brobdingnagian scope of the institute's properties can
be downright overwhelming to a visitor. What are we to make of these endlife

task even for

less

ranks of artifacts?

What

is

the message of

all

these silent survivors of

untold years, vanished processes, forgotten needs, and long-solved prob-

lems?

The

questions are those

common

to historical

museums everywhere,

but here they assume heroic proportions.

Take the

from the

cars.

Packard that

from

Gleaming

like

Greek

infinity of hazards that

won

pastry,

safe

now

the great transcontinental race of 1903 bears no scars

for it has been restored at least twice. As perfect,
Model Ts, the various editions that put America on

mighty exertions,

its

too, are all the perky

wheels across a span of

less

than twenty

of assorted Overlands, Stutzes, and

highway

travel in the 1920s.

they encountered

Village,

years.

We

Marmons

But we cannot

is

search the shiny flanks

for clues to the reality of

really

the boglike roads, incessant

incompetent service. The closest we see

car, its

row on row, they are

claimed their brethren. The primitive

imagine the struggles

flat tires,

and scarce and

out on the streets of Greenfield

where chuckling along with a load of tourists

is

Model

T touring

black enamel lightly smudged by curious, friendly hands.

Well, what do
tive support.

we expect? Hazards

counterproductive reactions.
ranging from

lie

in seeking too

much from

interpre-

and it can even invoke

"Living History," where staff actors take parts

Interpretation has practical limits,

New England

colonials to 1850ish tavern servers,

is

presented

Most visitors like it, yet some consider it gimmickry

the multitude. Such a division merely underlines one of the potential

in Greenfield Village.
for

11

The Grimm

ated hy EnKclberg

Jewelry

Grimm

Shop was owned and oper-

from 1886

to 1930; ten years later

was m<ived from Michigan Avenue

held Village, with

much

in Detroit to

ot its inventory intact

Green-

Henry Ford designed and manModel T was his masterpiece.

it was clearly a triumph
from the day it was introduced in 1908. More than any
other car, the Model T went on to change the face and habits of America, and thus ultimately played a role in Ford's
opposite. In his long career,

ufacrurcd

many

cars, hut the

'R>ugh, serviceahle,

and

che.ip,

establishment of The Edison Institute. In this picture from

museums: the misalliance of a few consecrated scholand the cursory public swarm.
The latter class wants to enjoy itself, hut here it seems surprisingly
knowledgeable, too. Along the museum aisles at any given moment, dozens

conflicts of historical
ars

and

experts,

of elderly

men

are explaining to their grandchildren the arcane mysteries of

in California

beveled gears and poppet valves, the force of compound levers, and the pro-

demonstrates the Flivver's useful mobility by hauling a goat

duction miracles of 1947; grandmothers ar^ exclaiming as they recognize

the institute's vast archives, a "T"

on the running board

owner

and remember

not always

flour bins like the

fondly

laundry

wringers, parlor organs,

and

ones in their mothers' kitchen cabinets. Such universal

seem etched in dignity and pathos.

museum's collections create a sort of cosmic elecof the American domestic and industrial past. Visitors may dis-

reactions often

Taken

all

trical grid

together, the

cover that they are already part of the circuit, or they

they can plug

in.

personal recollection
tion gives

way

may

find points

where

But, inevitably, as the years pass, the factor of a visitor's

is

of ever-diminishing importance.

As each

genera-

remembered from its youth pass

Few people today can recall a factory-fresh

to another, the artifacts

it

from nostalgia into history.

Model T or a new kitchen cabinet with a flour dispenser.
If there is a single theme resounding through this amazing treasury, it is
change in American life. Nowhere else can we trace it so completely. Here

we view homes and furnishings from the 1600s to the 1900s. We see our
forebears' shops, power sources, inventions, products, and diversions. We
learn how we fed ourselves. We perceive the awesome force of the Industrial
Revolution. All of that

and confusing

is

here and, even

to grasp, a majestic

if it

chronology

sometimes appears too vast

is

present, too.

The

chapters seek to illuminate that chronok)gy, by relating selected

folkiwing

museum

and village exhibits to their places in the national past, and by exploring
some of their interk)cking rt)les. We are embarking on a walk through history,

28

with a cast of

five-star artifacts guiding the way.

29

'

^
>V^^:m

'%ss

la

'^M li
>*V

I;

..r'

^> *

The
Quest
for

Power

h
1

y the final decade of the seventeenth century,

Great Britain was wresting world financial

c

ship h-om the

and

neurs.

rA

Dutch with

structure

a quick-rising society of capitalist entrepre-

Abundant natural resources flowed in from the empire's far-flung

The labor pool was large and capable. Growth and the profit

dominions.

motive received the blessings of government.

ture, trade,

and

crafts

A traditional country of agricul-

was about to begin the boundless innovative cycle that

would change the world

forever.

Not only did eighteenth-century Britain give birth to the Industrial Revolution, she would be transformed by it far faster and more completely than
her other old rival across the English Channel, France. Britain's new, fluid

economy stimulated and rewarded

huge

royal, aristocratic,

and

inventiveness. France, topheavy from

clerical superstructure,

had a

its

different view-

point on the profit motive. Furthermore, Britain had already gained the

edge in commercial warfare and thus owned a wider trading universe than
France.
\et, for all that, the irrepressible

mark

French genius

for invention

Opposite. Greenfield Village's windmill, said to date from

'^^'

'^'^ '"''^'^''^

s^^nd

grain near West Yarmouth on

Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Such

new banking

leader-

made

its

Nothing could be more crucial to the Industrial Revolution than the steam engine, and a French mathematics professor, Denis
Papin, may have been present at the creation. After performing significant
at key points.

experiments in the influence of atmospheric pressure on boiling points.

t,n their

sails against

lage in 1936

mills were revolved to po-

the wind.

It

was moved to the

vil-

Papin designed, in 1690, a steam-operated, piston-driven pump.

He may

By 1698, steam was up

in

boiler, built

of bringing forth the world's

by

Thomas Savery But

first

commercially successful steam

upon Englishman Thomas Newcomen, around 1711, sharing Savery's patent. Newcomen, an iron merchant from Dartmouth, was a
little-known figure despite his incalculable legacy. His engines went

engine would

fall

pumping the vexatious water from English coal mines.

Having set free the genie of power, Newcomen died in 1729, but his
engines worked so well that others continued building them. Around 1750,
an unknown maker installed a Newcomen at a colliery in Lancashire's Fairbottom Valley Until 1827, when the mine closed, the big pump's eighteenfoot-long rocking beam nodded back and forth on its tall, cut-stone base,
pumping fourteen strokes per minute from a depth of 240 feet. Then the
pump sat unused for more than a century until the Earl of Stamford presented it to Henry Ford in 1929, exactly two hundred years after Newcomen
died. Re-erected in the Ford Museum, the ancient machine looks for all the

straight to work,

world
tings

like today's

automatic

oil field

pumps. But

and original stone mounting are

its

is,

perhaps, the primal

relic

pitted, massive iron

clear testimony to

believed to be the oldest such engine in existence.

men

The

its

antiquity

fitIt is

venerable Newco-

of the Industrial Revolution.

James Watt, the man who usually gets the credit for the invention of the
steam engine, was a University of Glasgow instrument maker. In repairing
a teaching

model of a Newcomen engine, Watt perceived the route

to

some

important improvements, and by 1765 he invented the separate condensing

chamber and

air

spheric," with

its

pump. Technically, Newcomen's engine was "atmopower stroke

assisted by atmospheric pressure.

Watt received the financial backing of wealthy merchant Matthew Boulton in 1774, and the new firm of Boulton and Watt set about building
engines. In 1796 they established a new power plant for the Warwick and
Birmingham Canal Navigation Company in Birmingham, England, where
it pumped water to locks on the Bordesley Canal until it was judged obsolete
and

retired in 1854, although

it

could

still lift

134,000 gallons of water per

hour with

its

giant, ninety-six-inch stroke. Ford obtained the engine in

1929 from

its

original foundations; at Dearborn, joined by other Watt-type

engines and the incomparable

the

dawn

These

rare

examples of sream-power equipment

ground, the round device of riveted plates

an English

Savery's big effort failed because the boiler could not stand the pressure.

The honor

Opposite.

are primal relics of the Industrial Revolution. In the fore-

have even tried to build a steamboat.

Newcomen,

it

completes a rare glimpse into

of the age of steam.

Fully as important as Watt's other innovations

was his success, early

in

Thus appeared
for the first time the principles of planetary crank, rotating flywheel, and
speed-controlling governor. Such a breakthrough meant that steam could
at last be harnessed to factory equipment. Until then, the basic power
in many ways the leading edge of the Industrial
source of textile mills
the 1780s, in adapting his engines to deliver rotary motion.

33

holler of c. 1780;

behind

it

a "haystack"

is

stands the tilted

beam

of Fair-

bottom Bobs, a Newcomen-type engine that successfully

pumped water from English coal mines. Dating from about
1760, it is the senior entry in the Ford Museum's large collection of steam engines

34

Revolution
carried

The

its

was water power,

own

which worked reasonably well hut always

built-in geographical restraint.

had advanced quickly since John Kay invented in

shuttle," which trebled a loom's production. In 1769 Rich-

textile industry

1733 the "flying

ard Arkwright invented the

water-powered spinning machine, the

water frame, and Edmund Cartwright unveiled the power loom in 1785.

With such mechanized

first

assistance, unheard-of fabric production flowed

through the hands of cheap, semiskilled

neer,

Samuel

Slater,

modem American
Slater's Mill

labor.

A clever British textile engi-

migrated to the United States in 1789 and founded the

textile industry, at

Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

was powered by water, but the

colonies were powered by wind.

Some were

earliest mills in the

American

patterned after the post mills

developed in twelfth-century Germany; other colonial millwrights adopted

the Netherlands style of tower mills. Both were equally subject to the wind's

maddening capriciousness. In the middle 1600s, a tower gristmill was

it somehow survived not
only the hazards of time but also those of at least three moves to more promising locations. Henry Ford moved it again, for the last time, to Greenfield
erected at West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, and

Village.

Millers

and spinners may have had power, but there was precious

little

power for the bench craftsman of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

One

partial exception

was the

lathe,

which had been around

for

thousands

of years and could be turned by a foot treadle, a big hand-cranked flywheel,

or

very rarely

by

a water wheel. Original lathes of the preindustrial era

museum displays a big one that was probably built

America about 1775, and was used for turning such major items as bedposts and newel posts as long as seventy-two inches. The treadle-powered
lathe was not for the weak of leg: its operator pumped power to a fifty-fourinch-diameter pulley that spun the headstock. Built primarily of wood, the
brawny old machine was reinforced at key points with heavy iron fittings.

are rare indeed, but the

in

Later in the eighteenth century, as the steam engine proved

its

mettle,

perceptive engineers and manufacturers grasped the potential of power-

driven equipment of greater size and complexity than anyone had ever seen.
Before that could occur, however,
build such paragons.

machine

came

the matter of

tool industry before getting

on with the

the required leadership emerged in England's

neers. In 1775,

making machines

to

world lacking in machines had to create an entire

Industrial Revolution,

first

and

generation of tool engi-

John Wilkinson devised a boring mill

to

produce steam

engine cylinders of unprecedented accuracy Henry Maudslay worked devel-

opmental miracles on metalworking

Western machine

tool

lathes,

and was

a primary influence

on

development and standardized precision manufac-

A Maudslay pupil, Joseph Whitworth,

is still better known: he left his

measurement system enduring to our own time, and became the
leading machine tool builder of the early nineteenth century. Representing

ture.

name on

35

About the beginning of the nineteenth centuty,

Enghsh designers and craftsmen made rapid headway in

Opposite.

producing tools of such precision and rehabiUty as never

seen before. Without such equipment as this screw-cutting
metal lathe of about 1828, the Industrial Revolution could
not have developed as it did. This rare, beautifully designed lathe was probably made by pioneer toolmaker Joat the works of Maudslay, Sons and Field

seph Whitworth

36

Whitworth's great work is a metal-turning lathe of 1828, not only a

superbly functioning machine tool but a lovely specimen of classical revival
design. Its key role was to make parts for other lathes.
The quest to harness electricity would prove infinitely more difficult than
bridling steam.

The

effort

began

on

released a scholarly study

Queen

early:

Elizabeth's court physician

electricity in 1600, a pioneering

work

for

William Gilbert is sometimes called the "father of modem electricity." Generations of patient, earnest, usually bewildered successors
added their layers of work, much of it, such as the discovery of the Leyden

which

jar,

Dr.

represented or demonstrated in

Musschenbroek captured current

1746, the results
rious.

his

museum

displays.

When

Pieter

in a jar at the University of

van

Leyden

in

were sensational. Electricity was provocative and myste-

Benjamin Franklin was among those fascinated by Leyden

jars,

and

consequent experiments produced original data on positive and nega-

tive charges, or polarity.

ment was the

Another key piece of eighteenth-century equip-

electrostatic generator, followed by

Alessandro Volta's inven-

tion of the electrochemical battery in 1800.

Despite such straws in the wind, eighteenth-century

life

remained essen-

many ancient unsolved problems. Consider the

plow. There it stands, a museum exhibit, gnawed by years and use, the very
symbol of tillage. We can afford to be sentimental about it, for no longer is
tially traditional,

preserving

the plow an instrument ot arduous

toil

and

with the forgotten millions of plowmen

frustration.

who

We can

sympathize

trudged endlessly along their

clodded furrows, yanking reins and clutching handles behind teams of

heaving oxen.

The

plow,

it

came

ingenuity

turns out, was always inadequate for the task. Mankind's

late to the farm, a lapse

Low Country

agriculturists

of plows and produced a

not wholly explained by cheap labor

We

and imperfect metallurgy.

had reached the 1700s before English and

interested themselves in improving the design

new model with a curved wooden moldboard.

many variants as there were local

Colonial America made almost as

blacksmiths and wheelwrights, the traditional makers of plows. Even the

great

wand

Thomas Jefferson, enthusing that "the plough

is

to the sorcerer," tried his

that would slip easily through the

hand
soil.

at

is

to the farmer

what the

designing a scientific moldboard

Predictably, Jefferson's

mathematics

were correct and his sense of design impeccable, but as a practical matter
his plow

was too exacting

nology of handcrafted
presented

him with

for the day's unreliable, or inconsistent, tech-

wood and

a gold

medal

iron.

The French

for his creation,

to wait for the Industrial Revolution to

Society of Agriculture

but farmers would have

catch up with Mr. Jefferson. T)day,

the museum's collection of eighteenth-century plows

share" specimens from

"hog" plow from

New

New England and

York

including

"bar-

Pennsylvania and a Dutch or

silently recall the tillers' years of struggle.

Rarer, even, than plows are surviving eighteenth-century vehicles. Built

37

opposite.

Any American-built

century

exceptionally rare, and the

is

of the best

vehicle of the eighteenth

museum

displays one
William Ross of New
Angelica Campbell of Schenectady, New

a 1797 "chariot." Built by

York City for

York, the handcrafted masterpiece

wretched roads of

its

time

somehow survived

the

38

wood, they shook apart and rotted out with distressing

largely of

The

rapidity.

exceptions were Europe's ornate carriages built for nobility: such rigs

were more prone to be sheltered, and the finest were saved for important
state occasions. Thus a good rate of survival preserved some of the most
ornate vehicles, but almost none remain from everyday life.
Compared to Europe, America had relatively few passenger vehicles of
any kind. The great distances within and between the colonies and the
poor condition of streets and highways rendered carriages generally
impractical save for a few urban areas.
a practical matter their use

more

efficient.

The

aristocracy

was limited. Horseback

owned them, but

travel

as

was quicker and

carts called "riding chairs," designed to carry

Two-wheeled

the driver in lonely prominence, were a popular alternative.

Two wheels

were often better than four in negotiating wretched roads, but "chairs" were
uncomfortable and prone to pitch the occupant out in even minor mishaps.

A rare example of the high level of work to which American coachbuilders

could

rise

a "chariot,"
its

is

museum

vehicle dating from about 1797 Called in

such a four-wheeled carriage would

short, half-coach configuration, with

The

its

day

be called a "coupe" for

one forward -facing

seat inside.

chariot was light, maneuverable, and could be ventilated in hot

weather by lowering
shield. Built

New

later

its

front

windows, the distant ancestors of a car's windskill and sophistication by William Ross of

with wonderful

York City, the chariot was originally

Schenectady, whose

initials still are

owned by Angelica Campbell

of

emblazoned with coats of arms on the

silver handles on the doors, and carpeted folding

welcomed riders to a plush interior of tufted buff
fabric, accented by red leather, and needlepointed window pulls in red,
gold, and white. Even the coachman's lofty seat was ornamented by a handsome needlepoint hammercloth, and the footman who rode behind

faded black exterior.

With

steps, the elegant chariot

cushioned his feet on a padded leather platform while he clutched needlepointed hand straps as the chariot jolted along Schenectady's streets in the
last years

Some

of the eighteenth century.

potent alchemy must have been present in the Conestoga River

Valley of Pennsylvania

between 1725 and 1750, when the Lancaster County

American of all designs: the long rifle

and the Conestoga wagon. The graceful Conestoga evolved from nothing
more grand than a German farm wagon, and indeed the earliest versions
region gave birth to two of the most

were used to carry farm produce into colonial

cities.

As

settlement pro-

ceeded west, so did the rugged Conestogas, hauling freight across the
mountains to Pittsburgh, and down the Shenandoah Valley from Philadelphia and Baltimore. Usually drawn by bell-decked six-horse teams, the

wagons carried up to eight tons of payload. Their characteristic curved bottoms, rising at each end, kept the loads from shifting and thus reduced
strain on the endgates. Massive, dished, twelve- and sixteen-spoke wheels
bore the gross burden, while the driver had several options of position: he

39

Opposite. Developed in southeastern Pennsylvania in the

middle 1700s, the Conestoga wagon was a familiar overland

freight hauler for about a century until railroads put

of business. But the big, graceful

wagon with

team was still king of the road when

ample was built in about 1840

its

it

out

six-horse

this blue-bodied ex-

40

could
left

rest

on the lazyboard projecting from the

front

behind the horses. Americans drive on the right

from a position on their vehicles'

set

left side;

he could ride the

wheel horse; or he could walk alongside. Never did he ride inside or up

left,

side of the road today,

because, legend says, the example was

by those vanished teamsters.

The museum's Conestoga wagon

body of faded powder

is

is

a still-more-faded red.

ironwork does not exhibit quite the ornamental

wagons

into showcases for the blacksmith's craft,

relatively late in the period.

vivor of a colorful

like its

ard but one: arrival of the railroad.

this

grand sur-

brethren, overcome almost any haz-

When

the iron horse crossed the

Alleghenies, the great wagons' work was done. Later, a substantially

ified

t is

how

well that "Pilgrim" furniture

we might grow too fond

Ml
furniture.
tury

American

stools;

and drop
wonder

The museum's

furniture

and Carver chairs

is

heavily

bristling

New

era

interest but usually with-

England in

origin,

and includes Brewster

with bulbously turned spindles; awkward-looking

balusters, bosses,

and covered with complex but crude geometric carvings. The

dawn of the eighteenth

century;

Englanders for so long repeated the old country's medieval and

Renaissance traditions.
by hand,

and discover

large collection of seventeenth-century

that such styles persisted to the very

is

New

it

museum collections,

cupboards and chests festooned with pointless

finials,

so homely; oth-

American-made pieces of the

where we can study them across the void of time, with

out covetousness.

is

of

unavailable are specimens of seventeenth-cen-

have become so rare and costly as to be largely confined to

that

mod-

descendant would become the prairie schooner of the American West.

erwise

hard

Its

made some
perhaps because it came
artistry that

Dating between 1810 and 1840,

epoch could,

example with

a beautiful, original

running gear

blue; the

when

And why

favor oak, that

most

difficult

wood

to

work

the forests were crying with better alternatives?

Yet the design of some seventeenth-century furniture

icans did not have nearly as

much

made

sense.

Amer-

furniture then, and they were often

for space as well. Multipurpose furniture thus was useful. The

museum's exceptionally rare chair-table combination from Massachusetts,
c. 1650, isoneof America's earliest-known space-savers. It still has its original drawer and, even more unusual, much of its original dark red paint.
From a bit later, about 1690, comes a boxy chest-over-drawer of the Con-

cramped

necticut River Valley of Massachusetts,

its

front chiseled with tulips, leaves,

and scrolls, and even the initials of the long-departed original owner, Maria
Wheelock. This striking design is often termed a Hadley chest.
A strange and welcome development occurred around the end of the seventeenth century: coincident with the advent of the new and more elegant
style of William and Mary, the skill standards of American furniture crafts-

Oppositc.

The

nui.seiim'sCDilcctiiM-, ol AiiK-ricin turniturc,

completeness and quality,

is amonj; the naThis rare oak chair-table, made in Massachusetts in the mid- 1600s, was useful as a space saver in
the era's frequently small, crowded homes

remarkable

for

tion's very best.

Above.

Two

rare chairs from early

contrasting forms.

New England

The oak armchair

Massachusetts, dates from 1650-80.

maple armchair below originated

in

at top,

display

from eastern

The New England

1700-25

men made

a giant leap forward.

their techniques to

With

surprising speed, craftsmen refined

accommodate the new

museum's high chest

(or highboy) that

ton's mother, a Virginia plantation

designs.

A prime example

once belonged

to

the

is

George Washing-

matron. With drawers faced in two

types of walnut veneer, six trumpet-turned legs, curving stretchers, and

brass fittings, the

Washington highboy seems

grim-era predecessors.

The

light-years

piece, attributed to

New

away from

its Pil-

England despite

provenance, has a secondary history. Exhibited at the enormously

its

influ-

Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, it stimulated a

new interest in American antiquarianism.
The William and Mary style did not last long, but did its work as a technical and artistic bridge to the still more graceful design school of Queen
Anne, The museum's many examples indicate the range of artistry and style
ential World's

already introduced by 1730,

One

from that date, a linen press attributed

Ebenezer Hartshome of Charlestown, Massachusetts,

nut with rosewood and satinwood

broken-arch bonnet and urn

inlays.

is

to

constructed of wal-

Reeded columns, arch-top doors,

finial, butterfly brasses:

eaments of the balance of the eighteenth century were

many

of the lin-

firmly in place.

An

important cherry desk and bookcase of about 1730, probably from Connecticut,

beautifully carved with corkscrew finials, shells, and flowers.

is

Queen Anne chairs are coveted by collectors;

the museum's collection

illus-

trates their variety.

The ensuing Chippendale

ture, epitomized in the
ers.

Some

period was, to

many

lovers ot antique furni-

famed Philadelphia highboy, or high chest of draw-

experts believe that at least a few examples of the breed were

excessively large

A possible example of the latter category

and showy,

is

an

eight-foot-one-inch-tall walnut specimen with applied tendrils of carved

wooden

leafage crawling top

of this great

American

and bottom. Nearby, more restrained examples

classic allow the viewer to

make up

his

own mind,

Philadelphia indeed was one of America's polestars of fine eighteenth-century furniture,

Ann)ng

its

was Thomas Affleck, who made

practitioners

niture in the Chippendale style for the U,S,

the ct)urt sat in Philadelphia,

The museum

Supreme Court

in 1790,

displays a chair from that

fur-

when

cham-

ber along with other Affleck work, including an elegant card table from

1765-80,

Another major Chippendale piece

is

the

mahogany

blocktront desk of

about 1770 to 1800, attributed to Samuel Loomis of Colchester, ConnectAhott TIm

-nni-

til

Chippcn-

daUr iccms tf ir..iMi:cJ b\ ilicic ii, Philadelphia armchairs.

The Queen Anne

splat, dates
fraf

It

chair

from about 1750

(tiip).

aiul

is

with solid (iddlcback

made

of walnut.

Con-

with the open carved mahot>any back of the Chip-

petviale-style chair (boctum) that replaced

it

in ptjpularity,

The grace o<' American Chippendale shines from

mahoKany splat of this armchair of 1770-80

the carved

(detail of chair opposite), attributed to

of block and shell slant top and three blocked drawers,

American craftsmen had k)ng since achieved. Such

pieces could he afforded

only by the wealthy few; a 1785 middle-class success story would more

likely

have been marked by such acquisitions as the mu.seum's well-made Windsor

uartmi; about 1755

Opposite

icut. Its design,

seems incapable of improvement; the execution displays the mastery that

chair of hickory, maple, and pine,

black trim.

Thimias Affleck of

Philadelphia

42

still

bearing

its

original buff paint with

43

44

That minority of

early

American immigrants who came from Scandi-

navia or central Europe must have longed for the efficient ceramic heating
stoves of their

homeland. As

where the dominant culture was

settlers

Brit-

most Americans perpetuated the old country's use of inefficient fireplace heating, and endured the wretched service of fireplaces far longer
ish,

than necessary. In Pennsylvania the Germans sensibly were not buying that

masochism, and by the

variety of

they

demanded

The

first

quarter of the eighteenth century

iron stoves from local founders,

resulting "five-plate" or "jamb" stoves,

who were

usually English.

European in concept, were

not necessarily well suited for rustic colonial America, but they worked.

closed iron firebox, set into a wall containing a chimney, was tended from

on the other side. The plan was reminiscent of grand European

homes and palaces, where graceful corner stoves were stoked from hidden
a fireplace

service rooms.

The German

farmers of Pennsylvania ordered their iron

stoves cast with pious mottos.

plate stove

was too clear

for

it

By 1765, the basic impracticality of the

to continue,

five-

and new free-standing models

The
Thomas Maybury,

appeared, connecting to the chimney through sheet-metal stovepipes.

museum

has a handsome example from the foundry of

The device's operation

member of the modern back-to-wood-stoves

Hereford Furnace in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

would be instantly clear

to

any

movement; moreover, the handsomely proportioned rectangular appliance

contains the useful refinement of a bake oven. Like a number of rare artifacts in the

museum, the Maybury

Chicago Exposition,

stove begat

1893, at the

it

its

own

codicil to history: in

attracted wide interest as America's

oldest stove.

Opposite.

Benjamin Franklin

an

tried his

hand

at inventing a stove,

around

1742.

His

drawers.

which a system of air passages would save heat yet still provide the pleasure and utility of an open
fire
but in practice it quickly clogged itself with soot. Stove founders
idea

was good

iron fireplace insert through

began working, with some success,

to

life's

rigors

were succored by the comforts of tradition. Settlers in Virginia and Massachusetts began by trying to transplant

Old World domestic surroundings

One dream of what they left

but yielded in time to practical variations.

behind

is

embodied

in Greenfield Village's

Cotswold Cottage, a Glouces-

house and outbuildings dating from the early seventeenth century

in England. Its massive stone construction would not have been duplicated
in the early colonies, yet its sturdy oak cupboards, chairs, and tables of

tershire

Tidor and Jacobean

styles

were both imported and copied here.

better view of the early seventeenth-century

New England home

Plympton House, originally in South Sudbury, Massachusetts. Constructed around a massive central chimney, the one-room,
twenty-five-by-twenty-foot house with an upstairs loft sheltered Thomas

comes

at the village's

and Abigail Plympton and

their seven children.

The

setting of their

It is

attributed to

New

England, dating from very

early in the 1700s

Above. This walnut high chest of drawers

dale era, a type usually

known

life is

45

ot the

Chippen-

as the Philadelphia highboy,

was made between 1760 and 1780

improve on Franklin's design.

For Americans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

Mary Ball Washington, mother ot the first presiowned this William and Mary high chest ot

dent, once

46

one we

strive to duplicate today in

to Pasadena;

it

dens and family rooms from Bridgeport

would not be so rich

charm

in

if

we were required

to live as

the Plymptons did, cooking above the coals in rough iron utensils, spinning
flax

and wool, weaving fabrics, rendering lard, boiling laundry, dipping

Such necessities of the hearthside, plus the punishing outdoor

candles.

farm work, were aspects of a

that changed
tury

little

may seem

tions as the

self-sufficient, traditional, preindustrial society

across the generations. Superficially, the eighteenth cen-

a bit

more polished

in

such Greenfield Village manifesta-

New Hampshire

Connecticut Saltbox House and the

Pearson House, both from around 1750. Yet the processes of

life

Secretary

were the

same.
Fireplace cooking was uncomfortable in hot weather but demonstrably

more
stove

than fireplace heating. The slow change to heating by

efficient

picking up speed

Atlantic states

move

if

not

at the

end of the eighteenth century in the Middle

was not accompanied by a similar

New England

to cooking by stove. Yet at least

one American started giving serious

thought to shifting food from the hearth to a more reliable heat source.

Benjamin Thompson was

whose checkered and

Opposite. "Living History" at the Saltbox House, per-

often distinguished career included high British government service during

formed by costumed Greenfield Village staff members,

takes the visitor back to domestic scenes of rural Connecticut in the mid- 1700s

a Massachusetts-born T)ry

American Revolution, major experiments with gunpowder, and becoming a German count, whereupon he chose the title "von Rumford" after his
wife's New Hampshire birthplace. In England, near the close of the eighteenth century, Rumford made original scientific studies into the nature of
heat and capped his work with radical new designs for cookstoves and roasting ovens. Rumtord's principles, which concentrated and enclosed heat,
were appropriated by American stovemakers and led to real breakthroughs
in cooking techniques. "Rumford roasters" became the rage in progressive
kitchens. The museum displays a Boston-made specimen of this handsome,
cylindrical device of skillfully worked iron and brass.
Progress toward adequate lighting in the seventeenth and eighteenth
the

centuries was,
cial light of

if

our

grease lamps.

anything, even slower than the quest tor heat.

first

The

artifi-

colonists flickered feebly from candles, rush lights,

Some even

Candles were expensive

to

used "light wood"

buy or trouble

to

and

slivers of resin-rich pine.

make, yet they were preferable

to the alternatives. Gradually, the smoky, smelly, rodent-attracting grease

lamp was improved by inventive blacksmiths, tinsmiths, and potters. Betty

lamps, spout lamps, peg lamps, Argand lamps, Phoebe lamps, pan lamps,

some of the forgotten light makers of our

on rank, in the museum.
Even the redoubtable Count Rumford experimented with lighting, as
well as with stoves and explosives, a not altogether irrelevant grouping. Fire
was such a pervasive danger that in many regions of America, the kitchen
was built under a separate roof in the backyard, so that when and if it
caught fire the damage would be restricted. Fireplaces and open-flame
lard lamps, pig lamps: such are

earlier years that are

now

displayed, rank

47

Above.
wildest

The Plympton House of 1638 is Greenfield Village's

American home. The one-room Puritan cottage

came from South Sudbury, Massachusetts

48

lamps took their

toll in

other structures as well.

One

of the hest-selling

products of colonial leatherworkers was the pitch-dauhed

fire

bucket that

hung in every hall.

Dutch inventors around 1700 produced the first fire hose for playing water
forth onto a fire. By the eighteenth century, London became the European
center of fire equipment manufacturing, and its best-known maker was
Richard Newsham. The museum's earliest pumper is probably a Newsham,
and may date from the 1760s, when it was used in New England. By the late
1700s,

fire

engines were made in the American colonies. Technological

and frequently the dating of such antiques is difficult.

New England machine, the inscribed date 1797
handily appeared, and other clues pointed to the Boston shop of Ephraim
Thayer as its manufacturer. In such establishments, the pool of mechanical
progress was slow,

But in restoring one early

began

skill

to

grow

faster.

Otters

and glassblowers could work almost any-

where, and they quickly set up shop in America's

m^'^
-^^

ea
earliest
colonies. Yet the archeological record

is

rjpar that
r
clear
our colonial ancestors relied overwhelmingly

on imports for tableware. English earthenwares arrived in America in prodigious

Dutch and German pottery is also found in the trash heaps of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Chinese porcelains actually made their

quantities.

North American debut in the 1500s, via Spanish landings on the West Coast.
Chinese wares were coveted because of the superiority of hard-paste porcelain in both service

mentation.

and beauty, and

The Chinese were quick

for the oriental

to

refinement of orna-

accommodate western

taste in

and by 1725 the colonies were importers of porcelain through British traders. Direct trade between New York and Canton began after the
Revolution with the sailing of the Enxpxt^s of China on February 22, 1784.
designs,

The museum's

vast ceramics collection includes such select specimens of

the era as one piece from a set of Ching-teh-chen tea service with an unusually well-documented history,

whom

monogram and
the

naming the Massachusetts matron for

it. The prideful

the set was made, and even the ship that delivered

the classical painted scenes of goddesses and cupids suggest

upward-bound

The pedigree

cultural strivings of

New

England's merchants.

of another Chinese piece

George Washington

is

is still

more distinguished.

represented by a plate of about 1785, decorated with

The

plate

Mrs. Robert E. Lee.

Still

the iconography of the newly formed Society of the Cincinnati.

descended in the Custis family of Virginia

to

another Chinese plate of between 1758 and 1783 recalls the unsuccessful
social striving of William
title

Alexander of New York, who claimed the extinct

of the Earldom of Stirling, and ordered

its

handsome arms emblazoned

Opposite. This small, hand-carried

fire

pump

is

the

mu-

seum's oldest, and may have been made by Richard Newsham, a pioneer English manufacturer of fire equipment, in

about 1760.

It

once served

in Dudley, Massachusetts

This ten-plate stove was cast in 1767 at Hereford Furnace, Berks County, Pennsylvania; it was displayed in 1893

Top.

Chicago Exposition, attracting the

at the

interest of

antiquarians

on

his china.

The well-crafted "Rumford Roaster" was made by

Howe of Boston in about 1825. It was based on the

Bottom.

Joseph

1796 invention of Sir Benjamin Thompson, an American

loyalist

49

who became Count Rumford

so

The

potters of

England were not prone

abandon the game

to

to the

Chinese, and offered a staggering variety of competitive delftware, redware, creamware, and salt-glazed stoneware, some done to the
taste.

An early example

is

Lambeth

probably from London's

chrome crown, the

delftware drug

An

jar,

the museum's
area.

c.

American

1704 tin-glazed delftware plate,

With

its

bold

monogram and

poly-

plate has a perky, earthy quality of intense vigor.

dated 1723 and marked P:TARTAR, originated in Bristol.

Irish-made plate of 1750 features a baroque scalloped border and, com-

petitively,

an oriental landscape

in the center, all painted in blue

on the

tin

glaze.

Delftware was superseded in popularity by other bodies, chiefly refined

salt-glazed stoneware

by

and the

Thomas Whieldon.

development

colorful early

creamware pottery popularized

In the second half of the eighteenth century, the

of transfer-printed

creamware and pearlware resulted

in fab-

new export opportunities for the potters of Staffordshire. Ransacking

American publications for patriotically commercial images, potters created
ulous

such gems as the museum's 1800 pitcher from Liverpool's Herculaneum Pottery,

bearing a black transfer print of George Washington clearly taken from

another print, which in turn had followed a famous Gilbert Stuart portrait.

Awards and commemorations meant

example of a private
by Staffordshire's

profitable business.

citizen's recognition

Wood and

is

is

On

Caldwell Pottery.

the tools and products of his trade, a cooper

the legend wine/benjamin

An

elaborate

found in the museum's pitcher

is

one

pictured.

EMMONS/born

in

side,

working amid

Beneath the spout

BOSTON/May the

10th/

1762. Cartoons, maps, naval victories, eulogies, Indian maidens, political

songs, the glorious completion of canals

themes, often executed with great

artistry,

and

railroads:

such were the

adorning the transfer-printed

English ceramics destined tor America, a truly international expression of

the early Industrial Revolution.

The museum's renowned

glass collection

is

virtually all

begins with some English bottles of the seventeenth century

slow eighteenth-century development
ary figures as

pocket

mark

flask

in

Henry

Stiegel of

of about 1770

American

glass.

larger, slightly later (c.

is

American, but

The

industry's

traced by the work of such legend-

Mannheim, Pennsylvania.

Stiegel

only four and one-half inches tall, but is a landAlso rare and important is a similar, slightly

is

1785-90) bottle from the

New Bremen

Glass

Man-

c.

1785 was decorated in

Society of the Cincinnati.

ington, Custis,

Canton with
Its

the

emblem

associations with the

and Lee families

ot Viri^inia

add to

created tangible expressions of his clients' wealth. Silver was not for every-

made do with pewter, wooden, or earthenware vessels and

But by the end of the seventeenth century, prospering Massachusupported America's first galaxy of first-rate silversmiths. One was

one; the masses

utensils.

is

represented in a lovely tankard, like a

sloping ring-molded cylinder with a molded

flat

cover. Still rarer

is

a rather

ol the

Washits

his-

torical interest

Tnp. Masters of transfer printing, English potters cashed in

on such commemoratory American themes as the opening

ot the Erie

Canal

Massachusetts matron Abigail Goodwin, arrived

Part sculptor, part metallurgist, part salesman, the colonial silversmith

setts

of

Bottom. These three pieces of Chinese porcelain,

ufactory of Maryland.

John Noyes of Boston, whose work

Opposite. This hard-paste porcelain Chinese export plate

on

Ellas

Hasket Derby's ship, the Grtmd Turk

made tor
Salem

in

opposite.

quartet of teapots from the museum's silver

collection includes (clockwise from top) the work of Wil-

liam B. Heyer

Boston,

c.

of New

1805; Paul Revere of Boston,

Hutton of Albany,

modest-looking howl, only

to

he America's

York City, 1815-25; John B. Jones of

New

York,

c.

1800

c.

1785;

and

Isaac

the Kip

won

Cup was

presented to Jacob

a one-mile race at

little

Middletown,

repoussed drinking howl, with

slightly

museum believes
Made by Jesse Kip of New York,
and Maria Van Dorn when their colt

six inches in diameter, that the

earliest intact racing trophy.

New

its

Jersey, in 1699. In this pleasant

caryatid handles and fleurs-de-lis

all

reminiscent of the era's William and Mary furniture designs, we

discern not the

first

The museum's

herald of the gaudy trophies of the future.

silver collection includes a c.

1770 coffeepot by Paul

Rococo example with all the right details: pear-shaped

body, double-domed lid, acorn finial. Revere was a multitalented figure
whose primary craft silversmithing spanned all the best stylistic eras.
Around 1785 he made an extremely rare drum-shaped teapot; by 1790 he
was fully into the Federal theme with a classically straight-sided oval teapot.
In silversmithing, as in all crafts, a high standard of acquired competence was the orthodox requisite, hut some craftsmen simply were gifted
with greater design talent than others. Joseph Lownes of Philadelphia had
talent in lavish measure: a silver tankard he made c. 1790 is a dazzling work
with bold bands of horizontal grooves around a tapered cylinder, and an
Revere, an excellent

engraving of the brig Lavinia.

The

ship's insurance underwriters presented

the tankard to the captain, clearly a

man

And,

of probity and profits.

per-

haps, of luck.

Something
resist

in the deepest character of timepieces

must have struggled

to

the Industrial Revolution. Horology succeeded in remaining at least

partially aloof while passing

through the era

like

everything

else.

One

dif-

ference was that watches and ckicks had been mechanical successes tor centuries, k)ng before the Industrial

Revolution began. Few other devices, with

the exception of the pipe organ, could

make

that statement.

When

Re-

naissance kings craved mechanical miracles, they were essentially limited

to

what the best ck)ck and organ makers could cook up. Such craftsmen

possessed a high degree of mechanical sophistication and

artistry.

A watch-

maker of about the time that Thomas Newcomen's first crude steam engine
clanked and shuddered to life might not have been terribly impressed by the
invention; why, hadn't his lot for generations been making reliable
machines, drawing on the predictable power source of a coiled spring.'
The museum displays a watch of just that time. George Graham of London, early in the eighteenth century, fashioned this marvek)us open-face

example,

Roman

its

silver dial a

numerals. In style

mass of scallops, brass studs, and Arabic and

it

echoes the seventeenth century more than

it

accepts the eighteenth. But throughout any era, watchmakers expre.ssed

idiosyncracies of style. Their miniature, confined purlieu

demanded

per-

sonalized artistry. Appreciation of the museum's hundreds of antique

watches, twinkling silently in their gallery

ca.ses,

demands equally concen-

trated attention.

The

52

earliest cK)cks to reach

America were

brass-cased, wall-mounted

"BrnKrymssBmam

53

54

lantern clocks, whose weights and

pendulums hung in the open air. The

American tall-case clocks, spring-

type would soon vanish, displaced by

driven bracket clocks, and various other

styles.

Among

finials; a

setts

the best are a 1765

Hepplewhite clock of c. 1810 by Jacob

day banjo clock at

Eby of Manheim, Pennsylvania, justly noted for its all-American curly

maple case with marquetry eagle medallions; and a strikingly beautiful,
complex bracket clock of 1795 by Andrew Billings of Poughkeepsie, New
York. Several examples display the legendary skills of Simon and Aaron
Willard of Roxbury, Massachusetts. Toward the end of his distinguished

Thomas Harland

of Norwich, Connecticut,

made

clock of mahogany, inlaid with maple and ebony in perfect

a lovely Federal

harmony Har-

one of America's masters of the old eighteenth-century school, had

an apprentice whose name would soon be even better known: Eli Terry.
Like most serious artisans, Harland executed perfectly the design orders
land,

of his time, as dictated by the Messrs. Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and

Sheraton. Other Americans liked to improvise. That could work well

commanded

craftsman

a sense of line

and proportion.

One

if

the

such was the

anonymous maker of a "possibly Delaware" clock. Splendid marmahogany case, and the hood frieze is spanwith inlaid stars. Here, indeed, is a Hepplewhite-based clock made by

regrettably

quetry of satinwood covers the

gled

a daring, exuberant, sure hand.

One

of James Watt's engines was installed in a Manchester, England,

cotton mill in 1785. English water power was clearly inadequate to meet the

growing demand

for energy.

Within

fifteen years, by the

Manchester would have thirty steam engines running

end of the century,

its

cotton mills.

We

Americans had more promising water power, but otherwise the cotton mills
of New England resembled their English models, as translated by Slater's
installation at Pawtucket. The year 1785 was also the year of another portentous development in textiles: the

first

use of

roller,

or cylinder, printing

developed simultaneously in England and France. Eli Whitney's gin would

soon multiply the supply of cheap cotton. By the mid- 1800s, throughout the
West, the business of making cotton cloth
trialized,

As

taking the

first

early as 1830, the

Good

mills.

a consumer's

giant step toward

calico

was thoroughly

modem

United States counted some eight hundred cotton

printed cotton kept dropping in price

bonanza that

and

rising in quality in

lasted for the better part of a century.

example of the early period in the museum's collection of

piece of unused cotton dating
printed design
attractive

The
in the
dery.

and

is

indus-

factory production.

c.

1795.

Its

fabric

A
is

good

a long

complex, three-color wood-block

composed of blossoms, branches, and curling

ribbons, an

bright, polished design.

1700s ended in sartorial glory, at least for the wealthy, as indicated

museum's 1780 European frock court suit, refulgent in its embroi-

Women's

fashions ranged from the dainty to the dramatic, as seen by

55

left in

1815. In Manheim, PennEby crafted the eagle-inlaid

about

sylvania, in about 1810, Jacob

curly-maple tall-case clock. At right, nicely reflecting

pire tastes,

career,

Simon and Aaron Willard of'Massachu-

rank high in America's skilled fraternity of early-

nineteenth-century clockmakers. Simon made the eight-

Pennsylvania Chippendale clock with a masterfully-carved mahogany case

graced by rosettes and flame

Opposite. Brothers

of Boston

is

a lyre clock, c.

1825,

made by Sawin

&.

EmDyer

56

an authentic red cold-weather hoe)d, or cloak. But the new Republic

demanded more democratic haberdashery. Even the great and popular Jefferson soon greeted White House guests in drab, worn clothes and carpet
slippers.

Any

study of the museum's parade of antique fashions

elicits

alternating

one thing, and puzof the latter is mourning jew-

sensations; surprised recognition at the familiarity of

zlement at the alien nature of another.

elry.

One

gold ring with a black enamel band memorializes the departure of

in 1769. A ring remembering the late Elizabeth

mounted with an artificial jewel in the shape of a coffin, complete
with skeleton. On mourning pins, bereaved husbands, children, and mothers slump across the tombs of their beloved. Some of the museum's memo-

Stephen Van Rensselaer

Ropes

rial

is

pins and lockets incorporate

human

hair.

he eighteenth-century American of any class was

more inclined

to play a musical

instrument than

is

Ah.:
his modem counterpart. Violins, guitars, recorders,
9^ flutes, harpsichords, drums, jews harps: such were
tint

We had to make the music

the popular sources of music two hundred years ago.

we wanted to enjoy it, in most cases, as professional musicians were scarce.

The results could be elaborate, as when Thomas Jefferson led regular musicales
if

at Monticello. Auditors

mances,

for

were rarely surprised at the quality of those perfor-

high competence was expected. At a

lesser

range on the social

If an American colonist owned a watch, chances

was EngUsh. George Graham of London made this
handsome, silver-cased, open-face pocket watch in about

OpposiXi.

were

it

1740. Its silver dial has

Roman and

Arabic numerals; the

hands are of pierced brass. Repair papers, such as the one

tucked inside the case, give clues to a timepiece's later
travels

scale, there

is

ample testimony that

always so fine, at least

The

violin

it

was

if

the quality of fiddling in taverns was not

Ahone. Honoring departed loved ones by special mourning

lively

jewelry was an accepted practice in early America; this gold

was the eighteenth century's lead instrument

in all respects,

with expressive tone, tractable volume, and universal familiarity Even at

the start of the 1700s

even today

is

it

already had reached a stage of development that

deemed an apogee. That golden age

is

well represented in the

museum's collection of musical instruments. Oldest is a spectacularly rare

example from 1647 by Nicolo Amati, one of the masters of the Cremona,
Italy, school of violinmaking. He was the teacher of Antonio Stradivari,

who

is

represented by two violins, dated 1703 and 1709, in the collection.

A third Olympian name

represented

ment named The Doyen from

1741.

is

Joseph Guamerius, with an instru-

More

violins

from the same era round

out a supernal collection of early strings.

Few Americans would have had such instruments,

even the

common

violin

clarinets, oboes, viola da

guitar, favorite of

yet the

odds were that

was European-made. The same could be said

gambas, and

guitars.

The pear-shaped

for

English

eighteenth-century lady instrumentalists, was a form of

medieval cittern, whose iron strings, tuned in an open chord, sounded

clear but melancholy.

Meanwhile the

modem

guitar evolved, a bit smaller

than today's, and often distinguished by a bowed-out back formed of slender

staves, like a barrel.

Because of that back, the guitar was hard to make, but

57

locket recalls the

who

died in 1795

memory

of a young

man

of

twenty-four

Charles Taws, a Scottish immisrant, made beautiful pianos

in Philadelphia.

One

of

them was

1794, with an inlaid Hepplewhite

61

this lovely edition ot

mahogany case and

-note English action

58

The harpsichord was another popwhich most were made approached

factory size and specialization, such as Jacob Kirckman's of London.
Another great harpsichord maker of the time was London's Thomas Hitchcock, whose work is represented by the museum's 1733 specimen, one of
spoke with a wonderfully mellow voice.
ular

if

expensive import.

The shops

in

only about twenty surviving today. Orchestral music of the eighteenth cen-

had a much softer, mellower tone than today's counterpart. Brilliant

would arrive in the nineteenth century.
Some musical-instrument makers moved to the population centers of

tury

brasses

eighteenth-century America. Charles Taws, a Scottish piano maker,

arrived in

New

and successful

York in 1786 and moved to Philadelphia in 1788 for a long

career. In 1794,

Taws made the small square piano that

of the museum's rarest artifacts.

manufacture,

is

Its

is

one

sixty-one-note keyboard, of English

contained in a splendid Hepplewhite case of mahogany

with satinwood panels. Floral flourishes, both painted and inlaid, confirm
the
is

skill

of Mr Taws's shop.

attested by the

The
liable.

That the piano was

number of repaired ivories.

and not just admired,

used,

firearms to reach the New World were clumsy, heavy, and unreMost were probably matchlocks, an ancient firing device that

first

plunged a smoldering "match" (more properly, a fuse) into the weapon's

The matchlock worked reasonably well unless one's match

became damp, whereupon the weapon would not fire at all. Early militiamen were armed with such pieces. The first settlers also brought a few
wheellocks, which were far more expensive and inclined to be used by the

priming pan.

gentry for sporting purposes.

lighter,

The wheellock worked

like a giant cigarette

with a serrated wheel which, upon being cranked into readiness,

would spin sparks into the priming pan. Both wheellock and matchlock
were voices of the Middle Ages; another type, which a few of our early seventeenth-century ancestors carried off the boat at St. Augustine, James-

town, and Plymouth, was the snaphance. Also called the doglock, the

snaphance was an
flint

early

On

of the system.
carried in

its

form of flintlock that already had the basic features

triggering, the "cock" (or

hammer) smacked

a piece of

jaws into a steel "frizzen," or "battery," to create a shower

of sparks. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the

flint

system was

standard almost everywhere.

Around

the middle of the eighteenth century,

American gunsmiths

introduced a

new weapon

hunting

rifles

brought to Pennsylvania and Virginia early in the eighteenth

century.

The

beautiful

of almost magical accuracy, based on

rifle

German

that would help tame the trans-Appalachian

and make life miserable for the Redcoats, has been variously called
the Kentucky rifle, Pennsylvania rifle, American long rifle, or just long rifle.

frontier,

The

best term

is

American

rifle,

as

range and reflected a variety of local

lection contains

many examples

it

was made across a wide geographic

styles,

of this

or schools.

American

The museum's

classic in

its

col-

various

59

America were imported, yet rare

an instrument ot this quality. It was
made in Cremona, Italy, in 1647 by Nicolo Amati, who
trained Antonio Stradivari and who was the most imporMost
in

violins used in early

any age or country

tant

member

is

of a famed instrument-making family

60

The German

phases, beginning with the import that served as prototype.

Jaeger (or hunter)

rifle

American

the

first

ing

wood patch

dates from around 1750, the year usually assigned to

rifles.

With

its full

walnut stock, octagonal

indication of parenthood. Yet in building their great

can makers borrowed from other

With such

barrel, slid-

box, hickory ramrod, and engraved flintlock, there

new gun,

is

some

the Ameri-

styles as well.

sporting guns, as with coaches, clothing, furniture, and

tableware, people tended to take care of the expensively

made

items, use

and then treasure them as heirlooms when they became obsolete.

Therefore the homely, handy tools made for hard use, such as an Americanmade fowling piece of 1758, rarely survived to fall into the hands of collec-

them

less,

tors or
is

museums. The

flintlock fowler (today

it

would be called

shotgun)

unusual for other reasons, as well. Eighteenth-century American gun-

smiths were reticent about signing and dating their work. But in this case,

maker Medad Hills signed the piece, added the date and his address of
Goshen, Connecticut, and inscribed the name of the customer, Noah
North. Rare

is

the antique that carries

One gunsmith
he helped

start

it.

its

own

pedigree so completely

not only participated in America's Industrial Revolution,

Whitney has hardly been

Eli

forgotten by history, but he

scarcely ever gets sufficient credit for both of his

mighty contributions that

changed the western world. In 1793, as the guest on a Georgia plantation

just after his graduation from Yale, young Whitney invented the cotton gin.
The ability to mechanically separate seeds from cotton fiber proved a mixed
blessing.

While

mills,

also created

it

word, slaves.

it

The

resulted in cheap,

an

irresistible

abundant cotton

demand

for

institution of slavery grew like

for the world's fabric

cheap

field

an incubus

hands

in the

in a

wake of

the cotton gin.

Whitney had
1798 he built a

difficulty protecting his patent for the cotton gin,

new

factory at

New

and

in

Haven, Connecticut, to manufacture

military muskets for the U.S. government. This was the setting for his sec-

ond great contribution. Prior to Whitney's plunge into musket manufacturing, gunmaking had been a bench craft where each weapon was made individually of component parts formed and fitted for it alone. Whitney's
master stroke was to make gun parts of such precision that the parts were
interchangeable with minor fitting in assembly. The principle may seem
obvious today, but it was a fundamental change in the way manufacturers
looked at things.

The Age of

Noah lUbster

is

name

is

synonymous with one of the indispens-

able tools of scholarship, but

became

Opposite. In this upstairs study of his

Connecticut,

work,

a curiously neglected figure in

history as his personal

He

Noah Webster
American

fame somehow slipped away.

deserves a refurbished reputation. Descendant of colonial governors,

com-

An

lawyer, educator, editor, politician,

legislator, professor, administrator, linguist, loving father,

and family man,

Webster would have been a remarkable national treasure even had he not been
the most prodigious lexicographer and philologist in the history of America.

His comfortable home, standing in Federal serenity in Greenfield Village,

and

seems to

reflect the

his wife, Rebecca,

man. Although he was already

moved

to their

sixty-five

new house (then

in

when he

New

Haven,

Connecticut), he would spend another two decades working there, and

complete in 1828
life.

An

American

in his upstairs study

Dictioruxr-j of the English

most ambitious of Webster's distinguished

When the two-volume,

the most important work of his

Language.
life,

and

The
it

prc^ject

was the

took twenty years.

seventy-thousand-word dictionary reached market,

became one of the great landmarks of erudition, helping impose authority on American word usage, as well as indexing thousands of words never

it

seen in dictionaries before. Yet long before his great dictionary appeared,

Webster had made a vast contribution toward the standardization of American spelling

and pronunciation. His three-part Grammatical

Institute of the

63

home

in

New Haven,

1828 completed his great

American Dictionary of the English Language.

Henry Ford saved the home from demohtion, and reconstructed

it

in Greenfield Village in the 1930s.

study furniture, including the desk-hookcase,

the house

American Revolution,

bat veteran of the

Noah Webster

Much
is

of the

original to

He was no

polished master from sophisticated Philadel-

phia, Baltimore, or Newport, but Godfrey Wilkin may he

said to represent a body of capable American artisans who

made

furniture for the average citizen. Clearly, this

tain craftsman

had a sense

of

moun-

humor

MARCH*! JACOB i^^lLKLNHl

Ol

CODFREyPV/LKiNHARDyCOL'NTy AND5TATEOFV/RC/N/A

LJ"

64

^1

fv

C:

<

English Language, appearing

American

culture.

The

first

first

in 1783-85,

had

on
more than

a profound influence

book, the Blue-backed

Speller,

sold

100 million copies over more than a century of use, gradually being replaced

by McGuffey Readers.
rest on a work table and desk in
home. The 1790 Hepplewhite desk-bookcase is the
very one where he did much of his work, and the room is where he died in
1843, his amazing fount of scholarship stilled at eighty-four years.

Copies of Webster's historic publications

the upstairs study of his

Noah Webster, who was a scion of New England's old patrician

William Holmes McGuffey was born in a one-room log cabin in
western Pennsylvania. The rustic little structure, built in about 1780,
stands today in Greenfield Village and is furnished in the rough-hewn
Unlike

culture,

charm of the

early nineteenth century,

much

as

it

probably looked around

the time young McGuffey arrived in 1800. Despite their frontier surround-

McGuffeys were ambitious and intelligent, and William received

good education. He became a professional educator in Ohio, helped
organize that state's public school system, and went on to a long career as
ings, the

professor of moral philosophy at the University of Virginia. But his incal-

on the mind of nineteenth-century America was based on

first published in 1836, the McGuffey Eclectic
With one reader for each elementary grade, McGuffey's illustrated

culable influence

his series of six textbooks

Readers.

books conveyed solid

literary instruction in stories of

common

sense, patri-

and morality based on upbeat pragmatism, not doctrinaire theology.

The books dominated American education for generations, and helped
mold the minds of young Henry Ford, the Wright brothers, and most of
their contemporaries. Ford's high regard for McGuffey led the great mogul
of Dearborn into gathering a complete set of Readers, which led to Ford's
broader passion for collecting the entire mosaic of American life.
Around the year of McGuffey's birth, 1800, the Federal era of design was
at its peak. In Salem, Massachusetts, a furniture maker named Samuel
Mclntyre summed up the Federal theme perfectly in a handsome Hepplewhite sideboard with skillfully carved grapes, leaves, baskets, and rosettes.
The museum also has a Recamier Grecian sofa attributed to Duncan Phyfe,
made between 1810 and 1820 in New York. The full force of America's
otism,

revived flirtation with French design

ably

made by the

of gilded eagles, rosettes,

skill,

is

clear in a c. 1815 card table. Prob-

Honore Lannuier, it is a stirring spectacle

and animal-paw feet. With such extravagant

gifted Charles

the Empire style was ushered in by trend-setting

who had no way

New

York masters,

knowing that their final orders would lead straight to

those Empire adaptations seized upon (and, critics say, sadly degraded) by
of

pioneering factories in the antebellum age.

Not

all

the Federal era's output was of such

confident expansion

demanded

bon

ton.

sturdy furniture of

unsung cabinetmakers, often working

all

That time of selfkinds, and many

in walnut, created a

body of early

65

^3^x^hJ!^;z-4

nineteenth-century furniture from which collectors

Any

still

choose many desir-

Americana would be delighted to find a duplicate of the museum's blanket chest from mountainous Hardy County, Virginia, made by Godfrey Wilkin, a man of obviously irrepressible drollery.
The front of this big, complex walnut and pine chest bears the self-congratulating legend "WEL DON" (twice) and then the vertical commands "read
THES up" and "and read THES DOWN." We even know the first owner:
"JACOB WILKIN HIS CHEAST." Jacob must have been pleased.
The new century's rapid improvement in foundry technology began paving the way for a dramatic upgrading in household hardware. First came a
proliferation of variants on the original Franklin stove. Despite the design's
original drawbacks, the combined Franklin name and fireplace-stove idea
enjoyed wide appeal (as it does, indeed, in our own time) and was essayed
endlessly by various founders. The museum displays an I8I6 Franklin by
James Wilson of Poughkeepsie, New York, who was first to patent under the
Franklin name. A Federal design with an eagle, stars, urn-shaped brass finials and pierced brass fender, the Franklin sprouts a towering conical heat
chamber, shaped like a wizard's cap, whose function was to trap and radiate
heat in the lucky owner's parlor. Its efficiency was doubtful, but it was a
resplendent creation for the hearth, and something to brag about. It was
clear proof of a manufacturer's willingness to experiment, and a customer's
able pieces.

fancier of

Opposite.

As

iron founders

enhanced

their skills early in

the nineteenth century, there was a great urge to create

more

efficient

home

heat sources. Early efforts, such as this

James Wilson, struggled

improvement over the regular fireplace

1816 Franklin fireplace unit by

attain marginal

to

inclination to try anything once.

Foundryman Wilson's

refulgent Franklin

was not the stove of

Above. By 1845,

destiny.

Vastly improved free-standing box stoves, descendants of the eighteenth-

century six-plate stoves beloved of German immigrants,

bers of

warmed the chamAmerica during the administrations of John Quincy Adams and

Andrew

New

Jackson.

York State became the center of the stove industry; Troy alone

counted some two hundred stove manufacturers prior to the Civil War. In

becoming

a factory center, the

Hudson River city symbolized the

Industrial

Revolution's rapid shift from scattered, small, traditional craft shops.

Moreover, Troy's iron founders had a handy

new resource for technical

mation: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824,

oldest school of engineering

and

is

infor-

America's

science.

Modern stoves are drab imitations of their nineteenth-century ancestors.

Fashion demanded that parlor or heating stoves, whether coal- or woodburning, complement the architectural and decorative themes of the day
fruits, morning glories, and little
and M. Peckham parlor stove from Utica. Virtually every shape of the Rococo revival writhes across its black surfaces.
Another of the museum's stoves, Troy-made by G.
Eddy in 1853, sums
up the Gothic revival movement in its stars, diamonds, arches, and castle
crenellations. Precisely the same well-developed design themes appear elsewhere in the same era, in seemingly unrelated artifacts like the museum's

Consider the ensemble of grapes, roses,

girls

adorning the 1845

J.

S.

67

whenJ.S.&M. Peckham

of Utica,

New

York, patented this elaborate parlor stove, such units

worked well

68

patented in America in 1815, cook stoves

opposite.

First

appeared

in quantity in the 1830s

and

forties, gradually

displacing the fireplace and hearth for household cooking.

good early example

coal or wood.

Its

is

the 1832 Stanley, which burned

four-hole cooking surface revolved with a

crank, thus permitting quick adjustment of heat. Twin col-

umns supported

the oval, cylindrical oven and vented the

smoke
Left.

Vose

& Company of Albany,

New

York, patented the

elaborate parlor stove called the Temple in 1854

1
toy

banks and machine

1853 by

J.

encircling the flue,

Like

many

tools.

Another antebellum Troy

stove, patented in

C. Fletcher, features a huge round wreath above the firebox and

all

supported by an equally

leafy,

sinuously

bowed

base.

of its brethren, the stove was dished out at the top to hold a con-

tainer of humidifying

perfume or water. The museum's stove collection

the best in the world, and nowhere are the examples richer and

is

more exu-

berant than in the wonderful parlor stoves of America's early Victorian

period.

The museum's oldest full-fledged cook stove was patented in 1832 by M.

N. Stanley of New York City. Stanley's ingenious creation grafted a large
rotating top with four lids onto a firebox, and vented itself through two ver-

69

70

tical

columns

Odd

as the stove

which supported and heated

at the rear,

may seem,

a cyhndrical oven.

heralded the clear outline of

it

all

future cook

Opposite. This "friendship" quilt was

square

whose shapes would

stoves,

nearly a century

last

and

and electricity.
Acceptance of the cook stove was gradual, and

persist into the era of

gas

average

American

ended with

still

a rapid shift to

changes presaged a new era

brightly painted

as late as the 1840s the

cooked tm the hearth. But the

began

first

half of the 1800s

newly improved stoves. Meanwhile, other

in the kitchen. Light, efficient tinware

replacing heavier,

pans early in the century. By 1825, helpful

often

more expensive iron pots and

and popular books on cooking

and home management appeared with increasing frequency. One of the

best was written by an aristocratic Virginia matron, Mrs. Mary Randolph,
whose The Virginia Housewife, or, Methodical Cook appeared in 1824. It was
a national best-seller for

more than

of 1825 she presented her

was

own

seventy-five years; in her second edition

excellent design for a refrigerator.

The home

definitely attracting attention.

Aesthetics played a large role in the acceptance of another ubiquitous

household device, the sewing machine, which, contrary to folklore, was not
invented by Isaac Singer. Like

many comparable

eighteenth century) are obscure, and

American

Elias

Howe made an

its

devices,

its

origins (in the

development was by committee.

important contribution around 1840

he built a pioneering machine that provided a basis

for things to

when
come.

Competition was intense by the 1850s. Sewing machines, and the strategy
to sell

them, provided one of the

first

major battlegrounds of capitalist con-

sumerism. Curiously, there was some formidable

machine

for reasons

beyond

its

necessarily

woman's function was more

domesticity, wherein

initial resistance to

A machine

most ancient

roles

in the

home would

slave to the needle

that sewing

machine

on such
users

and that they would gain

uplifting

examples

in

men? Ducking

would benefit

leisure

time

their health via lessened drudgery,

for rest
It

Innovations in weaving wool fabrics

tition

volleys of

subjects, manufacturers cleverly advertised

for their children.

an attachment

at

woman's
what way? Would it affect

and refinement and

was a potent and

came soon

for setting

effective appeal.

after the first floods of

cheap, printed cotton calico. In 1804, French innovator].

fected

than

apogee of elaborate

certainly alter one of

but

her femininity or corrupt her moral superiority to

moralistic gibberish

its

the

Victorian cult of

precisely defined

any other point in Western history, was approaching

refinement.

The

stiff price.

M. Jacquard per-

power looms that automatically guided the repeof a given pattern. Such a technique did not immediately displace the

ancient

home

the end of the

for

tradition of carding, spinning, dying,

first

and weaving, but by

half of the nineteenth century such activities had gen-

erally disappeared. Later, in the fabric-short

Confederate

states,

women

dusted off their grandmothers' spinning wheels and looms with a resigned
sense of pioneering.

The museum's

collection of antebellum fabrics covers

made

delphia area in about 1844; each block

is

in the Phila-

eleven inches

72

the

range of styles and techniques.

full

tern dating around 1820

is

a mosaic

One familiar American coverlet pat-

weave of blue wool and natural cotton,

About two decades later, a promuseum's handsome Jacquard coverlet of red

quatrefoil medallion alternating with a diamond,

the once-familiar "summer-winter" pattern.

fessional weaver created the

and indigo wool, with

each containing
as

women's

flowers.

fashion,

is

The technique

of roller printing on cotton, as well

illustrated in a striking dress of navy blue, yellow,

and

gold print.
Quilting, sometimes perceived as one of the last bastions of
today,

The museum's quilt collection

ton.

handwork

was paradoxically stimulated by the avalanche of machine-made cotis

a rare treasury of Americana.

"friendship" quilt of 1844 contains forty-nine squares bearing the

friends

and contributors. Some

undulating

big

quilts contain one-of-a-kind designs, as in

Susan McCord's 1880 masterpiece from Indiana, with

strips of

One

names of

its

five-inch-wide

floral displays.

In men's fashions, trousers replaced knee breeches,

and boots paradoxi-

buckled shoes, which had been very comfortable

cally superseded low-cut,

despite their neither-left-nor-right construction.

The

accretion of years

brought changes in cut and silhouette of coats and trousers, a century-long

and

proliferation of hats,

a free attitude toward waistcoats, as expressed in

the museum's star vest specimens; a sporting vest of red plush, another of

embroidered moosehair.

when the Industrial Revolution struck the carpet

American carpets were woven by hand. Ten years later, a

Before the 1840s,

industry, all

power-driven carpet loom was producing at

flat-woven carpet per day.

The

intricately patterned floor coverings

many. Such carpeting came in

any

size,

least thirty yards of ingrain,

plummeted, and

price, naturally,

colorful,

were suddenly within the reach of

strips that

could be joined to cover space of

often wall-to-wall.

'oward the end of the eighteenth century

become apparent

that

it

had

some glazed earthenware

#/ve
vessels were dispensing lead poisoning to their users.
One type of reliable pottery with a clear safety record
was stoneware, which had been manufactured in Europe since the Renaissance.

German and

English potters introduced salt-glazed stoneware to the

and after 1785 there was a conscious

Most production was concentrated in the Northeast,
was used exclusively on stoneware. Yet a curious anomaly

colonies early in the eighteenth century,

effort to

encourage

where salt-glazing

its

use.

occurred in the South, where an entirely different technique

or other alkaline material

found only in the Orient.

whether
plays

somehow emerged.
It

isn't

known whether

using

wood

ash

there was a connection or

isolated southern potters reinvented the technique.

handsome examples of this southern

Elsewhere, the process was

The museum

dis-

style.

73

Opposite.

American porcelain maker William Ellis Tucker

made this soft-paste pitcher in 1828

of Philadelphia

Above. This earthenware pitcher,

the Salamander

made

c.

1836-42, came from

Jersey. It was

Works of Woodbridge, New

for a hotel or tavern called Kidd's

Troy House

Most stoneware, however, resembles the museum's Liberty

New

1807 in South Amboy,

New

Jersey, or

the

little

made

jug

in

1805 Crolius inkwell from

has the

name and

New

address of a

water.

Cobalt was

went

is

combination of clay and

form of embellishment on the

gray,

hard ware;

and endured the necessarily high firing temperaSuch stoneware reached its peak of popularity about 1840, yet would

a little
ture.

a favorite

York City grocer and a cobalt slip dec-

flight. ("Slip"

a long way,

be used well into the twentieth century as a standard vessel for food storage

and preparation.
Moravian immigrants brought Germanic traditions of pottery to North
Carolina in the middle eighteenth century. A deep-dish example from
about 1800 displays a flattened rim decorated in

by scrolls and leaves.

feathers in green, red,

with a tulip surrounded

slip

nine-inch-tall tankard bears tulips and stylized

and yellow slip. A Moravian pitcher is covered with

and dots in yellow, brown, and green.

a design of capricious scrolls

The Moravians' northern

cousins, the

Germans

of Pennsylvania,

made

slip-decorated redware as well, but also employed the scratched or "sgraf-

technique in decorating. An eleven-inch pie plate dated 1818, from

Bucks County, seems the very picture of Pennsylvania decoration: its
maker, Andrew Headman, scratched in an assured eight-pointed star surrounded by tulips and other blossoms.
Craftsmen enjoyed writing all sorts of legends on their wares. Some were
fito"

some were obviously by commercial

personal expressions;

redware plate,

"Cheap

for

c.

1825,

is

slip

request.

One

big

decorated with the provocative message,

Cash/only Vi." Another

is

emblazoned, "Plum Pudding."

stoneware jug carries the legend, in a slightly tipsy hand, "Here's to

Good

Old Rum/Drink Her Down."

The nineteenth century

delivered a rich harvest of glass bottles and

Masonic emblems caparison a deep amethyst flask made in New England around 1820. A greenish-yellow, violin-shaped pint flask from Pittsflasks.

burgh

recalls the days of 1835. Still

color: the c. 1836 bottle

glass. Its patriotic

c.

one

is

considered unique in

eagle, stars, shield,

1850, from Lancaster,

New

steam locomotive

and
is

flag,

molded

York, with the toast, "Suc-

A baffling Philadelphia-made quart bottle of 1851

uniformed image of Louis Kossuth, an exiled Hungarian

side,

Steam

ornaments include an

early

cess to the Railroad."

plays a

another pint

& Hay of New Jersey made of opaque

OUR COUNTRY." An

and the motto, "FOR

into a blue flask,

from Coffin

dis-

patriot,

on

while the other side displays a side-wheeled steamer labeled "U.S.

Frigate Mississippi."

A wealth of commercial and utility jars and bottles speaks to the viewer
with near-universal appeal.

Some

still

bear ancient paper labels, such as

the pepper sauce bottle of about 1850, a Gothic shape of aquamarine glass.

Perhaps the contents

bottled by Boston's

W K. Lewis were too hot

for

75

American

dates from 1820 to 1860.

slip

York, or the big six-gallon crock of the mid-nineteenth century that

oration of a free-form eagle in

white

Opposite. This group of

is

The

lead-glazed earthenware

dishes in front and at

left

are

decorated; the Pennsylvania-made dish at upper right

ornamented by the

sgraffito

technique

76

human consumption,

remains are

for the dried

fate befell the cargo of

still

in the bottle.

No

such

another bottle, which cleverly reproduces a log

chimney comprising the neck, through which was decanted

"e. G. BOOZ's old cabin whiskey." But most bottles of the
Civil War era were more restrained, even elegant, such as the antebellum
cabin,

its

(around 1860)

pickle bottle that richly displays the features of high Victorian Gothic.

Pittsburgh was a major center of cut and engraved glass production from

about 1820 to 1850. That early talent

with a deep cut panel and

flutes,

Clinton in the bottom and his

is

and

initials

confirmed by a glass tumbler of 1825

a jewel-like sulfide bust of

engraved on the

side.

The

De Witt
glass

was

one of a presentation set for the popular New York politician celebrating the
Erie Canal opening. An elaborately cut Pittsburgh punch bowl dates from
about the same time, as does a heavy blown and cut decanter with applied
rings. Pittsburgh also was in the vanguard of the first major application of
mass production

to the glass industry

pressing glass into molds.

nique enabled glassmakers to provide inexpensive, matched

The

sets of

tech-

ware

for

and business alike. The clever, inventive

production spirit thus released was even applied to windowpanes, like the
museum's c. 1840 high Gothic five-by-seven-inch pane from Bakewell of
the

first

time, a

boon

to society

Pittsburgh.
It

was the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company of Massachusetts whose

name "Sandwich" glass came to mean almost all lacy pressed

glass. Plainly, much good pressed glass was made by other manufacturers,
although Sandwich tended to get the credit. The museum's wealth of

shortened

authentic Sandwich-made glass includes a showy covered dish,

with complex Gothic designs.

tiny

cup

plate, less

diameter, pictures the just-finished Bunker Hill

c.

1830,

than four inches in

monument

at Boston,

and

wondered why so
knobs, the Sandwich

gallantly adds, "Finished by the Ladies 1841." If you ever

works, with

much American Empire-period furniture has glass

many others, turned them out in quantity.

A pair from about

1830 reveals the ingenuity of Sandwich's great founder,

Deming

The need

for

lamps meant good business

Jarves.

for the glass industry. Pioneers

like Thomas Cains, at his South Boston Flint Glass Works, turned out
handsome whale-oil lamps by a combination of free-blowing with pattern
molding. A technique called "pillar molding" came a bit later in the nineteenth century, and produced such museum standouts as a pair of c. 1845
green vases, more than a foot high.
With Ohio in the lead, the Midwest developed surprisingly early as a
glassmaking center. An anonymous early nineteenth-century Ohioan had
the skill to make a handsome, aquamarine one-gallon bottle with thirty

glo-Irish style.

would-be porcelain makers must have envied the far

greater success of the nation's potters and glassmakers. In 1770, two Philadelphians had attempted the eighteenth century's only commercial output
first

77

The

pitcher at

lett is

An-

attributed to England,

while the smaller one probably came from Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania
Top.

Three pitchers

illustrate early

century American styling.

and middle nineteenth-

The example

at left, pattern-

molded with twenty-four ribs, was probably made in the

Midwest, 1815-35. The center pitcher, footed and loop
decorated, probably was made in New Jersey, 1830-70. The
larger amethyst, pillar-molded
in capacity

swirled ribs.

America's

Opposite. Both these cut-glass pitchers are incised in

example

may have originated

about two quarts

in Pittsburgh,

1840-70

Bottom. This oval covered compote of pressed pattern glass

was made by Gillinder & Sons of Philadelphia, 1876-80.

Originally termed "Pioneer," it is now called "Westward-

Ho" by

collectors

These figured

flasks came from the eastern United States

1815-55. Themes of these pint and quart containers
included patriotism, politics, fraternity, and even pride in
corn distribution

in

80

of porcelain, though production ended after two years. In 1826, another

Philadelphian, William Ellis Tucker,
ful, try at

making

soft-paste,

mounted

and more success-

a major,

bone-ash porcelain.

He

followed the styles of

the enormously popular English and French porcelain of the day, and

made

and

foot,

such deft pieces as the museum's 1828 pitcher with a gilded

and flowers of

blue, red,

and

The

gold.

collection of Tucker's

standing, presenting clear proof of his quality and

lip

work

is

out-

But despite the

skill.

manifest abilities of Tucker and later American porcelain makers in the

middle nineteenth century, their countrymen preferred to import from the

Continent and Britain.

About

1825,

on schedule with many other

and manufactures,

crafts

The

versmithing was overtaken by the Industrial Revolution.

first

sil-

major

change replaced the very heart of the craft, which had always been the
hammering of a shape from sheet silver. The smith customarily and
noisily
"raised" hollow vessels on small anvils called "stakes." But a new
technique called "spinning" used the lathe to accomplish the same end in

a fraction of the time. Electroplating arrived in the 1840s.

When

that tech-

nique was combined with mass-produced base-metal castings and stamp-

matched

ings,

sets of beautiful

The new technique

last.

Sheffield plate

silver

tudes. Pewter's uses

far

and

styles paralleled

ware

for the multi-

those of silver, but the handy alloy

silver

through the new

spinning process around 1825, and meanwhile was improved and hardened
in a

new

generation of metallurgy called "britannia." Ironically, early elec-

troplaters discovered that britannia

was

a perfect vehicle

on which

to plate

silver,

and thus pewter's

silver.

After the 1840s, pewter virtually disappeared from the scene.

final

form was swallowed up in the rush

museum's collection of American and English pewter

is

among

for plated

The

the world's

best, affording a definitive study of such pieces as early seventeenth-century

flagons to a tea set by Josiah Danforth

made

rashing chords

was

first

in

about 1830.

on the piano

(or pianoforte, as

Cz

nineteenth century began.

The harpsichord was

Another instrument on its way

obscurity was the serpent, part woodwind and part brass, which despite
already passe.

bass part since the 1600s.

it

called) heralded the future of music as the

unfortunate (and altogether descriptive)

The museum's

name had been

oldest

to
its

playing the orchestral

example of this curious

instru-

made of wood, leather, and brass, with

six fingerholes and three flat keys. Another English import, dating from 1840,
shows the rapid sophistication trfkey action, as it was made with fourteen brass
ment

keys.

is

an English serpent from

c.

1800,

Two examples

of nineteenth-century

American

stoneware display an exuberant, earthy character.

jug at left

The rum

dates from 1865-85; the water cooler from 1835-

Above. These two graceful pieces were made hy William

and copper.

cheaper and easier to work. Pewter followed

Opposite.

60

quickly drove out an earlier mechanical process

which combined

also drove out pewter, hitherto indispensable as

It

was

but inexpensive tableware were possible at

Ellis

Tucker in about 1830. Despite such native talent,

however, Americans would prefer European porcelain for

many decades

to

come

<i-'

r: .i

//^r/X/

M/A

,^

..r

ikr

B.limHn<IU>J

Woodwinds

made and

of the early nineteenth century were handsomely

rather modem-looking; to the casual observer, the chief difference

their construction materials, typically a

is

in

mellow blonde boxwood, trimmed

and brass, with brass keys. Two good museum examples are a c. 1812
made by Uzal Miner in Hartford, Connecticut, and a c. 1840 clarinet
in B-flat, made by Graves & Co. with great sophistication.
The nineteenth century began with clarinets and oboes playing the
musical lead, and with wind instrument technology much as it had been for
more than a century. But enormous changes were coming. The keyed bugle,
in ivory

oboe,

arriving after 1810, had a dramatic influence in at last permitting the

soprano brass to play the melody. Keyed and valved brass instruments

became the

rage in the 1830s,

bands. By 1834

came

the

first

and with them came the

known trumpet

rise

of all-brass

battle (at Niblo's Pleasure

Garden in New York), a genre that would create almost hysterical excitement. Soon America had a new class of heroes, its virtuoso brass soloists.

The keyed

bugle was their instrument of choice, with

ophicleide a strong second.

its

Handsome Edward (Ned)

gloriously forth in 1835 at the

larger relative the

Kendall,

who

burst

head of the twenty-man Boston Brass Band,

was a famous antebellum horn man. The museum, which has the world's
finest collection of

American

brass instruments (anchored

on the famous

D. S. Pillsbury Collection), has the actual horns used by the Boston Brass

Band

in

its

verted to

electrifying debut, after

which most bands

in the country con-

all brass.

Not only were the new-style horns impressive in performance, they

looked resplendent. Many were made of copper, like Ned Kendall's 1837
model by Graves & Co., but others employed brass, silver, and even solid
gold. Manufacturers strove to secure the endorsements of the new class of
hero-maestro, and admirers lavished the soloists with presentation instruments. Some of the finest keyed bugles were made by E. G. Wright of Boston. The museum displays several Wrights, one of them, c. 1850, made ot
silver

with a beautifully engraved

bell garland.

But the ultimate

is

a solid

Already, by that year, the day of the key system for brass was growing

horns were becoming popular. In 1856, a great battle

occurred in Salem, Massachusetts, between Kendall on the keyed bugle and

Patrick
upstart,

Gilmore on the valve cornet.

Gilmore, seeking

judged a draw.

It

was

a classic case of the

young
was

to overturn the great veteran; the contest

When Kendall died

in 1861, his old

band played

at his funeral

while the master's silver bugle lay atop his coffin.

The

popularity of brass bands can be explained in terms of the vast range

of events where they played: circuses, dances and halls, concerts, funerals,
military

The

1866 by Hall

and firemen's musters, pleasure gardens, parades, political events,

and picnics. Star bandsmen made good incomes and traveled

theatricals,

widely.

83

solid-gold presentation trumpet

& Quinby

dolph Hall (second from

brother David (far

left)

was made

in

RhoHall and his

of Boston and presented to

left)

by his friends.

were prominent musicians and in-

strument makers. (Lithograph, c. 1855, courtesy Lyme

Historians, Inc., Lyme, New Hampshire)
Above. American-made woodwinds ot the early nineteenth

century include (from

flute, c.

left): fife, c.

1812; flageolet, c. 1845;

c. 1840; and bassoon, c. 1814. Until

American bands consisted mostly of woodwinds

1840; clarinet,

the 1840s,

gold example of 1850.

short. Valve-operated

Opposite.

84

By the Civil War's outbreak, brass hands were armed with

a multitude of

sophisticated valve instruments. For a time, "overshoulder" horns were the

sound backward into the following marchers. The

museum's musical collection is rich in many areas, but from the period
around 1865 it is overpowering. We can see precisely how a band was
rage, blasting their

equipped, with such instruments as a brass Isaac Fiske valve bugle, a John
E Stratton alto horn, a German silver baritone horn by J. Lathrop Allen,

and

a brass

and German

silver

America's fascination with

tuba by Moses Slater.

its

town bands

lasted

throughout the nine-

teenth century, and well into the twentieth. Popular as they were, brass

bands and their instruments did not supplant other types of music. At big
dances, a brass band would alternate with a strings and reeds ensemble. But
it

was

in helping

produce music

for the

home

that

American manufacturers

had their greatest opportunity. Pianos, pump organs, music boxes, dulcimers, guitars, banjos; such instruments of mechanical ingenuity were very

One

important in the pre-electronic age.

touching artifact

is

a guitar

once

used by Stephen Foster, a spruce and rosewood instrument of the 1840s

made by C.

F.

Martin of New York.

A grand harmonicon

(or set of musical

In America, the minstrel show was an enormously popular entertainment form, beginning in the
1840s, peaking in the fifties and sixties, hut enduring wel

opposite.

glasses) further suggests the diversity of nineteenth-century music.

The

reed organ and piano collection, blending furniture with the appa-

ratus of musicianship,

music

gallery.

is

the most beautiful display in the museum's large

Reed, pump, or parlor organs came in with the nineteenth

and enjoyed more than a hundred years of popularity. By any exacting standard, their sound alternated between an asthmatic wheeze and an

century,

insipid whine. Yet they were cheaper

play,

than pianos, and not a

A degree of easy fun came in working the stops.

pianos, reed organs could be

meager

to magnificent.

made

in almost

There was even

accordion, that went by the grand

1840 Bartlet from Concord,

left

let

has both kinds; the rarest

Hampshire, with ivory button

himself go in producing a case for

ican cabinetry.

An

Peloubet, Pelton

& Co. supports

estals, all of

it

is

an

keys.

limited, the

maker

at the highest level of

Amer-

early nineteenth-century
its

instru-

forearm, while both hands played

While the musical performance of any reed organ was

could

Unlike

rooms from

a rocker lap organ, a sort of semi-

The museum

New

size, to suit

name "elbow melodeon." The

ment was rocked or pumped with the

the button or keyboard action.

any

New

classically plain

York-made organ by

box on

lyre-styled ped-

rosewood. In 1869, the Empire Organ Co. of Kalamazoo,

Michigan, produced a Rococo organ to rival the skill of a London cabinetmaker in the years of George III, a cabriole-legged masterpiece of rosewood

and curly maple, with

a six-octave range. In the later Victorian Renais-

sance revival and Eastlake eras, major organs grew pompously in tiered

lay-

ers festooned

with fretwork and turnings, but always to high standards of

famous Fort Wayne Organ Co. specimen dominates the

cabinetry.

scores.

collection.

85

Those elements

made: violin,

phen

c.

are

&.

present here, and

American

1860; bones,

1900. Ste

c.

De Banjo was

This square piano

made by Gibson

all

1840; hanjo,

Foster's Ring

Aboi'e,

bit harder to

once you mastered the technique of alternately pumping the carpet-

covered foot pedals.

into the twentieth century- Crucial to the minstrel show';

success were hanjo, fiddle, hones, and lively musica

in a

Davis of

published in 1851

Duncan

New

c.

Phyte-style case was

York City,

c.

1820

opposite.
necticut,

The wheels of time: Eli Terry of Plymouth, Conmade this thirty-hour, weight-driven movement

movements were used

and scroll mantel
clocks from about 1820 through 1840, when they were replaced by more satisfactory brass movements
in

about 1820. Such time and

extensively by

many makers

strike

ot pillar

Of all

the instruments enjoyed by our nineteenth-century forebears, the

and piano have the most relevance in our time. The

museum's piano collection reveals the rich variety that was available.
Pianos of the late Federal-early Empire period were small, but what a
violin, guitar,

wealth of

went

skill

into the execution ot such instruments as the

Phyfe (works by Davis and Gibson) of 1820!

Its

mahogany case

is

Duncan
accented

by a pierced fallboard, and satinwood and brass inlays; pedestals are heavily

The

carved and connected by a turned, reeded stretcher.

framed in wood,

piano's works are

what was termed the "English square action" of

in

sixty-

eight notes.

Pianos grew larger with the development of

1850s, the instrument

had reached the massive

heavy thumping ot the Civil War

of Boston

potamus.

is

typical,

The

with mighty, turned

key total was

Clockmaker

An

years.

now up

and

Eli Terry

full

iron frames. By the

scale that

1855

legs that

would endure the

&

Co. piano
would support a hippoGilbert

to eighty-five.

his slightly later

Connecticut contemporary

Seth Thomas spent the early years ot the nineteenth century producing so

many good, inexpensive mantel

clocks that soon the grand old

tall

case

column and cornice,

banjo, ogee: the clocks ot New England's factories surged across America
on waves of Yankee peddlers. One Seth Thomas column and cornice clock,
clock was rendered almost extinct. Pillar and

with

heavy "degraded Empire" look,

its

early Victorian
to

middle

class.

scroll,

offers a clear

Elsewhere, very few

tall

view of the taste of the

case clocks continued

be made, including dwarfs of approximately half

such the
which seemed

size

museum's 1820 example by Connecticut's Reuben Tjwer

to lose the grace, as well as the majesty, of the tall originals.

echo

ot the benchcrafted tall case era

comes

in a gigantic c.

as

A tinal raucous
1850 Soap Hol-

low, Pennsylvania, cUick ot painted pine.

watchmaking trade, manutacturers power stamped their moving

and by 1870 when knurled stems replaced the ancient keywind system
tactory standardizatii)n dominated the industry. But individual crattsmen endured, particularly those who made complex chronometers
and beautiful cases. In watchmaking, as in few other crafts, skill at the
bench survived the Industrial Revolution relatively intact.
On the farm, change arrived on the point of an excellent new cast-iron
In the

parts by 1850,

pk)w. Several fledgling manufacturers

cessful

was Jethro

Thomas
eastern

Wood

of Scipio,

produced them, but the most suc-

New

York,

Jefferson for his contributions to

American farmers could

till

who had

the grace to credit

improved pK)w design. By 1820,

their tields with reasonable satisfactiiin.

But the newly opening Midwest pre.sented a new problem: although the
black .soil gummed up the moldman. Responding to that challenge was young
blacksmith John Deere, newly moved troiii Vermont roCJrand Detour, Illinois. In 1838, Deere created a steel-tipped, pulishcd iron plow of beautiful

prairie lands

were

flat

board of every plow

86

and

tertile, their rich

known

to

87

simplicity,

much

like a

smoothly curving

hroke the Great Plains.

flat

diamond, and with

The museum's example

it

farmers

dates from Deere's early

he moved to Moline in 1847 and, armed with newly plentiful

from Pittsburgh, became one of the giants of agricultural

career, before

steel plate

manufacturing.

But

if

better plows increased the acreage

cycle's other end, harvest,

one

man

could

till,

the farming

remained a great bottleneck. The pattern of

mechanization was such that

as a

new

type of machine solved one problem,

other innovators leaped to improve on something

small grains with scythe and sickle

else. Harvesting hay and

demanded such timing and manpower

upper limit of crop acreage and animal population.

museum's collection of cutting tools, hay rakes, and turning
forks, and imagine the day of a field hand at harvest time. Haymaking,
which was particularly onerous, received America's first substitution of
horse for human power around 1800, with adoption of the drag hay rake.
Soon, a pair of clever Pennsylvanians invented the revolving hay rake,
called the "American flip-flop," one of the great labor-saving devices of all
time. One man and a horse could now do the work of eight field hands. The
museum's wooden-toothed example of this clever machine dates from about
as to control the farm's

Look

at the

1840.

Shifting the

of high

drama

human harvest burden to horse and machine reached a point

in the 1830s.

On

his farm in Virginia's

near Staunton, young Cyrus Hall

cessful grain reaper.

McCormick

Shenandoah

McCormick demonstrated

the

Valley

first

suc-

inherited the project from his father,

who

it up after two decades of tinkering. But after his initial

young McCormick's dilatoriness about seeking a patent allowed

had wearily given

success,

Obed Hussey

of Baltimore to register

reaper experimenters:

first,

Enoch Ambler

of

in 1833.

New

The

age seethed with

York produced his spike-

in 1834, and promptly mowed down one hundred acres

Montgomery County hay. That same machine, now displayed in the
museum, is believed to be America's oldest surviving harvester, a relic of

wheeled contraption
of

incalculable significance. Apparently,

Ambler

or his backers,

who

little

financial benefit accrued to

sold only a few machines.

By about 1850, reapers were mechanically

successful.

efficient

McCormick, whose machine combined

all

and commercially

the right elements of

on the prairies than in the

Shenandoah bluegrass, and moved to Chicago in 1847 to make the
famous machine that .solved the ancient dilemmas of harvesting.
But many others helped, and they are represented in the museum's rich
collection of mid-nineteenth-century farm equipment: Champion,
Empire, Kirby's, New Yorker, Peerless, and Triumph. They weighed around
1,000 pounds each, and cost about $100. Most could cut from twelve to fifteen acres of grain per day, compared to less than one by a man with a
scythe. Manny's Patent Reaper of 18S3 is a good example of the reliable

design, correctly foresaw a vaster future market

rolling

equipment available before the Civil War. The Manny was a rugged and
popular machine whose production totals, in only two years, forged past

McCormick promptly sued

those of the industry leader.

for patent infringe-

ment. Laboring in Manny's successful defense was a prairie lawyer

commencing

ham

second

his

effort at a political career:

just

ex-Congressman Abra-

Lincoln.

Lawsuits were merely part of doing business in the rough-and-tumble

world of mid-century manufacturing. Another major case

collection's prized

New

is

recalled in the

Yorker reaper of 1852, one of the most successful

That it bears a strong resemblance to McCormick's designs

may not have been entirely coincidental, for at that time
its manufacturer, Seymour
Morgan of Brockport, New York, was licensed
by McCormick to make his "Virginia Reaper." McCormick was successful
in throttling the 1852 New Yorker, whereupon the company brought out a
new, slightly more original model in 1853. It was a big success for almost
early machines.

of the late 1840s

&

twenty

years.

ndrew Jackson's riflemen shocked the

the accuracy of

CliNew

American

rifles at

British

with

the Battle of

Orleans. Meanwhile, the frontier of the

Old

Northwest was vanishing. As the novels of James

Fenimore Cooper began to flow, the legend of the brave, buckskin-clad rifleman
raged into vogue, creating a fresh

demand

for long rifles.

ornamentation, with more inlays of brass and coin

hex

signs.

Masonic emblems,

across the curly

They grew

hearts, acorns, stars, eagles,

fancier in

Deer, horses, dogs,

silver.

and

initials

maple stocks of early nineteenth-century American

marched

rifles like

museum even has one gunsmith's special set of

patterns for shaping such a menagerie. Many guns so garnished were clearly creparade of folk-art icons. Tlie

ated for ceremony

ish officers, after

American
it

rifle

more than

the

War of

actual use. But at least

1812,

bought long

of the handsomest in the

than average

museum

for its time, for as big

Brit-

fit

and

polish, but

use.
is

1830 attributed to Grant Scott of Coshocton.

ier

some duly impressed

and took them home. The

might not be the equal of British weapons in

was marvelously accurate and pleasant to

One

rifles

an Ohio-made
Its

rifle

of about

.52 caliber was a bit heav-

game receded with the advance of

more suitable for squirrel or var-

settlement, bores tended to shrink to sizes

mints.

The

Scott

rifle is

also unusual in having a walnut, rather than the

standard curly maple, stock. Lavishly bedizened with silver inlays, the gun
is

and patch box.

and the rarest of all

rare in flaunting also a silver buttplate, trigger guard,

Rarer than American

rifles

are

American

pistols,

is

matched pair. The museum's superb brace of .44 caliber twin flintlocks
made in the Bedford County style by Peter White of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, dates c. 1820. Each piece is skillfully set with fifteen engraved silver
a

inlays.

89

90

But such bench-made guns were almost things of the past. Gunmaker
John Hall was already taking the final step to a modern manufacturing process, and in a sense completing the broader basis for the Industrial Revolution.

Armed

with a government contract, Hall in 1819 established a

vate factory in the

shadow

of the big

government armory

Harpers

at

pri-

Ferry,

and produced breechloading muskets from parts that were comwithout hand fitting, finishing the phase begun by
Whitney. The museum displays two Hall muskets, tangible links with a

Virginia,

pletely interchangeable
Eli

singularly innovative development.

Apart from a few

is

significant exceptions, the

civilian, or sporting.

a preoccupation as

The need

museum's weapon collection

and straighter was

Gunsmiths had labored to make

to shoot faster, farther,

America headed

west.

successful repeaters for centuries but were frustrated by crude systems of

loading and ignition. After 1800, Scottish clergyman Alexander Forsythe

compounded a priming substance that would explode on impact. The

museum demonstrates that turning point with a rare Forsythe pistol.
After I8I5, the famous percussion cap was introduced by several inven-

and that little copper detonator soon displaced the flintlock and
opened the way for efficient, deadly repeaters. Among the first to manufacture was Samuel Colt of Hartford, Connecticut, who began making revolvtors,

ers in Paterson,

New Jersey,

mate

gun

1842,

desires of

in 1836.

The

collectors, for the

and "Patersons" were, and

specimen, rare even

first

are, few.

for a Paterson

Colts have long been the

ulti-

flamboyant Colt went bankrupt in

The museum

an 1837

revolving

displays a supernal
rifle.

With such

wonder, a rifleman could get oft eight shots before reloading.

Colt recovered his fortunes with the help of the settlement of Texas and
the

demands of the Mexican War. He

established his celebrated factory at

Hartford, producing a torrent of the potent "equalizers" that, for

all

their

stormy propensities, were also handsome examples of industrial design, and

among

the most successful early precision products of completely inter-

changeable parts.

The museum shows

wide selection of models and

shapes, from intimidating "Dragoon" .44s to graceful "belt" models.

Colt could not supply

all

the nation's

and other creative gunmakers had

demand

for

newfangled weaponry,

ideas. Colt's percussion

system was

loaded from the cylinder's front, with paper cartridges; Smith and Wesson

OppoiUe.

of Springfield, Massachusetts, outfoxed Colt by patenting cylinders bored

long

all

the way through, thus capturing for a critical time (the Civil

the market for revolvers that fired metallic cartridges.

in the 1850s,

Such

War years)

loads, invented

were clearly the future's ammunition, though

initially

they

were feeble and unreliable. Another early experimenter with metal car-

was the Volcanic Repeating Arms Co. of New Haven, Connecticut,

maker of the first lever-action gun. The museum displays a Volcanic levertridges

action pistol of 1854.

Not

surprisingly, in the fast-moving early days of

Yankee big industry, talent cross-pollinated. Both Horace Smith and Dan-

classic by

rifle (lelt)

an unknown hand, the American

dates from about 1820. Also

unknown

is

the origin of the powder horn, scrimshawed with the al-

phabet and with leaf and animal designs. The other rifle,
1825
came from a Pennsylonly its muzzle is visible
vania shop. The 1799 map evokes the old frontier, where

the long
Tup.

rifle

was indispensable

Two weapons

that loomed large in the

American

West's rambunctious final quarter were the Model 1876

Winchester

rifle

(left)

and the 1873 Colt Frontier Single

Action, the legendary "Peacemaker" (right)

Bottom.

Among

the century's

were (from top) the Henry

flintlock

more

Rifle,

significant long

arms

Sharps carbine, and Hall

92

iel

Wesson had served as plant superintendent for Volcanic, which hecame

New Haven Arms Company, maker of one of the 1860s' legendary arms,
the Henry Rifle. The name changed again in 1866 to one that would

Opposite.

the

this

endure: Winchester.

of maker William Wingert of Detroit.

Cased accouterments for the hunter: a detail of

handsome mid-nineteenth-century percussion sport-

ing weapon, twin barrels detached to demonstrate

muzzle-loading age

'whale

oil,

our

of plentiful (but never inexpensive)

late

eighteenth-early nineteenth-

^century predecessors enjoyed a reasonably bright

and smokeless lamp for the

and a reasonable

first

substitute. Patented lard lamps,

time. Lard was

much

and devices burning

turpentine-base fuel proliferated through the 1840s and '50s. But as late as

1852, a

new

whale-oil railway conductor's lantern was patented and

manufactured.

few visionaries demonstrated other alternatives: Sir

snapped on the

electric arc light in 1808. Independently,

Humphrey Davy
Michael Faraday

and Joseph Henry approximated the first electric generators around 1831.
Curiously, Faraday had hit upon the idea of an electric motor ten years
before; it had to wait for the generator. Vermont blacksmith Thomas Davenport began building electric motors in 1834. By the late 1830s, we had
the protoprocesses of electroplating and telegraphy.

The

telegraph, properly the electromagnetic telegraph, belongs in that

small and rare cluster of supremely important technical innovations. Like

the search for an efficient artificial light, the desire for rapid long-distance
communication was as old as humankind. By the end of the eighteenth century, we were scarcely further along than the ancient Greeks with their beacon fires. In 1790s France, a mechanical telegraph
a semaphore system
mounted on high towers offered some improvement. But already such
now-forgotten pioneers as Geneva's George LeSage had begun experimenting with the idea of electrical telegraphy. The names of such early nineteenth-century scientists as Volta, Ampere, Wheatstone, and Ohm
became lodged in the terminology of electrical science.
Yet it remained for an American professional artist, Samuel F. B. Morse,
to gather up the known elements, fuse them into a practical system, and
then produce the public-relations flourish to get telegraphy moving. Morse
patented his system in 1837, and squeezed an appropriation from Congress
to set up a line between Washington and Baltimore. In 1844, with his
assistant Alfred Vail at the other end, Morse transmitted the imperishable

"What hath God wrought!?"

was a simple system, requiring a single line (the earth completed the
electrical circuit), an electromagnet that would click when the circuit was
broken according to a code, and a switch or "key" to control the circuit.
rhetorical question,
It

The

con-

The lacquered powder flask, with measuring spout, was a fixture of the late
ith the arrival

cheaper,

its

figuration as a rifle-shotgun, attests to the considerable skill

1840s and '50s brought a frantic race to build a telegraphy network, and

Channel was spanned in 1851, American paper merchant

Cyrus Field began a long, generous, and difficult process of laying the first
after the English

93

^e ^o
18
George Clymer
Invented by Ph.ladelph.an
Br tarn than
better reception
lumb.an press received a
1857 model was made
States. The museum's

m
m

n"he Unued
London

in

94

transocean cable. After crushing setbacks, Field

finally

completed in 1858

between Newfoundland and Ireland. The first message, from Queen

Victoria to President James Buchanan, was received by a galvanometer,
a cable

used in laboratories to measure small electrical currents.

faced instrument, in a

standout

among

munication, as

wooden box

resting

on

Rococo

The

old brass-

revival base,

is

the museum's huge collection ot historic relics of early comis

a section of the original Atlantic cable.

tory's frustrating anticlimaxes, the cable

soon

failed.

It

(As one of

his-

would be 1866

before a permanent link with Europe was forged.)

The nineteenth century began with

berg had

left it

manned by

several centuries before.

the printing craft about as Guten-

The

crude, slow,

a "puller" at the bar (a big torsion screw)

ing ink to type from leather-covered balls) was

of the printed word.

Then,

still

wood-framed

and

press

a "beater" (apply-

the world's only source

an American carpenter and engineer,

in 1813,

George Clymer of Philadelphia, lifted the press out of the Middle Ages by
building a radically new machine. Clymer's all-iron press replaced the
clumsy screw with a power stroke delivered through compound
puller's stroke at the bar

sure

on the

was thus more

platen. Peculiarly,

and

in

efficiently

levers.

The

converted to vertical pres-

apparent contradiction to the era's

general acceptance of mechanical improvements, Clymer's

Columbian

press

yawns from tradition-minded printers, who thought it too expensive. Clymer moved to England, where his invention was so appreciated
that he died rich in less than twenty years. The museum's Columbian is a
masterpiece of voluptuous, ornate ironwork, proudly enhancing its
elicited

mechanical merits.

While Clymer's

was an improvement,

press

American, Richard Hoe of

the

modem

Hoe

age.

around 1846

built the

first

New

it

remained

for

another

yank the printing trade fully into

pioneered flatbed and cylinder presses, and then

first

York, to

rotary press in the United States, soon to print

the Philadelphia Public Ledger at quadruple the speed formerly possible.

dawned the age

of steam-powered, high-speed printing presses.

only the adoption of continuously feeding

around the time of the Civil War,

to

rolls ot paper,

It

Thus

required

which occurred

complete the revolution, a fundamen-

tal change in mass communications. The improvements in presswork

demanded comparable upgrading of composition techniques, but the agestill had a few years remaining.
would be the 1880s before a Baltimore watchmaker, German-born Ott-

old printer, hand-picking type at his "case,"

It

mar Mergenthaler, began building

his famous, indestructible, slightly de-

ranged-looking Linotypes.

The demand
made

for

small-shop printing equipment was strong, and

Hoe

popular hand press called the "Washington" in the years before the

Civil War.
tory. First

One example

displayed by the

museum

has a swashbuckling his-

used by a Louisiana newspaper to help elect Zachary Taylor pres-

ident in 1848,

it

was shipped

to California

during the Gold Rush (alter

95

dumped in a jungle stream, and

Panamanian newspaper) and hauled through a succession of Cal'
ifornia and Nevada hoom towns. One of its owners printed a newspaper so
stridently pro-Union, in a town of Confederate leanings, that the press
received an armed guard. In 1862, in Aurora, Nevada, the man at the Hoe
was young Samuel Clemens. Bret Harte was another pressman in the old

crossing the Isthmus of Panama, heing

printing a

machine's picaresque past.

Eastern America, with

its

many

chian uplands, was made to order

swift rivers

for

tumbling

oft

the Appala-

water-powered industry. Millwright

Oliver Evans of Delaware had succeeded as a late eighteenth-century industrialist

by applying innovative thinking to the flour-milling business.

ing to Philadelphia
first

and turning

great steam pioneer.

He

to

Mov-

steam power, Evans became America's

built our

first

successful high-pressure factory

engine, and thus pointed the way to far greater power generation than was
possible with the low-pressure units familiar since the days ot

and Watt. Evans even experimented with self-propelled

1805 built a steam dredge that moved under

considered to be America's

first

its

own

power, and

self-propelled vehicle. In

Newcomen

vehicles,

all,

The museum displays

is

and

in

generally

he built about

document
and operation terms for an
installation in Marietta, Ohio. The new Grasshopper beam engine was
rated at twenty horsepower, Evans said
"the power of a horse to be rated
at 150 pounds raised perpendicularly 220 feet per minute."
fifty

engines before his death in 1819.

on one of them, dated

a rare

1812, outlining sales

In the year of Napoleon's

first

exile, 1814, a

French chemist named Joseph

Nicephore Niepce began experimenting with the materials of photography.

was the key: its habit of turning dark in the sun seemed promand had lured many dabblers for almost one hundred years. As early
as 1822, Niepce produced his first positive image on an exposed metal
plate, and in 1829 joined forces with another Frenchman working along
Silver nitrate
ising

similar lines, Louis

J.

M. Daguerre,

a physicist

who

also painted popular

stage sets. Niepce died in 1833, but in 1837 Daguerre perfected their process wherein a polished metal plate, coated with silver iodide, was exposed
in a focused

camera and developed with mercury vapor

to

produce a

real-

istic

image. Daguerre sold his process to the French government, which

gave

it

to the

world in 1839.

An Englishman,

William H. F Talbot, meanwhile was making similar

some ways more sophisticated strides. Talbot, using paper soaked with
silver chk)ride, made negative images first, and from them, positives. Talin

bot's system

was actually reported before Daguerre's, but

it

did not catch

more clearly forecast the future of photography by its ability

to make any number of positive prints from one negative.
The Daguerreotype was an immediate sensation, and was enthusiastically piiineered in the United States by Samuel H B. Morse. Around 1851,
on, although

it

the wet-plate or collodion process introduced glass negatives capable of

astonishing sensitivity to detail, which in the hands of masters Hke

Brady and Alexander Gardner

B.

nineteenth century.

The museum

left
is

Mathew

us haunting reminders of the middle

deep

equipment from photography's

and necessary laboratory

in

cradle years, including a complete camera, tripod,

equipment made by A. Schurtz

in Paris. Early

surprisingly standardized, because the form

cameras tend

to look alike,

had been established long

before as the camera obscura, or dark chamber. Artists since the Renais-

sance had used

for precise

it

composition, or tracing.

{'

Such equipment was superbly made. Mid-nineteenth-century lenses are

masterpieces of machined brass, their inner optics moving smoothly to
focus by the twist of a knurled knob, driving a rack and pinion. Tripods and
wooden camera boxes were of high-quality cabinetry. Special posing chairs
featured a garrote-like head clamp to keep the squirm-prone subject from

-v^-^

_H

moving.

The

fascination of our ancestors with the

the device than by the works

it

new

produced.

process

is

examples of the portrait rage that swept the 1850s and

'60s,

ered each other with our pictures printed on cartes de

visite.

displays

less

by

many

when we showOther

portrait

framed in small, lidded gutta percha cases, which enjoyed an

prints were

explosion of popularity in the 1850s.

the genre

revealed

The museum

is

an

1851

One

graphed

of the museum's rarest relics of

Daguerreotype of a thoughtful-looking four-year-old,

the earliest likeness of

Thomas Alva
s

Edison.

the Conestoga

wagon entered

its

years of

decline, another type of horse-drawn vehicle was

in the

ascendancy.

The famous Concord coach

first

Cf^::
rolled out of the New Hampshire shop of Abbot &.
Downing

in 1827,

and soon was

in service across the

United States. Some

reached South America, South Africa, and even Australia. Rugged and

and perhaps

a bit less wretchedly uncomfortable

fast,

than most public conveyances

of the time. Concords carried between six and sixteen passengers, depending

on construction, and were pulled by teams of four or

nies (the "stage"

the

museum

and mail

Around

for

six horses. Stage

and used the

larger or mail-style

has a cokirful example. Built around 1865,

decades between

1910,

it

compa-

was any point where horses were regularly changed) competed

furk)usly for passengers,

became

\c)rk,

belows in gold, the old Concord

Concords, of which
it

Maine, and Portsmouth,

a hotel coach for the Kearsarge

shuttling guests from the dept)t. In

its

carried passengers

New

House

Hampshire.

in Portsmouth,

original faded red paint, with floral fur-

fairly

exudes the glamour that marked this

supremely American vehicle.

Not

all

the museum's horse-drawn conveyances have wheels: a selection

of sleighs

demonstrates the vanished world of Albany and Portland cutters,

Boston boobies and work sleighs, and even a pre-Revolutionary pung sleigh.

graceful

Albany cutter

of

Thcimas Edison would become one

1840 once glided through the

New England

97

men

of the

most photo-

of his time, but his 1851 sitting with a Da-

guerreotypist

at

age four

encounter with a camera

was

probably his

first

snows hearing Daniel Webster and John Greenleaf Whittier One of the
museum's most beautiful vehicles is an Albany cutter from the peak ornamental year of 1865, a masterpiece of elegance with
with yellow

and carved

floral trim,

birds'

its

curved red body,

heads thrusting forward.

curved dash with leather wings deflected snow tossed by a horse's

gilt

high

feet.

By the 1840s, American fire engines were handsome pumpers whose

elaborate ornamentation is repeated on their distant heirs to this day. The
museum is well stocked with such early, hand-drawn, hand-pumped
machines. A Hunneman of 1840 demonstrates the New England style of
pumper, while an

Agnew

Agnew

Such machines had long

style of

histories of use: the

Eagle was built for the city of Pittsburgh in 1843, and concluded

service in a small volunteer

pumped machines were

company

Ohio

in

in 1928.

hand-pumper, made by
served in a historic

L.

fire at

Button

streets,

towns long

after

1873

for small

& Son of Waterford,

New

York, that

Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1882.

pumper and hose reel through firein American folklore. But the

brave firemen, trundling their

showered

its

Hand-drawn, hand-

The museum shows an

being manufactured

still

the debut of great horse-drawn steam pumpers.

The

pump

of similar age reveals the different

the Philadelphia school.

formed an enduring image

is

that tradition-minded firemen resisted innovative equipment.

Steam-powered
1841,

New

fire

pumps were

available as early as 1829 in England. In

York City firemen disputed the insurance companies' advocacy

of power equipment. But by the 1850s

pumps could no
is

longer be withheld.

Cole Brothers engine, made

classical

it

was

clear that the benefits of steam

One excellent example of the early type

in Pawtucket,

Rhode

Island, c. 1870.

beauty of mid- Victorian steam engineering, the horse-drawn Cole

would pump

We may

as

much

as six

hundred gallons per minute.

properly wonder

why our

ancestors required so

much time

to

invent even the crudest forerunner of the bicycle. Astonishingly, the French

had already been soaring the

skies for nearly ten years

countrymen, the Comte de Sivrac,

1791.

The

steering
ester

when one

of their

built the pioneering two-wheeler, in

count's riding pleasure was limited, for he neglected to include a

mechanism.

named

Little else

happened

until 1818,

when

German

for-

Karl von Drais built a steerable bike to help speed up his rounds

through the woods. Like the

earlier version, the Draisine (also called the

rider simply pushed the ground with

and coasted. Knowing a clever innovation when they saw one, the
style-conscious fops of England rushed to obtain hobby horses. But En-

"hobby horse") had no pedals, and the

his feet

made such savage sport of the new fad that it

Thus the first wave of biking aborted in embarrass-

gland's merciless cartoonists

lasted only

ment

as

two

years.

one of history's most complete

rare original

example of the

maker around

first

false starts.

The museum displays a

unknown European

type of bicycle, by an

1818. Its iron-tired, solid

wood wheels

are lightened by heart-

shaped cutouts.

99

and carved, gilded scrolls embelhand pumper, built by John Agnew in

Opposite. Polished brass

lish this detail

truth

of a

the Philadelphia style in 1843

Above. Firefighting equipment of early nineteenth-century

New England

featured lots of buckets

EngHsh example stands

In another way, too, the

The

for the

might-have-

went on a road-building
spree just after the Napoleonic wars, and in the 1820s and '30s a spectacular
congeries of steam-powered commercial highway coaches was chuffing
between many cities and towns. Some of the vehicles were reasonably sucbeens of nineteenth-century

cessful,

and

travel.

British

But savage opposition by

their safety record surprisingly good.

the railways, horse-drawn-coach interests, and suspicious farmers

bined to drive the steamers out of business, assisted by British

com-

satirical

cartoonists directing their genius for invective at the admittedly bizarre-

looking road monsters.

No

such developments enlivened the American road, which was simply

too long and in too wretched a condition. Canals, and then railroads,
received most of America's transportation devek)pment energy in the nine-

teenth century. After imported British locomotives proved unsuitable,

Americans began building their own around 1830, when the Tom Thumb
raced a horse at Baltimore, and the Best Friend went into service at
Charleston, South Carolina. America's third successful train was the De

Witt Clinton. In 1831, its festive first run, carrying five cars jammed with
passengers, was a round trip between Albany and Schenectady, New York,
Hudson Railroad. The locomotive was
on the fledgling Mohawk

&

designed by John B. Jervis, chief engineer of the West Point Foundry, and

David Matthew, who bravely manned the throttle on the maiden

built by

run and achieved the respectable speed of thirty miles per hour.
of that day

knew what

a railway passenger

As nobody

coach should he, the builders

took the practical expedient of clapping stagecoach bodies onto heavy

frames with flanged iron wheels.
Alas, the Clinton vanished in the last century, and the one displayed at

the

museum

1893, the

New

display at the

Central used
it

to the

career,

is

not original. But neither

is

York Central re-created the

it

modern reproduction. In

little

train very accurately for

Columbian Exposition. The new Clinton worked

it

for years for public-relations

museum

in 1935.

and already has

so well the

purposes before finally donating

Thus the reincarnated

train enjoyed

its

own

lived far longer than the original.

The

Opposite.

DeWitt Clinton

(not the original, but

a sharp contrast

C&O Allegheny

Top.

The

1818 Draisine

ing machine.

is

considered the

The maker

of the

first

steerable rid-

museum's example

is

unknown
Bottom,

The Albany

around

1819,

productions

101

1831

an accurate replica of the 1890s) provides

with its stahlemate of 1941, the mighty

cutter, whose development began

was one of the century's most gracetui

l'
.I -.i

Lights

Come on
at

MenloPark

arly Victorians liked their

machinery

the aesthetics of their time.

largest stationary

One

steam engines

is

to manifest

of the museum's
a masterwork of

such Gothic revival shapes as peaked arches, quatre-

fcjils,

and

fluted

cathedral.

columns, altogether forming a power plant in the image of a

When

installed at a Philadelphia factory

original deep green paint with red

its

indeed the altar of a

new

age.

Its

around 1855, glistening in

and gold trim, the great engine was

flywheel, eighteen feet in diameter, turned at

a stately thirty revolutions per minute. For almost eighty years the engine faithfully

generated

its

200 horsepower.

Tentative attribution credits the Novelty Iron

with the creation of this beauty.

machinery of the era

ers usually

is

emblazoned

Works of New York City

clouded birth certificate

for

major

unusual, as well as unfortunate, for the proud buildall vital statistics

once-famous names, forgotten by

all

on prominent

brass plates.

Some

but students of the history of power,

appear on the flanks of machines that powered American industry through

the Civil War.

Providence,

One

Rhode

names was George Henry Corliss of

who had patented one of the earliest sewing

of the greatest
Island,

machines before going on

to

become

built engines of cherished efficiency,

try,

and

after

1856 under his

renowned steam engineer. Corliss

the New England textile indus-

first for

own name. His innovations included an autoThe museum's Corliss-attributed engines

matic cut-off and a valve gear.

103

Menlo Park laboratory.

staff worked during the great inventor's
most productive period. Between 1876 and 1886 came
more than 400 patented inventions, including the incandescent lamp and the phonograph
Opposite. Here, in the heart of the

Edison and his

Nut only did they work

include specimens of 1859 and 1888.

liss

well, hut

Cor-

engines led the way toward clean, purposeful mechanical design.

Such stationary steam engines could be built in a wide range of sizes, and
most were meant to be firmly bolted down. But the need for semiportable
power was strong, and it was met by manufacturers like the Blandy Brothers
of Zanesville, Ohio. From the 1850s through the rest of the century, the
Blandys built an enormously popular line of "skid" engines, such as the
museum's 1860 model of five horsepower, a portable power plant especially
good

for sawmills.

The company

made the sawmill

also

to

go with their

engine.

Among

the demonstrations of period

that are regularly in progress in

life

number of steam engines

Greenfield Village, the actual operation of a

ates a sense of industrial verisimilitude. There, unlike the

of

museum

exhibits, old engines

Machine Shop,
ago whirs

work

The same

cre-

cold ranks

At the Armington and Sims

daily.

& Co.

C. H. Brown

engine from more than a century

butter-smooth way, cheerfully popping

its

ceral valves.

still,

pft-phffl

from

its

vis-

action occurs at the Loranger Gristmill, where an

1870 Davis powers the actual grinding of grain (demonstrating,

for

those

sensitive to the finer points of industrial history, the milling innovations of

the great Oliver Evans).

mill exhibit the

The

village's Tripp

power of steam

ican board-cutting, respectively, from up

Beautiful and rich in personality they

had

Sawmill and Stony Creek Saw-

as well as the

changing technology of Amer-

quency under

to circular saws.

may have been, but steam engines

They were

careless tending.

up with disturbing

also expensive.

In this general view of the

And for all

fre-

their

feet in diameter; the total

ingly

size,

they were relatively puny for the Western world's increas-

power-hungry

industries.

Other energy forms began

France's Etienne Lenoir created the

first

to

emerge.

production internal combustion

engine (fueled by illuminating gas) in 1860, but

it

failed.

Germany's Nico-

Otto and Eugen Langen built more than three thousand improved versions from 1866 to 1876, whereupon Otto hit upon the power plant that
would change the world again: the four-cycle compression engine, which
laus

The museum

ran either on gas or gasoline.

early one-cylinder

Otto engines,

all

of

them

development of power. Perhaps the best

is

displays various examples of

of supreme significance in the

an 1877 Otto, water cooled, with

a fifty-three-inch flywheel.

Although Otto's engine was

most provocative thing about

it

first

was

used as a stationary power source, the

its

adaptability to

new forms of transcome most sat-

portation. Replacement of the piston steam engine would

isfactorily

from the steam turbine,

first

built to operating standards by Sir

Charles A. Parsons of England in 1884.

would soon come along

as a factory

into motive power. Rudolf Diesel,

small but significant group of

new

The

heat-ignition Diesel, too,

power plant,
its

German

as well as

inventor,

branching out

was typical of a

engineers, university trained, replacing

105

The wheel

is

twenty-four

engine weighs 80,000 pounds

Above. Scale model of a steeple

compound marine steam

engine, huilt in 1872, demonstrates a then-popular power

plant used in Great Lakes vessels.
full-sized version

impressive

museum's steam enleft marks an 1859

gine collection, the large wheel at the

engine hy George Henry Corliss.

and down blades

their limitations. For one, their boilers blew

Opposiii;.

The museum

also has a

the self-taught tinkerers and natural geniuses

who had

led the

mechanical

parade up to then. Theoretical science merged with mechanics, creating

the technological setting for the twentieth century. Already there was, by
the 1880s and '90s, a different look to the power machinery displayed in the

museum and Greenfield Village. The big twin Diesel of 1898,

built only

one

year after the type's introduction after five years of development, seems

all-

business; as unsentimental as, well, a Diesel.

Increasingly high on the coveted

lizing genie, electricity.

1850s,

of things to master was that tanta-

^^m

arc light in a lighthouse. But the major

^B

for 1867,

when Zenobe

T Gramme

produced the

..J

Ui;jcl,;,'^^^

^i!iQi^

few steam-driven generators appeared in the

and one actually powered an

breakthrough waited

list

IEdIgk
_'

^fe.-;i,/-n;,^

pioneering modern generator, a rotary concoction of ring-wound armature

and

Gramme

field coil.

tory in 1870.

Other
in

and Germany

in

commercial United States use came in 1878 at

Philadelphia, and was directed by C. E Brush, who also

the early 1870s, but the

Wanamaker's

very practically installed arc lights in his Paris fac-

arc installations occurred in France

first

_^^_

installed street arc lights in Cleveland in 1879.

Arc lamps had been dem-

onstrated at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. In 1877,

Thomas
more

Edison, aged 30, focused his formidable energies

on developing

satisfactory electric light.

and Port Huron, Michigan, Edison's prospects seemed meager; he was both sickly and mischievous, to the
point of being troublesome beyond the norm. His formal education ended
after a few months when his teacher expelled him as "addled, " and suggested
he be taught farming. His mother, an ex-teacher herself, disagreed, and
taught him at home, encouraging his intense curiosity. At twelve, already
growing deaf, he took his first railroad job, hawking newspapers and snacks
on a passenger train. And at fifteen, he became a telegrapher.
Edison's first job was on the Grand Trunk Railway of Ontario, Canada.
He soon returned to the United States in 1863, and spent the next six years
through the Midwest and Northeast, always in jobs related to that
communications marvel of the age, the telegraph. Landing in Boston at
twenty, he began free-lance tinkering with telegraphic equipment, and in

drifting

1868 received his

first

patent, an electric vote recorder for legislative bodies.

Brashly carrying his invention to a Congressional committee in Washington, he

was crushed

was anathema

to learn that

any thought of speeding up the voting

to the representatives,

who would have been

convenience of vote trading during their customary long

tally

deprived of the

roll call.

Edison

resolved never again to invent anything impractical and for which there was

no commercial potential.
He moved to New York

at

twenty-two and almost immediately struck

gold, improving the crude stock tickers of the day so dramatically that in

new patents. Edison set up

made stock tickers, worked as a

only a year, in 1870, he was paid $40,000 for his

a

new

laboratory in Newark,

New

Jersey,

107

'"
'

opposite. This direct current electric tan was manufactured

by

Thomas A.

Above.

In his childhood back in Milan, Ohio,

Edison, Inc., of West Orange,

The Edison

Illuminating

Company

New Jersey
building in

Greenfield Village reproduced the original 1886 structure

where Henry Ford worked as a young plant engineer. Inside are period boilers, steam engines, and a hisin Detroit,

toric

dynamo named Jumbo

lOK

consultant for the Western Union Company, and saved enough

six years to build a

called

complex of buildings

Menlo

in a rural section of

money

New

11

in

Jersey

At Menlo Park he aimed

something big every

six

tor a

minor invention every ten

months. In ten years he obtained 420 patents

phonograph and

(of his lifetime total of 1,093), including those for the

supreme achievements of the Wizard of Menlo Park. Joseph

Swan of Great Britain actually heat him to the carbon filament bulb by one
year. But Edison's greater achievement was his rapid development of a power

electric light,

distribution system; the supporting network of generators, meters,

wires without which any lightbulb would flicker dimly,

The museum

displays

an odd-looking, homely,

if

at

and

all.

six-foot-tall device sug-

gesting equipment in Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory. But this relic deserves

a place in any

pantheon of electrical

dynamo from

his

first

commercial

system went to sea, for

that sailed from

New

it

its

an original Edison bipolar

is

electrical system, in 1880. Curiously, the

was installed aboard the

all

awkward, stalky

Cape Horn

S. S.

Columbia, a new

.ship

San Francisco with 115

the way. Called "Long-legged Mary Anne"
look, the dynamo would soon recede in the

York around

incandescent lights blazing

because of

rarities.lt

to

design of newer generations of bipolars.

Of equal and perhaps greater significance is the artifact known as Jumbo

Dynamo Number 9, the sole survivor from Edison's Pearl Street Station in
New York City, generally acknowledged as the country's first central electric
Jumbo stands with other early equipment in the Edison IlluminatCompany building in Greenfield Village, an exhibit reproducing a late
nineteenth-century power station. The original began operations September 4, 1882, with Jumbo Number 9 the first generator to be set humming.

station.

ing

Including its Armington and Sims steam engine, the generator weighs
more than 60,000 pounds, and can still produce its original quota of 100
kilowatts.

One good
its

reason

Jumbo remained

working career was

current, of

something

in such

relatively short.

It

immaculate condition

is

that

represented the system ot direct

which Edison was unaccountably fond, and which soon proved

dead end. Direct current was uneconomical for transmission

of a

beyond short range, while alternating current could be sent afar via highvoltage transmission and transformers. George Westinghouse, a great early
rival of

Edison and founder of the Westinghouse

locked up the relevant patents.

mighty new Niagara

When

Company

of Pittsburgh,

electricity started flowing

Falls hydroelectric plant in 1895,

it

it

^ew

"JumKi Dynamo Number 9" was

York City ,n 1882;

from the

served a rapidly

expanding North American power grid irrevocably stamped AC.

Menlo Park itself is, in sum, the weightiest artifact in the Henry Ford
Museum/Greenfield Village complex. A seedbed t)f change that would
affect every American, the Edison buildings are paramount in both tech-

109

in Greenfield

Vdlage

in-

perfect condition to-

stands in the Edison Illuminating

Park, ror the next decade, in the worlds hrst industrial

tical invention.

^""'^'^ '"
day.

research and development laboratory, Edison directed a golden age of prac-

days;

Opposite. Edison's

Company

building

nological

and

social history.

weatherhoarded structure,

The
is

reconstructed 1876 laboratory, a two-story

The

the soul of the complex.

floor

first

com-

P**^^

bines the original machine shop, chemical laboratory, office, and the leg-

endary cubbyhole where Edison cook his catnaps. The rooms and their relics are maintained to suggest the scene ot December 31, 1879, when Edison
here made his

first

room

'"*>

"1^

public demonstration of incandescent light. Upstairs,

where the inventor did most of

long, gas-lit

^^c

its

his work, the era suggested

is

The

earlier.

walls lined with ancient bottles of chemicals

holds the core of Edison's greatest wttrk. Here

is

the vote recorder that

fiz-

and the stock ticker that clicked in 1869. The curious-kioking

pen of 1875 is, once explained, quite clearly the origin of the

zled in 1868,

electric

mimeograph. His massive contributions

to early telephone

technology are

revealed by such inventions as his 1879 "loudspeaking receiver."

Edison's favorite creation was the phonograph, displayed in

production form of 1878.

The

recording medium,

tinfoil,

its

earliest

worked

just the

number of materials since then, from wax to vinyl. Everything

happened to the phonograph since 1877 has been mere embellishment on the primal idea Edison demonstrated that December 4, playing
back his own recitation of Mary Had a Utile Lamb. Meantime, he was proceeding on his work toward artificial light. Something of a latecomer to the

same

as a

that has

tantalizing dream, he felt that others'

heavy, low-resistant filament

the prevailing notion that

he successfully strove

known approach

was the wrong

all lights

on

seeking

a short,

way. Moreover, he rejected

a circuit should

work

at once.

Thus

for a thin, high-resistance filament for bulbs that

could be turned on and off individually. Carbonized cotton sewing thread

was the first successful answer to the filament problem, although the Edison

crew would make a number of materials work. For the great

Year's Eve, 1879, the filament

test

of

New

used was carbonized paper.

By then, Edison's booming research and development operation had

outstripped the original laboratory building.

was crucial

built in 1878,

new

brick

far

machine shop,

development of Edison's lighting plans,

to the

serving as power plant for the

first

centralized system in

which not only the

Menlo Park residences were illuminated. The

machine shop also made the original models tor all the new apparatus: the
dynamos, meters, fuses, and sockets that had never existed before. The
reconstructed building contains, among much original equipment and
laboratory but also three

materials, the very steam boiler that supplied the historic

first

night's power.

opposite. Tlie

fifty

More than

half a dozen

Menlo Park

buildings stand in Greenfield Vil-

lage; most original are the little glass-blowing house, where the first bulbs
were made, and the Sarah Jordan Boarding House. Many of Edison's
twenty-odd machinists, draftsmen, chemists, patternmakers, and others

were young and unmarried, and Mrs. Jordan's was their home.
ing house

wired

is

The

board-

the only completely original building to survive of those

for light,

and stands

today,

first

with replica bulbs and exposed wiring, as

111

New

Menlo Park

laboratory, the "invention tac-

where Thomas Edison conducted his

most significant work, was reconstructed in Greenfield
Village. Edison himself returned here in triumph in 1929,
tory" in

Jersey

years after he

first

successfully demonstrated his incan-

descent lighting system

Model T Ford waits at the Sarah Jordan Boardwhich accommodated a number of Edison's emIt is one of the most
original of all the Menlo Park structures moved to Greenfield Village. In this house, on New Year's Day 1879, EdiTop.

1912

ing House,

ployees

mostly young bachelors.

son demonstrated his new lighting system

Bonom. Architectural

detail,

Sarah Jordan House

it

did in 1879.

An ideal ciimpanidn piece to the shop-and-lahciratory atmos-

phere ot other Menk) buildings, Mrs. Jordan's reveals the

human

or social

and their mid-Victorian era, and in a broader sense

evokes the atmosphere ot a once-essential institutitm that has all but

side of Edison's staff

vanished.
In ten years,

Menlo Park was

New

everything to West Orange,

began moving

obsolete. In 1886 Edison

where he

Jersey,

equipped laboratory on earth, ten times

built the largest, best-

than Menk). Here he devel-

larger

oped his Kinetograph, or motion picture camera, and Kinetoscope, a sort

of peep-show projector. In 1893, he began filming motion pictures in the
first movie studio. Also at West Orange Edison fully devek)ped the phonograph, and sent
is

it

commercial success. The big complex

forth to sensatkmal

represented by the very building where Edison's version of the disc phon-

iigraph was born in 1912. Still another Greenfield Village building from the
inventor's later period

is

the laboratory from his winter headquarters in Fort

Myers, Florida, where Edison worked some kirty years.

The Edison

Illuminating

Company

building (shelter ior }umho)

entirely by chance, a small replica of the Detroit electrical plant

is,

not

where

Henry Ford worked as a young engineer. At a company convention in

met Edison and encouraged him to continue his pioneer
automotive tinkering. They were cut from the same cloth: practical, systematic, goal-oriented, inventive, visk)nary, and doubtless eccentric. Later
generatu)ns would denigrate .some of their methods and viewpoints. It was
Atlantic City, Ford

Edison to cling

clearly a mistake for

tt)

the principle of direct current after

alternating current was demonstrated best, and perhaps he might have

accomplished even nn)re with a greater willingness to substitute abstract

such imperfec-

calculatit)ns for his favored pragmatic experimentation. But

tions were trivial indeed

of

Menlo

Park,

whose

when

lite

set against the

mighty works of the Wizard

changed the world.

y the middle ot the nineteenth century.

New

En-

gland had surpassed Great Britain as the center

machine

\^
ting lathe
as

claw

roi
tools

tool manufacture.

as the

museum's 1855 C.

would .seem almost modern, were

feet.

Only a medium-sized

it

not

tor

lathe of the rime,

t)f

Such Civil War era .shop

Eddy

.screw-cut-

such ornamental touches

ii

nevertheless carried a

forty-one-inch face plate and a five-step cone pulley, rack-and-pinkni traverse,

and two-and-one-half-inch

lead screw.

Low

slung and ma.ssive

feet,

the nine-f(K)t machine has a rhinoceros-like

relic

is

company, the planer

A machine designed

is

an

tor

assurei.1

and

steel

mold blocks

blend of function

wcxKlworking shops

is

ani.1

on

its

animal

Another important

an I860 planer from the Putnam Machine Company

sachusetts. Designed to shape iron

112

.solidity

of FitchJMirg,

Rococo

the niiK--toot

Mas-

manufacturing

kit a

revival styling.

iray

and Wuods

planer of c. 1865, considered a milestone in speed and convenience.

Even the most amateurish home craftsman of today should recognize

jointer, an essen-

(and soon master) the museum's red-painted 1875 Carey

tial

woodworking device whose

graceful design has remained nearly

unchanged for more than a century The museum specimen was probably
used in making wagon bodies. Nearby stands a phalanx of pioneer milling
machines, a family second only to the lathe in machine-shop usefulness. By

machine was

1880, the milling

in the

essentially in

Cincinnati Milling Machine of

a rotating cutter.

1881,

Such machines, perfected

modern form,

its

an

efficient

for the

a future seen

metal remover with

major industrial jobs of

the nineteenth century, merely grew larger and more complex in the
twentieth.

Some

of the best stationary steam engines

were made by

including Edison's

first

Armington and Sims Company. Henry

Ford honored the name by applying it to the fully operational machine shop
and foundry in Greenfield Village, which demonstrates a tum-of-the-century job shop. Such establishments made the machinery used in specialized,
mass production factories, and were essential to industry.

power plants

No

the

better place exists to sense the mysterious beauty of metalworking

than amid these 1890s lathes, boring mills, planers, and slotters in the
Armington and Sims shop. The sounds in the spacious building are partially foreign to the modern ear. From the adjoining power house, a giant
leather belt drives the overhead

power

shafts that

hang from the

ceiling,

up

beside the long roof lantern of windows, going cheepiiy clack, cheepity clack.

Looped and

straight leather belts, for forward

the machines.
iron

and

open

steel

The

mingle with those of foursquare oak

front office. In a

found

its

and

not-unpleasant scents of grease,

thousand such

vocabulary, and

made

reverse, angle
oil,

and

down

to

freshly shaved

office furniture in the

settings, the Industrial Revolution

its rules.

Land-based telegraphy was well established long before the Civil War, but
the exigencies of that conflict honed the skill and speed of engineers and
operators alike.

The museum

displays a definitive collection of early equip-

ment, including beautifully made keys and receivers, and strange-looking

primary

cells that

ing carbon

together in

were the only sources ot power. Such glass

jars,

contain-

and zinc electrodes in electrochemical reaction, were linked

series. The arrangement soon produced its own colloquial term:

the battery.

The
as

telephone, like the telegraph and electric light, might be described

an invention by

committee, each member working independently. The

invention would ultimately be realized by the one whose synthesis of ele-

ments worked
Bell,

best. For the telephone, that

although a

German schoolteacher,

J.

man was Alexander Graham

Phillip Reis, deserves to be

men-

tioned in the same breath for his partially successful "Das Telefon" of 1860.
Bell, in

1875 and '76,

made

rapid progress in his invention while seeking

113

Left

and above. The Armington and Sims Machine Shop,

erected in Greenfield Village in 1928, was based on engine-

and machine-making

factories of the late 1800s,

incorporated features of the original

As

A&S

and

plant in Provi-

is
dence, Rhode
powered hy a nineteenth-century steam engine that drives

Island.

functioning shop today,

it

an overhead shaft and belt system, operating lathes, planers, shapers, drill presses, and other period metalworking

machinery

116

ways to aid the deaf, and a replica of the model that received American
tory's

most valuable patent

is

his-

museum's enormous com-

displayed in the

munications collection. In terms of use, the most significant artifact may

be Bell's 1877 box telephone, the first commercial model ever installed,
linking a Boston banker's

home and

office.

hole in the

wooden box
mouth

served as both transmitter and receiver, requiring quick shifts from

to ear. The device was probably made by Bell's
Thomas Watson. A signaling button on the box
as the

near- legendary assistant,

lives in

telephone history

"Watson thumper.

commercial switchboards were in production, and the

model on which the "plug and jack" system is
already developed. A directory of 1878 adds to the aura of communications
history around the old board. The earliest known dial telephone bestows
immortality on its implausible inventor, a Kansas City funeral director.
Almon B. Strowger's first automatic telephone went into service in LaPorte,
Indiana, in 1892; today the nickel-plated dial and black mouthpiece and
receiver of the museum's example are clear evidence that Mr. Strowger

Soon the

museum

first

displays an 1878

commanded

the telephone of the future.

Invention of the typewriter was even more of a group

to at least 1714 in England, patented in 1829 in

France in 1833. But the

first

effort,

going back

America, and improved

in

commercially successful model was created in

Opposite.

From the dawn

of production typewriters, the

middle 1870s, comes this Remington Model

vented hy Christopher Sholes and associates.

Number
Its

1,

in-

users could

print only capitals

1868 by the team of Christopher L. Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel

Soule.

They persuaded Philo Remington, the

Ilion,

New

York, arms

tycoon, to add typewriters as another sideline (he was already making sewing machines), and the

first

thousand machines were made in 1874. The

a

"Remington-Sholes.
the typewriter in place, other office equipment could not be far

behind. Edison's "electric pen" heralded the mimeographs of 1888 and

1897.

His phonographs spawned the dictation equipment industry,

traced in the museum's displays.

The

first

all

general-purpose calculator to

achieve commercial success was the 1888 comptometer of Felt and Tarrant,
which could add, subtract, multiply, and divide. The museum's spindly but
still serviceable example dates c. 1896.
For about five decades, photography was in the hands ot professionals and
scientists. An aura of necromancy surrounded the photographer, who from
his wagon-borne portable studio and darkroom fiddled with strange
machines, mixed occult chemicals, disappeared into total darkness, and
emerged with magical results. Then in the late 1870s, young George Eastman experimented successfully with dry-plate processes. Suddenly the need
for instant development was gone, and with it the need for portable

darkrooms.

Eastman was

just starting.

He produced

the

first

practical roll film in

1884 by applying a light-sensitive emulsion to a collodion-coated paper

117

The nineteenth

century's second half brought a

the wet-plate studio camera (example at

left

dates from the

1860s) to George Eastman's Kodak, of which an 1888

model

museum's huge collection of typewriters begins with one of the pioneers,

With

Above.

stunning transition: photography leaped from the age of

with

top table

suitable advertising

rests

on the marble-

118

first,

later

switching to celluloid. In 1888, Eastman introduced the

first

H. Walker. The handKodak, incorporating a roll holder developed by

held, $25 box camera was loaded at the factory for a staggering one hundred

When all

pictures.
to

the

Eastman's factory

roll

was exposed, the customer sent the camera back

and reloading. The cam-

for a $10 processing, printing,

and shutter were preset. "You press the button," said the inventor's
advertising, "we do the rest." Think of it. Almost overnight, the arcane
specialty of photography was released to the multitude. Anyone could make
era's lens

pictures.

New

models came quickly. The

first

pocket Kodak arrived in the 1890s,

as did the first of the still-remembered bellows cameras.

The museum

them in bewildering profusion. Many were presented

George Eastman himself.
plays

Eadweard
tial

Muy bridge,

claim to the

title of

to

dis-

Henry Ford by

a flamboyant early photographer, has at least par-

father of motion pictures. In about 1870, Muybridge

photographed racehorses in motion with a

series of

cameras, then built a

revolving viewer that displayed the photographs as animation. Others

worked on the

idea, too.

Thomas Edison and

his inventive

group produced

the real breakthrough in 1889 with the Kinetograph and Kinetoscope; an

1896 version of the Edison camera

is

displayed.

It

remained only

for twi>

French brothers, Louis and Auguste Lumiere, to patent the cinematograph,

the

first

true

motion picture

projector, in 1895.

Halfway through the nineteenth century, although the reaper was

vir-

Opposite. By about 1880,

machine was
tle Falls,

when

New

New Warrior mowing

Mowing Company of Lit-

this

built by the Warrior

York, technology had already revolutionized

American farming
Above. This 1916 Port Huron tractor once labored in
Greenfield Village maintenance jobs, but was retired in the
early 1950s. Volunteers recently restored

tually standard

formed in

equipment, most of America's grain threshing was

manner

still

per-

that any reincarnated medieval peasant would have

understood perfectly; beating with a hinged

flail

and winnowing from

shallow basket. Threshing had never been a particular problem, for grain,
cut, could be stored and threshed later, when the urgencies of harvest
had passed. The 1780s had seen some experimentation with a boxed-in
winnowing machine called the "Dutch fan," but its use was not widespread.
Rapid developments occurred in the 1840s and '50s, however, and the

once

mechanical thresher-separator became a

efficient as to usher in a new,

reality.

The new machines were

enduring institution

so

the custom thresher-

man, who freed individual farmers from the purchase and care of expensive
equipment. One of the best early units was the Wheeler and Mellick, made
in Albany, New York. Two horses on a treadmill provided power; worked by
four men, Wheeler and Mellicks of the 1860s could thresh a respectable two
hundred bushels of grain daily. The museum's 1866 model seems still able
to

handle

its

quota.

War years added new dynamics of change to the matter of farm

mechanization. Commodity prices soared worldwide, and farm boys by the
millions joined the army, creating both a labor shortage and a vast new market. Inventors and manufacturers released a new generation of more efficient
The

Civil

machines. Starting with the 1860s, the museum's farm

relics

become

dra-

119

ton Si Sims
again

it

Machine Shop, and

it

in the

Arming-

fully operational

chuffs regularly forth at Village special events

120

more complex. Grain drills, sulky plows, and twine hinders sugan increasing specialization. Altogether new was the reaper-hinder of
the 1870s. The museum's example of the complicated machine is hy Walter

matically
gest

Wood

A.

The

than

ers

New

of

New

York,

York.

design aesthetic was perhaps

manufacturers in other

to

less

important to farm machinery mak-

fields,

yet

Victorians

to the core

makers brightened their products with red paint, and applied gold stripes
and gaudy flourishes of scrollwork. Farm wagons echoed circus wagons.

Some of the ironwork on post-Civil War equipment was magnificent, as

demonstrated by the museum's Eureka mowing machine of 1880. The
nation's commercial artists and lithographers battled it out for their
machinery-making
Taylor

Company

clients

with spectacular trade catalogs. The Aultman

deprived of grain gleanings by superbly efficient threshers.

Company

&

of Mansfield, Ohio, featured a comical starving rooster

The

rival

Rumely

of La Porte, Indiana, countered with sentimental art of happy

children playing beside streams, hay ricks, and threshers.

The museum's

archives bulge with such colorful material.

The

first

farm revolution added the power of horses to machinery, and the

well. Yet from the beginning some visionaries thought

combination worked

steam engines might be preferable

Dixie where steam
mills

and cotton

took

first

its

to horses. Curiously,

gins, as early as the 1820s.

in Greenfield Village.

it

was nonindustrial

stand on the farm, in the big central sugar

The Harahan Sugar

One

such mill

is

reconstructed

Mill was built in Louisiana in

1845, beside the Mississippi River. Like others of the type,

it

employed

steam engine, the same that spun factory wheels in the

not create a small, portable steam engine to turn the working

large, stationary

North.

Why

parts of threshing

The

first

itself,

on wagon wheels, were

this new producer of power could not move

ones, resembling small locomotives

and had

to

justify its

catching on.

be towed around by horses, hardly inspiring the confihigh cost. But after twenty years the farm steamer began

The museum has

a gaggle of stovepipe-black specimens

from

the 1870s; they seem strangely capricious in design, like cartoonists' fancies,

and absurdly tall exhaust stacks, bristling with gauges,

and flywheels. The museum's oldest example is also the
most straightforward in design: a chunky little Owens, Lane & Dyer, built
in 1870 in Hamilton, Ohio.

all

spidery wheels

valves, rods, oilers,

By the 1880s the

ically across

first

self-powered traction engines were chuffing majest-

the grain-farming horizons, towing the ungainly apparatus of

the custom thresherman. The J. 1. Case Company, founded in Racine,

Wisconsin, in 1842, became the giant of the traction engine business. The

museum's 1890 Case, with

gear wheel guard,
action, with

its

its

may not be

graceful stack

and magnificently filagreed

is a joyful machine. In

a thing of beauty, but

piston punching, governor whirling, and stack belching

121

The beauty

of

nineteenth-century machinery

shines in a detail view of a farm steam engine. This portable engine of 1882

was manufactured hy Nichols, Shepard

Michigan

& Company of Battle Creek,

Ahiive.

made

machines?

available by 1850. Paradoxically,

dence to

Opposite.

The

J.I.

Case Company of Racine, Wisconsin,

this resplendent

steam tractor

in 1890

Opposiie.

The

race was already lost to the forces of central

heating, hut makers of parlor stoves

still

had

a few tricks

their sleeves as the nineteenth century closed.

up

One was

this 1898

Art Garland hasehurner hy the Michigan Stove

Company

of Detroit

black coal smoke as

it

drove the shiny leather belt, slung in a long figure

eight to the roaring thresher, the

Case seemed the very soul

erations of farm youth. Sadly, such machines were always

bite.

The

garden

Case's fifteen horsepower

tractors.

And

is

many

surpassed by

while some were used in western

power to genmore bark than

ot

of today's

fields tor

home

actual cul-

and harvest power, their unfavorable horsepower-to-weight ratio

made them inefficient as moving power sources. At times they would pontivation

'

derously dig themselves into holes.

he mechanization ot the American

rapidly after 1850.

/ill
ilies
9^
just before,

accepted their

tui
turers

and especially

first

cook stove when manufac-

were ready with a new generation. Tlie years

just after, the Civil

War were

explosive with the

development of mechanical appliances: apple parers, cherry

grinders,

can openers, and egg

Detached from

home moved

No sooner had American fam-

pitters, coffee

The museum has them by the score.

such artifacts may seem kist and tork)m,

beaters.

their original milieu

but the museum's tour model peritxi kitchen displays are technologically
informative, as well as nostalgically appealing. In the complete kitchen ot
1890, the

theme of change comes through

The major manufacturing

the

Midwest

after 1850,

centers ot America's stove industry

and such

c.

strongest of all.

leaders as the

moved

to

Michigan Stove Company

American parlor stove to a vertex ot efficiency and

Michigan Stove's gigantic "Art Garland" emulates the cimning
tower of Captain Nemo's submarine: nickel-plated castings in swirling
ocean waves embosom a doubiedecker turret of iron grillwork, whose isinglass windows once radiated the cheery orange glow of burning coal. Made
around 1898, the six-toot colossus represents the final flourishing ot treestanding heating stoves as things of pride and gk)ry. Central heating,
pioneered betore the Civil War and common since the 1870s, already had
rendered such stoves obsolescent. Soon they would be passt: embarrassot Detroit brought the

splendor.

ments

to the up-to-date

homeowner.

By the time of the Civil War, sewing machines were becoming common-

home. They assumed a special importance in the Confederacy,

which was lacking in a garment industry and faced the task ot clothing an
army in the field. Sewing machines were moved into the South's churches,
as women set up de /octo factories where "nothing could be heard but the
place in the

click of machines, the tearing of ck)th, the ceaseless

tioning," as one Virginia

murmur of voices

woman remembered. What

formed such service? As embodied

in the

museum's

sort of

ques-

machines per-

collection, they were

sophisticated in engineering and superb in construction quality. Mt)re than

were beautiful in design and ornamentation. Tigether they conone of the museum's otten overlookeil great surprises, these jewelcreations of such forgotten names as Cirover iSi Baker, Ilori'iue, Shaw

that, they
stitute
like

122

wKCigBWff*

'^'^yra t'y

123

124

&. Clark,
tie

and Wheeler

machines all

& Wilson. Clearly,

producing their gleaming

in

lit-

shiny black enamel, gold-leaf scrolls, painted roses,

mother-of-pearl inlay, polished hardwood cases, Rococo iron frames

the

manufacturers aimed straight at the heart of Victorian decorative sensibil-

Why,

ities.

then, do most Singers of the antebellum years appear as mas-

machines? Because that

sively constructed factory

is

what they were.

Isaac

Singer began in 1850 as a maker of industrial machines, although soon his

company joined the competitive home market, developed new marketing

techniques, and grew to dominate the industry.

The nineteenth

century's second halt was a time of complexity in

and children's fashions, often

France. Ready-mades were available
en's

womfrom

in adaptive imitation of styles

American retail stores and tailor

shops long before the Civil War. After 1865, we strove to inflict on ourselves
and our young some of history's most tortured creations, such as the infamous Lord Fauntleroy suit, of which the museum has a pristine example, as
in

well as a similar velvet knickerbocker suit with Zouave jacket.

We can

sigh in pity for the poor ten-year-old forced into such attire,

only

which was

doubtless enhanced by the so-called "American blouse," an orgy of lace,

white cotton, and oversized

collar.

Female fashion of Scarlett O'Hara's time required undergirding by a collapsible crinoline cage, a

cone of some thirty watch-spring

ing concentrically to the

of the

hoop

skirt

was restricted to

a parabola, outlined by

oline cage closely embracing the ankles.

required bustles, of which the

steel rings

grow-

By the 1880s, the exuberant bouncing

floor.

bell

an all-new crin-

Soon the demands of a fuller drape

museum owns

a variety. Designers rushed to

patent these beauty aids, formed ot cotton-covered wire, and resembling

fragments ripped from the viscera of upholstered chairs.

plastic material, celluloid,

masquerading
luUiid

as coral, jet, horn, tortoise shell,

combs and

collars

The

first

synthetic

was mastered by the early 1870s and sent forth

and malachite jewelry. Cel-

were major contributors to dapper grooming

in the

later years of the century.

The need

to clean

up

residential dirt

inventive spirit of the 1850s.

The

first

was a problem made

to order for the

carpet sweeper in America whirred

out of Boston in 1858; a national magazine's enthusiastic product

predicted the end of brooms.

begins with an 1859 Daboll,

The museum's

made

in

test report

collection of such products

Providence,

Rhode

Island. Rolling

on

wheels that spun a revolving brush, the Daboll was reasonably effective.

The

boasting the improvement of an adjustable

museum's 1876 model. The Bissell would dominate the carpet sweeper market for generations.
Bissell arrived in the 1870s,

brush, as displayed in the

The vacuum cleaner began late in the nineteenth century with clumsy,
hand-pumped devices that required two operators. But with the rapid
development of small, high-speed electrical motors, the vacuum sweeper
was an obvious application, and with the advent of the

first

highly success-

125

Opposite. Tins Lord Fauntleroy suit ofc. 1885

American made.

Its

is

pruhahly

pants and jacket arc velveteen; the

126

Hoover of 1908, the age of

ful

modem

housecleaning had truly arrived.

The museum's collection ot household laundry equipment

and homely cavalcade that

Opposite.

traces the long

washday
drudgery. A selection of gadgets sought to improve the ancient washboard
with arms and cranks. Other washers pounded, squished, and sucked. Cradle-shaped rockers like the 1876 Pennsylvanian and the Boss of 1888 made
some insubstantial headway.
Kerosene was important in the home, yet its period ot dominance was
surprisingly short. The kerosene lamp devekiped only from the 1850s, when
it was already plain to many scientists that electric lighting was only a mattried, often unsuccessfully, to ease

ter of time. Gaslight, in use in selected locations since the

beginning of the

century, was a formidable rival to both kerosene and electricity. In 1885, gas

was rejuvenated by the development of the Welsbach mantle, an impregnated gauze device that created a

brilliant, efficient,

and economical

light

that remained popular until 1910.

The museum's

collection of lighting devices, best in the world, includes

North America from the

every type of light used in

earliest settlers'

crude

imports onward, covering such rare offshoots as political parade torches,

and rows of glittering chandeliers, crude wrought-iron grease lamps, stately

Sandwich glass kerosene fixtures, classical Argands. An assembly of
hundreds of lightbulbs traces the progression
In music, the upright piano had

its

of

Edison and his competitors.

origins as far back as the 1820s, but

the popular square held the stage until after the Civil War.
upright age broke with

grand in volume, yet would

The
new

fit

heights of ornamentation.
is

its

The rosewood

lavishly inlaid with

flowers. Inside, the sturdy iron

all

Knabe

is

Then

the

approached the

but the tiniest parlors.

manufacturers from scaling

case of the museum's 1884

maple and mahogany festoons

frame had capacity to spare

ern standard of eighty-eight notes.

rosewood concert grand,

a style that

against the wall of

upright's practicality did not inhibit

Baltimore-made Knabe

and

Here was

full force.

for the

also represented by a

mod-

mighty

1870.

c.

he mastery of new equipment by furniture factories

opened the door

#/StI
structions

9^
like

John Henry Belter

of

Rm,
Rococo

to increasingly intricate

at ever-falling prices.

Such

con-

styles as

revival were dictated by inventive leaders

New York, whose

techniques in laminating and carv-

The Renaissance revival school employed fewer

ponderous dimensions. The museum displays one Renaissance

ing were widely imitated.

curves, but

revival etagere

and

pier table combination, c. 1870, bristling with female

and swags, combining walnut, ebonized

and porcelain. Almost nine feet tall, this prodigy has no practical

heads, scrolls, swans, tassels, plaques,

wood,

gilt,

function other than serving as a mirror and resting place for three pieces of
sculpture. But

it

does do more: such a piece sums up, as no written history

127

Mighty were the works of America's mid-nine-

The grand piano in the

foreground came from the Baltimore shop of WiUiam
teenth-century piano craftsmen.

Knahe

&

Company in about 1870. A decade before, the

Company of Stamford, Connecticut, had

Kroeger Piano

created the harp piano, at rear

could, the tortured complexities of the Gilded Age.

reaction did

pieces,

may have exceeded

lake

come

against such monstrous (although well-made)

and especially against

their imitators,

whose production capacity

their quality standards. English designer Charles East-

was one who sought,

in the 1870s, to curb design excesses, advocating

and con-

plainer rectilinear forms with simple, lightly routed line carving

trasting colors of

and used them

wood. Mass producers immediately seized Eastlake's ideas

to create

more

distortions.'

The museum

displays

an East-

lake-style icebox.

A tar simpler theme was the Mission style of oak furniture arriving in the
1890s.

Its

clean, cagelike simplicity must have struck proper late Victorians

with some surprise. But

did not succeed in holding hack the flood of turn-

it

of-the-century "golden oak" furniture, disparaged in some recent decades

as the nadir of

American

furniture design.

an extra dimension

Historical associations fix

of interest to such

museum

and desk made in 1857 for the U.S. House of

Representatives and designed by Thomas U. Walter. One of the nation's
foremost architects, Walter spanned Greek revival to Romanesque revival
in his long career, and was architect of the U.S. Capitol from 1851 to 1865.
He enlarged the Capitol to essentially its present form, and replaced the
U)wer Bulfinch dome with the one we see today. As part of designing the
new Senate and House wings, he created new furniture as well. The deeply
carved oak chairs, made by the New York firm of Bembe &. Kemmel, were
judged too heavy by the Congressmen, and in only two years were auctioned
off and replaced. An identical chair found its way tt) the Washington photographic studios of Mathew B. Brady and Alexander Gardner, and was
furniture as the massive chair

used to pose such figures as

Abraham

Lincoln.

President Lincoln was sitting in another chair, however, on April

14,

Rococo revival rocking chair in

one of the museum's supreme treasures, albeit

1865, at Ford's Theater. Tciday the walnut,

which he was assassinated

is

melancholy one. The original faded red upholstery is threadbare but

intact. The left runner shows an old break at the rear. As a scar of use it is

especially provocative:

was the wot)d broken

in the Presidential box,

moments

after

in that

mad, trampling scene

Booth triggered

his Deringer.'

Edwin Stanton, the chair was stored for

sixty-five years before returning to its owning family, and thence ci)ming to
the museum. The old rocker is made even more meaningful by two other
original relics displayed across it: the drab, light brown shawl Lincoln was
Impounded by Secretary

using,

and the most

of State

fragile witness to

Persevering against the lingering

murder, his theatrical playbill.

American preference

for foreign

china,

our ceramic manufacturers by mid-century were creating not only tableware

but

al.so

made by

such works of art as the museum's Parian eagle vase

that imitated marble. James (Jarr of the

128

of 1850.

the U.S. Pottery Co. of Bennington, Vermont, using a

New

York

'ity

Pottery

It

was

tec linn.|ue

Co. used the

medium with stunning success in 1876 with his bust of George Washington
in a Roman toga. The work was exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial,
attracting great attention, just as it remains a popular museum artifact
today. Similarly, a pair of vases by Thomas C. Smith & Son of New York
are veterans of the Centennial.

They

patriotically display selected scenes

and emblems of America around the base.

Such performances at the 1876 exposition helped American ceramicists
become solidly established at last. That significance was lost on Mrs. Ruthfrom
erford B. Hayes, who ordered a new set of Presidential china in 1878

The Hayes china was, at least, decorated by an American with allAmerican scenes. Representative pieces join the museum's many other
France.

examples of Presidential porcelain.

Woodrow Wilson

tion of

that the

(It

would not be

until the administra-

White House received American-made

china, from Lenox, Inc., of Trenton,

New Jersey)

Toward the close of the nineteenth century, a reaction to the uniformity

of mass production inspired a new spirit of individual craftsmanship in
ceramics and

About

glass.

1886, the

Greenwood

Pottery of Trenton,

New

and covered with

a deep royal blue glaze and assorted gilded decorations, the ewer has an oriental look that recalls the fresh interest in Eastern design in the 1880s. Simporcelain ewer. Ten inches

Jersey,

produced an

ilarly,

a twenty-six-inch vase

1889

is

elaborately

artistic

made by Joseph

ornamented with aquatic

phin handles. Called the "Barber Vase,"

tall

Lycett of

New

York City in

and bracketed by dolformer owner, it is one of the

flowers,

for a

museum's most important examples of late nineteenth-century ceramics.

more personalized artistry sprang from such female artisans as Kate B.

Sears, whose 1891 Parian porcelain vase displays a frieze of cupids on flying
geese and the forms of stylized leaves.
By 1900, advanced artists had clearly left the old century's forms behind.
The twentieth-century idea arrived on the iridescent glass wings of Louis
Comfort Tiffany, that master's three-handled, blown amber vase with its
irregular veining seems the very essence of Art Nouveau.
Before the Civil War most American toys were imported, but Yankee
ingenuity did produce at least one antebellum breakthrough: the first modstill

ern board game. Brainchild of

Anne

Abbott, the daughter of a

gland clergyman, the game "Mansion of Happiness" carried

its

New

En-

players along

themed journey, through board spaces dictated by the spin of an indicator.

fitted the time's morality. Players landing on Cruelty were sent
back to Justice; a stop on Idleness would lead to Poverty; a Sabbath Breaker
would be jailed and then lose three turns. But advancing to such frames as
Piety, Honesty, Humility, and Industry sent the player farther along the road
to the Mansion of Happiness. It was a good game and intensely popular.
a

The game

W&

S. B. Ives of

the century

it

Salem, Massachusetts, brought

it

out in 1843; later in

was marketed by Parker Brothers.

Other board games followed

swiftly

The

first

big competitor was

an 1844

129

effort

by L.

I.

Cohen

& Co.

of Philadelphia, entitled

"The National

Game

of the Star Spangled Banner or Geographical &. Historical Tourist through

the United States

Game

Tourist."

& Canada,"

known

as the

"National

rare original

games

in

unsurprisingly

The museum has both

its

toy

collection.

By the 1860s, American industry had geared up for an avalanche of iron

and mechanical toys. One of the first known mass-produced wind-up toys
is a ten-inch-long locomotive, made of tin with cast-iron wheels. The

"Union" stenciled on the

brightly painted engine has

praise another odd- looking toy in the

museum,

boiler.

T)y aficionados

a spring-operated, foot-high

walking doll that pushes a cartlike conveyance. In the cart a boy waves an

American

and the whole ensemble

preceded by a dangling brass

bell.

An elaborate wind-up toy of the era is a fifteen-inch-long sidewheeler,

two-

flag,

stacked steamboat. Others

unmechanized

some of

is

the best in design and detail

iron pull toys, like a nineteen-inch steam

fire

are

engine, with

detachable driver holding the reins to a galloping team. Nearby

is

a lion

with a bobbing head, and a Jack-in-the-Box. Such are a few of the faded
toys of the

Gilded Age.

The museum's
In

some

1877.

It

cases

collection of mechanical banks

we can

displays a soldier aiming a mortar,

house or

fort.

The American

aid even

a coin

made

from her beak into the

a chirping

OpposiK
chair

the

F. ri'.er

hdunnng our

history, this

is

which President Abraham Lincoln was sitting at

of his assassination. He was also using the

moment

shawl and theatrical program draped on the chair.

which shoots

sound from

Bank of c.

a coin into a block-

Bank of 1883 features

The mother bends forward,

hanks were made in the form of the

the rocking

displayed with the toys.

Eagle

feeding two babies in their nest.

and drops

is

see why, as with the Artillery Mechanical

mother eagle

flaps

her wings,

nest. Originally, this deluxe savings

a built-in bellows.

real thing. In one, the

1876, a cashier at his post inside the building rotates

Other popular
Magic Bank of

and deposits the tend-

ered coin.

The

stovepipe hat. while of the appropriate period, has no Lin-

coln connection

Above This important earthenware vase was made in 1889

by the Faience Manufacturing Company of Greenpoint,
New York, and decorated by Joseph Lycett. It is sometimes
called the "Barber Vase" after its original owner

n the 1850s

a few daredevils such as John

revived the nation's interest in ballooning.

'electrified

/.board

county

fairs

Wise
Wise

by dropping animals over-

and sometimes leaping out

himself. Wise carried America's first official airmail two years before the Civil
War. His contemporary, Thaddeus Lowe, sent down the first aerial communiin parachutes,

cation (by telegraph) and founded the U.S.

Army

Aeronautics Corps.

Throughout the nineteenth century, dreamers tinkered with flight. England's Sir George Cayley (1773-1857) articulated some surprisingly
advanced aeronautical theories, and built a successful man-carrying glider.
William Henson, another Englishman, patented an aerial "steam carriage"
that incorporated most of the features of an airplane. In 1848, a model of
it

actually flew.

The

first

130

designed,
pk)wed through the

successful dirigible

Frenchman Henri Giffard

built,

and flown by

Paris skies at five miles per

131

132

opposite. America's surging mechanical ingenuity did not

neglect the young fry

Happy the 1870

child was

ceived this spring-driven ensemble, wherein

doll

pushed

a fanciful

and

who

re-

foot-high

patriotic cart

an early example of a perennial favorite; the

wind-up toy locomotive. Such productions were legion in
the latter half of the nineteenth century
Below. Here

133

is

134

hour in 1852. Driven by a

light

miles in a pioneering powered,

man Otto

motor drove an

airship.

built,

era,

glider flights before a

La France, on a

successful flight with a

two-man

officers.

a few such stirring exploits, the century

the ground, with the railroad

burning

covered seventeen

1896. In 1884, a nine-horsepower battery-operated elec-

crew of French army

Apart from

craft

In the next generation, Ger-

made more than two thousand

Lilienthal

final, fatal glide in

tric

steam engine, the

manned flight.

its

chief obsession.

was firmly footed on

The peak

of the

wood-

1855 to 1875, produced the most beautiful locomotives ever

works of industrial sculpture caparisoned with gleaming brass and

brilliant painted flourishes.

One

of the best survivors

is

the museum's 1858

Rogers, representing the 4-4-0 "American" class locomotive that

is

one of

the milestones of mechanical design. Built originally for the Atlantic

name was

&

Henry Ford acquired and

restored the engine in 1924, and renamed it Sam Hill, after an engineer
who worked the Dearborn run on the Michigan Central when Ford was a
boy. In 1929, when President Herbert Hoover attended the Golden Jubilee
of Light that officially dedicated the museum and Greenfield Village, Ford
renamed the locomotive The President. Meanwhile his shops had conGulf Railroad of Georgia,

its

Satilla.

War era, directed by

Thomas Edison himself, who had worked on just such a train.
The museum's railroad section traces the entire progression of motive
power through the 1880s, when the harbingers of a new era of more powstructed three replica coaches suggesting the Civil

erful coal burners arrived.

By the

late 1890s,

America's main-line loco-

motives dwarfed the few remaining "teakettles," as they were scornfully dismissed, of the earlier era. Their increased speed and weight would not have

been sustainable, however, without two basic technological improvements:

the airbrake and the automatic coupler.
Before George Westinghouse invented and successfully demonstrated the
airbrake in 1868, stopping a train was a crude

and often dangerous process,

down on each

one's

heavy brake wheel, mechanically forcing shoes against wheels with

little

requiring brakemen to leap from car to car, cranking

more sophistication than the system on

New York-bom Civil War veteran and
logical leap in providing, in effect,

pumped by an

accessory on the locomotive, was piped from car to car along

the train, actuating

lever.

be

all

The new system

difficult to stop

About

Concord coach. Westinghouse, a

brilliant engineer, made a technothe first "power brake." Compressed air,
a

brakes simultaneously

when

the engineer pulled one

did not eliminate train wrecks

but

it

was a quantum leap

a train

would always

in train safety.

the time the airbrake was coming into general use, in the early

1880s, E. H. Janney's automatic coupler was introduced to further applause

among

battered trainmen. "Coupling up" had been one of the most dan-

gerous jobs in industry, requiring a

man

to

stand between mating cars to

guide a large link from coupler to coupler, then drop in a securing pin at the

135

Opposite. By the late 1850s,

American locomotives had

reached a high point in industrial design, as demonstrated

hy the museum's 1858 Rogers. This lovely woodburner was
in Paterson, New Jersey, and cost the Atlantic & Gulf
Renamed The President by
Henry Ford, it ceremoniously pulled President Herbert
Hoover and other dignitaries to the 1929 opening of the
Ford Museum and Greenfield Village

made

Railroad $8,200 on delivery.

instant of impact.

the

new

strated

The

process took a heavy

"knuckle"-style coupler was

on

much

toll in fingers

safer.

and hands. But

Both devices are demon-

Baldwin passenger locomotive of the 1890s, an engine exactly

little 1858 woodhurner, although retaining the same

twice the weight of the

4-4-0 wheel configuration. Baldwins were always in the forefront of Amer-

The Philadelphia company was founded by early

and philanthropist Matthias W. Baldwin with the locomotive

ican locomotive design.

industrialist

Old

Ironsides in 1832.

Generations of our ancestors found streetcars indispensable, and Henry

The

Ford gathered up a representative collection for his museum.

eldest

is

which was approaching the end of the animalpower era. The sixteen-passenger vehicle was built by one of the leading
specialists, j. M. Jones &. Co. of West Troy, New York, a firm that sold thousands of horsecars around the world, including a stunning order ot two
a horse-drawn car of 1881,

hundred
at

home

Bombay, India,

for

in shipping

its

in 1870.

The company had

learned early to feel

vehicles across oceans; after starting in 1839 as a

and wagon maker, it shipped thousands of wagons around Cape

San Francisco during the California Gold Rush.
The 1881 car is toylike, topheavy, and probes the upper limits of Gothic

carriage

Horn

to

quaintness.

Once

it

served in Brooklyn,

New York;

lettering

still

proclaims

&

ERIE BASIN. The lettering, paint

GREENPOINT, FERRIES, HUNTERS POINT
trim, ironwork, interior seating, and "Rules for Passengers" sign all combine
in a priceless time capsule of American street transportation more than a

century ago.

When

electrical pioneer

trified street rail

mal-powered cars came

horsecars.
ful)

is

to

an abrupt

That any survived

is

(the

halt.

museum

epitomized by several

from Philadelphia's

The

1890s marked the end ot

has two out of a national hand-

J.

G.

Brill

electrics, the first

mahogany. Later generations of

Brills are

much

m()tt)rman's

controls.

hand pulled away

for

Such

to

doubt the

of the car's trim was

represented by the company's

"Birney" class, built from 1916 into the '20s, and famed for

named "dead man"

an 1892 vehi-

Company. Anyone tempted

Victorians' quality standards should note that

ically

elec-

remarkable.

The replacement
cle

Frank Sprague created America's premier

system for Richmond, Virginia, in 1889, the career of ani-

its

melodramat-

cars stopped automatically

any reason. That comforted the

allowed the trolley companies to introduce one-man

.service,

if

riders

cutting

the

and

down

on overhead and taking some of the pressure off an overtaxed civilian labt)r
pool during World War 1.
Commercial wagons were rarely preserved when their working lives were
done, and the survival of those in the museum's collection opens an elusive

window on vanished routines and technologies. An 1870 butcher's wagon

recalls the time when peri.shable foods were sold daily in the street, or delivered door-to-door. A 1900 beer wagon once delivered kegs to pre-Prohibi-

136

still hears the name of the original

who hauled new shoes from Massachusetts factories.
is the dump wagon of 1900, with its pedal-actuated dumping

One

tion saloons.

1885 freight wagon

owner, E L. Hatch,

Another

rarity

door

dispensing gravel or sand.

for

blazoned "Standard Oil

partments

heavy

rig,

An

and motor oil

whose driver enjoyed the

for gasoline

Standard Oil

Company

tank wagon of 1892,

oil

Company" and

emcom-

still

"Perfection Kerosene," had

as well.

A two-horse

relative

comfort of a buggy top.

team pulled the

The

alone operated more than six thousand wagons at

the turn of the twentieth century.

The

lovely 1797 chariot already discussed

was a product of the bench

may be viewed against the same measurements

of skill and technology that we apply to a bombe Chippendale chest-onchest, a flintlock long rifle, or a hand-hammered silver coffeepot. In the
craftsman's golden age, and

century that followed, technological changes came, though at a rather slow

pace at

came

first,

to the

manufacture of horse-drawn conveyances. The big news

minor milestones as the invention of the elliptical spring early

in the 1800s, and later improvements in hub construction. Gradually, with
improvements in carriage suspension, manufacturers learned to make
lighter vehicles that could stand the shocks of wretched roads.
Our most important vehicle of the century was the buggy. Though established in essential form before the Civil War, it was in Cincinnati in the
1870s that the type was first made with interchangeable parts. From then
until about 1910, the country saw a flood of homely, practical, and unbein such

cheap buggies, averaging $35 but often discounted to $25. One of

wagon manufacture was Flint, Michigan, where
future automobile tycoon William C. Durant got started with the Flint
Road Cart Company. The carriage makers of Flint were not merely the
they were
ancestors of the men who would make Buicks and Chevrolets
lievably

the centers of buggy and

the same men.

who insisted on the

One maker that provided

Buggies were satisfactory, but not for the wealthy,

comfort and elegance of vehicles of grande

luxe.

them was Brewster &. Co. of New York City, which enjoyed an
reputation by the time of the Civil War.
of Brewsters that span

many

years.

certainly the Rolls-Royce of

formal, a Brewster George

cratic

its

An

The museum

1865 closed coach with facing seats,

day, cost

about $1,500. Less stately but

IV phaeton was

mid-Victorian women,

international

displays a selection

who found

its

a popular type

among

k)w profile an admirable show-

case in which to display their costumes on rides through the park.

led quickly to the Victoria,

still

aristo-

The

style

one of the most graceful vehicles ever made. The

museum's example of c. 1875 has swooping leather fenders, ornately tufted

upholstery, and a dark green tonneau, all slung lithesomely within four Cshaped springs. The Victoria's design
top

was

American

so

good

it

was transmitted

a low, rakish profile

with a calash

to at least the early generations of

cars; the Peerless Victoria of 1911

motorized the

profile for

one of

137

&

Company of West Troy, New York, a preemiJ.M. Jones

nent producer of horse-drawn streetcars, made this charming example in 1881.
streets of Brooklyn,

It

served nearly twenty years on the

New

York

opposite. In 1906, nearing the end of the era of horsefire pumps, the Manchester Locomotive
Works of New Hampshire produced this enormous "extra
first size" pumper. Weighing 9,600 pounds, it could hurl

the best-looking cars in this or any other

drawn steam

1,100 gallons of water per

minute

Somehow, the

museum

collection.

excesses of design in furniture, architecture, and dress of

As

the high Victorian era never reached the artifacts of transportation.

guided by unerring gyroscopes of

taste, carriage

with restraint and an increasingly sure sense of

been
a

little

new

demand

for

anything

When

else.

line.

There seems

to

have

the governor of Nevada ordered

carriage in the raucous silver-boom year of 1870, he received a slen-

sedate barouche from the maker, E.

der,

if

makers plied their trade

M.

Miller ot

Qumcy,

Illinois.

But

Mr. Miller did make some concessions at the governor's request: door handles,

other mountings, and harness for a four-horse team were solid

Among
the

silver.

the nicer nineteenth-century forms that vanished utterly with

coming of motorcars was the hansom cab. Designed by an English

architect, the low-slung, two-wheeled, two-passenger, front-opening han-

som was one of the snuggest

resisted

value,

it

its

Kimball

The

until late in the

vehicles ever devised. Curiously,

horse-drawn

era; by the

The museum's

time was almost gone.

& Company of Chicago,

rare

is

its

by C. R

and dates about 1885.

Some

of the finest examples of the

carriage maker's skill date from the late nineteenth

The museum's brougham

and

of 1902, however,

sporting style favored since before the Civil

War

is

early twentieth cen-

of a mainline, non-

by nabobs and cab-owners

alike, a practical, comfortable, low-slung carriage of

The

example

era of horsepowered vehicles drew to a close with a corresponding

surge of popularity in sport coaching.

turies.

Americans

time we recognized

elegance and strength.

body was appropriated by automobile makers for almost all

early coupes; as late as 1923, Ford was still making a Model T with essentially the same passenger compartment. But the most interesting thing
style of its

about this brougham

is its

history.

dent Theodore Roosevelt, used for

It

was the presidential vehicle of

official

Presi-

occasions throughout his admin-

istration, and on many occasions by his successors, even after President

William Howard Taft motorized the White House fleet. The brougham
remained in White House service until 1928.
America's mt)st famous horse-drawn fire steamers came from Manchester, New Hampshire, where in 1859 the Amoskeag Manufacturing Co. built
its first. The firm was acquired in 1877 by the Manchester Locomotive
Works, which continued making horse-drawn Amoskeag steamers until
1908, for a total of 839. The museum's example, serial number 809, came
in 1906, near the era's close, and is a worthy representative of the twilight
years of steamers. Was there ever a creature t)f the American road as for-

midable as this great, smoke-belching machine, storming out of

its fire-

housc behind a three-horse team.' The splendid Amoskeag served in

Detroit's Engine Company Number One, where it was called "Big Mike."
All by itself, the pumper constitutes a textbook in American industrial
design at the turn of the twentieth century.

138

few early Victorian inventors fiddled with systems

to

a^

add power to that humiliated protobicycle, the

A Scot produced a

hobby horse.

in 1839.

New

lever-drive device

A true breakthrough occurred in the

York soon

made them under Lallement 's

TTie museum's beautifully crafted example dates about 1870.

little use;

by 1871,

Strangely, the boneshakers of the 1860s

and iron

tires

have

bizarre creaticms that

1860s,

even with

their

patent.

received very
as public

wood spokes

more modern look about them than the

came next. Back in England, even as the funeral rites
a slightly

of boneshakers progressed, James Starley produced the

"ordinary."

It

many communities had banned boneshakers

nuisances.

The odd-looking highwheeler was based on

principle: the larger the

wheel where power

is

first

highwheeler, or

a useful

mechanical

directly applied by a crank,

the farther and faster the device will go with each foot-powered revolution.

The

practical limit to the principle

manufacturers went to the

ically forth after 1878.

many

similarities to

was the length of the

maximum, wheels

rider's legs.

As

of sixty inches rolled majest-

By the early 1880s, technological progress brought

modern

bicycles: wire spokes, lightweight frames,

pedal construction. Yet the gigantic front wheel, tiny rear wheel, and solid

rubber

tires

were overpowering features.

Of the museum's number of ordinaries, none

1884 Expert Columbia.

Thomas

It

is

is

more

like the vehicle that

significant

than an

dashing adventurer

Stevens pedaled around the world from 1884 through 1887. lb be

for much of the way; by all odds, a heroic,

The manufacturer of Stevens's bike was the formidable
Colonel Albert Pope, who was also a major lobbying force for good roads
and cyclists' rights. Cyclists' rights? Indeed. With the sudden bike boom,

sure,
13,

he also rode and pushed

500-mile odyssey.

some roadside property owners became

affluent, sporting bikers. Teamsters,

toll

gougers, fleecing the generally

claiming the bikes scared their ani-

mals, shoved sticks into the highwheelers' spokes.

League of American Wheelmen and pushed

maps; they sanctioned races and

rallies,

The

bikers organized the

for better roads, signs,

and

dressed in distinctive uniforms,

built motel-like clubhouses. With bikes costing $150 each, it was a

game for well-to-do adventurers. Downhill speeds of 30 m.p.h. were attainable, and outings traditionally covered 100 miles per day, no mean feat on
the available roads. Such riding was dangerous, for the highwheeler had a
depressing tendency to pivot forward on confronting a serious obstruction,
pitching the driver straight over and down on his head. American ingenuity

and

could produce only one major change during the perilous 1880s: switching
the big wheel to the

rear.

Then

The

rakish, low-slung grace of the Victoria per-

fectly suited the style-conscious

Gilded Age. This

when two Frenchmen applied a simple crank with pedals to the front axle. One
of the inventors, Pierre Lallement, moved to Connecticut and built and patented the first American velocipede, or "boneshaker," in 1866. The firm of
Pickering and Davis of

Opposite.

the rider could pitch hacVMarA.

141

Brewster
1875

fine

cynosures of America's
example came from the shop of
York City, sometime around

& Company of New

142

In 1885, the English technical wizard James Starley, inventor of the high-

wheeler, decided

its

He

time had come.

applied a chain and sprocket drive

system on a bicycle of two equal wheels called the Rover, and began popularizing a

new

era of "safeties.

The

"

bikes of today

all

had

their clear begin-

many dashing
wheelmen took reckless pride in their all-male hobby, and resisted the
namby-pamby influence of low-wheeled safeties. Women had begun taking
ning in Starley 's Rover. Yet the

to

shift

was not immediate,

for

English-import tricycles, on which the rider sat between two majestic

rear wheels. In about five years, however, all that

was passe, and both

men

and women turned in droves to the new bikes. When Colonel Pope began
producing the Columbia Veloce safety in 1888, the stage was set for the biking phenomenon of the 1890s. Irish veterinarian John Dunlop provided the
final necessary modernization, the pneumatic tire, in 1888.
Suddenly a new social structure developed around biking. Young women
now possessed a degree of individual freedom of mobility that only the most
dashing horsewomen had known before. Fashion and etiquette arbiters

warned against the dangers of

unchaperoned young people loose on the roads. But most Americans
struggled to cope. Conservative ministers

accepted the bicycling craze of the 1890s as a happy, healthy social phe-

nomenon, while the decade spawned at least 190 popular songs about bicyThe museum's 1889 Columbia is a good example of the machine that

cling.

so heavily influenced those golden years.

The

biking rage and

potential for commercial riches

its

opened the era

of consumer marketing in transportation. Manufacturers cultivated bike

races as sure-fire attention-getters.

Such

star riders as

Waltham Manufacturing Co., maker

is

publicity-conscious

of the popular Orient line, created a

famous ten-man bicycle that was demonstrated

grotesque, old "Oriten"

young Barney Oldfield

The

staged challenge races, paced by four-man teams.

at races.

The

historic,

if

today one of the museum's most popular bicycle

Another is the powder blue 1900 Tribune Blue Streak once owned
and raced by Barney Oldfield. A similar Tribune carried Charles "Mile-aMinute" Murphy on a historic 1899 ride in which he slipstreamed behind a
exhibits.

speeding train to become the

first

human

to pedal a mile in less

than one

minute.

few pioneers

spiritual

descendants of the great

Oliver Evans, the steam originator, or stirred by

the short-lived success of British road steamers

tinkered with steam for highway power in the middle

nineteenth century.

Among

vehicles in the country

bury, Massachusetts.

was bom; his

ten vehicles.

Roper

leisurely

the most successful, early self-propelled motor

was the one

built his

built by Sylvester
first

Hayward Roper of RoxHenry Ford

car in 1863, the year that

and

production schedule extended until 1896

The museum's

totaled

Roper, acquired by Henry Ford personally, dates

143

opposite. This Railway Express freight

worked

in

Ohio and Indiana

until 1928

wagon

of 1902

From 1880 to 1890, America's favorite bicycle

was the Expert Columbia "ordinary." manufactured by CoPope of Boston. In 1884, daring wheelman
Albert
lonel
Thomas Stevens began a successful round-the-world ride
opposite.

on

model

just like this one, also

made

in 1884

Below. Designed by prominent English bicycle innovator

James Starley, this 1885 Rudge rotary tricycle sought

tempt female bikers in the age of high wheelers

145

to

146

Left.

An

early prunidtiunal

dream machine, the ten-man

to the excellent Orient

Oriten of 1896 drew attention

"safety" hikes of

Waltham, Massachusetts

Above. This 1865 Roper steam carriage

vehicle In the

museum's

bury, Massachusetts, built his

in 1895.

The

Ford in 1930

147

is

the oldest motor

collection. Sylvester
first

Roper of Rox-

steamer in 1863; his

last

charcoal-fueled Roper was acquired by Henry

The

first

motiircycle to be sold cotntnercially, the 1894 Hil-

&

WolfmuUer seems rather modern-looking tor its

debrand
date of manufacture. The two-cyclinder, four-stroke engine
was cooled by water carried

in the rear fender

from 1865, and

The Roper

is

is

probably America's oldest original operable motor vehicle.

a clean-lotjlcing car of the buggy style, appearing far

than some famous marques

of later decades.

more

agile

two-cylinder charcoalbumer,

the brakeless Roper was stopped by engaging reverse or by throttling down.

as

more

wonderful curiosity than potentially valuable means of transportation.

The

Alas, the sturdy

little

unit was viewed by both the public and

its

owners

WW

Austin, exhibited the car at

owner of the museum's model,
county fairs in New England and the Midwest, challenging crack trotting
horses to a race. Austin and the Roper usually won. A broadside t)t the time
original

claimed the

common

car,

rosvds."

carrying two people, could be driven 150 miles per day "upon

A charge of twenty-hve cents was imposed to view "the most

wonderful invention of

148

modem

times."

Considering the public's long exposure to the Roper as

challenged the nation's best horseflesh,
of significant impact.

That

was a steamer,

it

time was steam's heyday.

few years

from

the Doble

endured

a boiler of live

into the 1930s. Still, the

steam did produce some squeam-

and they were expensive

ishness. Boilers did explode,

by the

steam cars

in the 1890s, a veritable fleet of

bouncing along on

its

after all, the

The power source was accepted fatalistically

later,

appeared, and one marque

idea of

car's lack

trailing wisps of smoke

underslung exhaust, should not have been a major objection

public.

successfully

it

hard to explain the

it is

and compli-

to build

The power source that would drive the world's automowas announced from Germany in 1876: Nickolaus August Otto's four-

cated to operate.
biles

cycle, internal

more than

combustion engine. Despite

a century. Otto's principle

every four-stroke engine in the world

mechanic

over

who

growing awareness that

ever, that in the
first

off the

mark

in
in

to every

and exhaust.

it is

moot

question. Scant doubt remains,

how-

annals of internal combustion, Germany's Karl Benz was

in 1885

with a workable

Moreover, he was the

car.

first

to

for public sale, building sixty-nine vehicles

between 1885 and 1893. The museum's surpassingly

cipede represents the world's
it,

intact,

invented the automobile has been defused by a

produce a quantity of cars

called

made
unchanged

the improvements

the sequence known

as intake, compression, power,

The argument

all

would remain

first

production

car.

Benz Velo-

rare 1893

The

Velo, as

devotees

its

incorporated some very modem-sounding mechanical systems for

time, including a carburetor, a gearbox, a differential, and water cool-

its

ing.

Apart from those

fully original

features,

it

resembles an ungainly carriage; wonder-

and archaic looking, the Benz seems

ancient tomb, and hears as

much

superficial

Add

to

its

other

firsts

that the

Years later Benz

ler,

and

their

III.

gawky Benz

gripped the international market, exporting two-thirds of

compo-

to the

nents of modern transportation as the funeral boat of Thutmose

Velo was a sensation.

from an

to have sprung

resemblance

its

Yet the

instantly

production.

would link up with fellow-German pioneer Gottlieb Daim-

company

prospers today.

tributions in the earliest years.

An

Many

others

made

eccentric Austrian

a variety of con-

named

Siegfried

Marcus tinkered promisingly, shunted to other projects, and was almost forgotten. American George B. Selden applied for patents on gasoline-powered cars as early as 1877 and, while never marketing a
royalties

from

a variety of

car, profited

under

manufacturers until defeated in court by Henry

Ford.

The

birth of motorcycles was nearly simultaneous with that of cars.

French "boneshaker" manufacturer, Ernest Michaux, clapped

a little

steam

engine to one of his products in 1867 American Sylvester Roper also made
a pufferbelly motorcycle. But steam

two-wheelers, and

when

was simply the wrong power source

for

Gottlieb Daimler successfully applied a gasoline

engine to a bike frame, the die was

cast.

Daimler moved on to automobiles,

149

ISO

leaving
first

it

to a small

group of engineers in Munich to produce the world's

production motorcycle. They began experimenting in 1892, and in

just

two years the new Hildehrand &. WolfmuUer Company was manufacturing
an open-frame two-wheeler of a conformation that hardly seems out of
place today, almost a century later. Studying the museum's H&.W, it seems
remarkable indeed that such a machine was contemporary with the first

modem bicycles,

and half a decade

cylinder, four-stroke engine

after the

heyday of high wheelers.

A two-

with jump-spark ignition drove the cycle

at a

respectable twenty-four miles per hour.

The magic

year for the

American automobile industry was

the Duryea Brothers marketed the

car.

first

Originally from Illinois, Charles and

plant in Springfield, Massachusetts.

in 1893,

and

America's

built another in 1895.

first

1896,

when

production model of an American

J.

Frank Duryea ran a bicycle

They successfully tested

With Frank at the tiller,

automobile race, sponsored by the

their

first

car

won
Chicago Times-Herald. He
that car

traveled the fifty-five-mile affair at an average of seven miles per hour.

Wagon Company, the brothers launched proThe museum's example is the third of
and is apparently the only survivor. The little

Organizing the Duryea Motor

duction of cars to retail for $1,500.

thirteen identical vehicles,

Duryea has an appealing look of clean, jaunty

often distinguishes the buggy-based

American

simplicity, a quality that

cars of the late nineteenth

century.

Other American pioneers are well represented in the museum's vast

A tall, two-seated 1897 Haynes-Apperson recalls
the saga of Elwood R Haynes of Kokomo, Indiana, a metallurgist who in
1894 designed a car, persuaded the Apperson Brothers (Elmer and Edgar)
to build it, drove it successfully, and continued making cars until 1925,

motor vehicle collection.

believing to his grave that he had built America's

went on

to build splendid cars of their

first car.

The Appersons

own, including the famous

Jackrabbit.

By 1898, the year of the Spanish-American War, even a few motorized

The museum's enormous Riker of that year

With an empty weight of 7,550 pounds, the huge

trucks were in regular service.

was

electrically

powered.

maroon truck carried a payload of two tons in its quarter-century of service

Altman Company of New York. Such department stores as Alt-

for the B.

man's were among the

first

commercial establishments

to appreciate the

value of motorized transport, and reliable electrics could be used effectively

for local delivery service despite their short range.

museum's

historic truck,

Andrew

L.

unusual distinction even for his technically

motor vehicles driven by

and
to

electricity

its

all

The

Riker of Brooklyn,
fluid time.

of the three power sources

builder of the

New

York, had an

He manufactured

steam,

gasoline,

that fought for supremacy as the nineteenth century

came

close.

151

Motor Wagon is one of thirteen

making it the first production car

opposite. This 1896 Duryea

identical automobiles,

'^^nitakiMM

^t

f
'M

^^^x9 Sl^^

t*

XT"
*

t^^r

_^V

Trhnnphs

ofRoad
aiidSky

he Messrs. EXiryea, Haynes, Apperson, and Riker

had plenty of company as they jockeyed for positron

A
^
were

noisy,

they ran at

ers

all.

more than

sixty

American manufactur-

were making automobiles. Mostly the vehicles

undependable, and

While some
cars, the

in 1900, for

fragile creations that

twitched feverishly

when

Such unserviceahility was aggravated by the American roadway.

city

and suburban

streets

could adequately accommodate motor-

unspeakably primitive nature of the nation's rural roads seemed an

overwhelming obstacle. However, such conditions offered a built-in marketing

opportunity. Reliability

ging rights of the

first

and speed

in conquering such conditions created brag-

magnitude. From the outset, manufacturers encouraged

the sporting side of motoring as young bloods

bought cars and organized

was getting from Chicago

races,
to

deserting their bicycle clubs

endurance runs, and

Milwaukee

in

one

day.

It

hill

was

long-distance journeys would shower commercial benefits

Alexander Winton of Cleveland was one of

bicycles to
creations,

climbs. Endurance

clear that successful

on any manufacturer.

this breed,

switching from

make his first car in 1897. Two years later, driving one of his own
Winton made a breathtaking run from Cleveland to New York in

forty-seven hours,

and was greeted by cheering throngs as he drove down

new two-seated model he called "a mar-

Broadway. In 1900, he introduced a

vel of simplicity that

gence."

can be understood by any person of average intellirare Wintons, a tiller-steered, four-

The museum owns one of these

153

Opposiie.

The museum has

number

of cars associated

with famous names and newsworthy dramas of the past, but

this

1940 Chrysler parade car

twenty years by

New

and other notables

is

in a class by itself.

Used

for

York City to carry kings, war heroes,

in ticker-tape parades, the

Crown Im-

phaeton here carried General Dwight D. Eisenhower

World War II victory parade. Today it serves as the oflicial car for opening ceremonies at the annual Greenfield
perial
in a

Village

Old Car

Festival

m'%M

^rS,;s<:;i::'-

liif

III
III
>^i^i

:/

-yrTM/
^^--^^

;-<?

W.lham

Ford, a successful Michigan

farmer,
Dearborn Township farmhouse

built thi

in 1860. Henry Ford

wa
born here ,n 1863, and here,
as a boy help.ng on'
rhe farm
he had h s hrst encounters
with machinery. As an
eiderJN
tycoon Henry Ford finally
had the house

held Village in 1944

moved

to

Green
wiccn

156

passenger

number with wire-spoked

wheels.

Winton's glory would soon he diluted. In

1901, driving a brawny, seventy-

horsepower racer against Henry Ford in a two-car event

Winton took an
Ford pulled ahead to win
ing Club,

at the Detroit Driv-

But his engine began smoking and

early lead.

in the car that survives today as

museum's rarest racing machines.

It was a crucial point in the career of young Henry Ford,
his years of incomparable impact

on the automotive

matic as he was. Ford comes at least partially into

against the major events of his

just

one of the
beginning

Complex and enigperspective when seen

age.

life.

Even the time of Henry Ford's birth was significant: July, 1863, the
month of Gettysburg, one of history's great watersheds. While generals
Meade and Lee pondered their next moves. Ford was horn on the family
farm in Dearborn, a

fertile rural

area just west of Detroit.

The proximity

to

such a major, growing city stimulated the production and marketing of such
profitable

commodities

as dairy products

and

hay, helping the Fords to pros-

per from the time young Henry's grandfather emigrated from Ireland in
1847.

By 1863, William Ford, Henry's

around Dearborn, and had

just

father,

owned 237

acres of farmland

completed the two-story frame home typical

of those in the region, plain but not totally graceless. Henry was

bom

in

one of three upstairs bedrooms.

He soon revealed a marked mechanical aptitude, which was encouraged
by his father.

The boy was

fascinated by watches, and soon was repairing

neighbors' timepieces with tools he

lifelong passion for self-reliance.

made

On

himself, a telling forecast of his

the farm, which was technologically

ahead of the average, he helped maintain equipment

for

haying, harvesting

small grains, and dairying.

For six years he attended school, a period starting at age seven that would
constitute his entire formal education. Yet the boy's formative learning was

Motivated strongly by teachers of high

quality, he drank
William Holmes McGuffey's Readers, and was thereby influenced toward an independent, questing life. A
crushing blow came at a vulnerable age, 13, when his mother died of child-

surprisingly rich.

in the practical, positive philosophy of

birth's complications.
years. In 1879,

Henry worked on the farm

full-time for three

more

aged sixteen, he walked into Detroit and found work as an

apprentice machinist, a point from which Ford's

life

stands as a paradigm

Opposite.

Henry Ford himself was at the wheel of the first

Winton in a dramatic con-

Ford racer, defeating Alexander

test at

the Detroit Driving Cluh.

tached, intent Ford

of the stunning rapidity of change in the peak years of America's indus-

the 1901 car

and of the opportunities that could be wrested from that turbulent pageant. He moved quickly between mechanical jobs: building
streetcars, casting iron and brass, working on steam engines. Already
Detroit had become a major manufacturer of many types of machinery. The
first generation of American automobile makers was in basic training.

Top.

trialization,

when he married Clara Jane Bryant of Dearborn

new house on forty acres bestowed by Henry's father,

Ford tried farming again

in 1888.

They

built a

157

is

is

in the

The man

beside the mus-

identified as Oliver Barthel. Tciday,

museum's collection

Working in a small shop at his Detroit home, young

Henry Ford completed this little vehicle in the spring of
1896. He called it his "Quadricycle," and took it for a trial
run on June 4, with a friend bicycling alongside. After
tinkering with it for six months, he sold it for $200; in
1904, he bought it back for $65
Bociom.

two-cylinder, in-line, four-horsepower engine

displacing 59 cubic inches was the power plant for Ford's

Quadricycle

1S

but the call of Detroit's machinery was too strong, and in 1891 they

back to the
ity,

city.

Eager to study the sensational

Ford began working

for the

new

Edison Illuminating Company. Nights he

He and Clara got

experimented at home, building a gasoline engine.

ning

for the first time,

moved

applications of electric-

clamped

to the

it

run-

kitchen sink, on Christmas Eve,

1893.

The next

step was building his

first

car in a small brick dependency

behind their Bagley Avenue home. Ford called

it

the "Quadricycle."

We

detract nothing from that historic proto-Ford by recalling that Benz, Duryea, Riker,

and others were already

in production. For a thirty-three-year-

old self-taught mechanic, building the

simple angle iron for the frame and

of tufted fabric was

little

wood

mounted above the

He used

car was a triumph.

for its

skimpy body.

A buggy seat

two-cylinder, in-line gasoline

engine, and the entire tiller-steered production rolled on bicycle-type

An electric

bell,

tires.

mounted on the leading edge of the dashboard, warned of

the vehicle's approach.

Ford failed to tailor his car to the door of his woodshed-workshop, so

first run he had to rip out the wooden frame and
Then, with a friend riding beside him on a bicycle, Ford
made his first test drive on June 4, 1896. He tinkered with improvements
for the next six months before selling the vehicle for $200.
Three years later Henry Ford resigned from the Edison Company, determined to build automobiles, and was personally encouraged on his course

before the Quadricycle's

several bricks.

by

Thomas Edison

himself. In the protean year of 1899, fresh automobile

companies bloomed and died almost daily

in our industrial cities,

and

Ford's earliest venture perished with the majority. In 1901, he returned with

the two-cylinder racer that defeated Alexander Winton.

Encouraged by the racing

notoriety. Ford next built

New

two ferocious-looking

named them "999"

race cars with huge four-cylinder engines,

(after a crack

York Central locomotive) and "Arrow," and enlisted young bicycle

racer Barney Oldfield as chief pilot. Dramatic photographs of the daredevil

driver,

clutching the two-handed

but

for Oldfield,

Arrow

it

tiller

of 999, created an instant notoriety

was Henry Ford himself who,

in 1904, drove the giant

new world's record for the mile,

American car and driver in the

across the ice of Lake St. Clair to a

91.37 miles per hour, etching the

first

records of auto sport. For serious racing fans, a pilgrimage to 999

stop in the

Ford in 1903 created the company that continues today.

A a jaunty,

The

successful runabout also called the "Fordmobile"

steering wheel instead of a

styles, testing his

produced a

is

the

first

museum.

tiller.

first

Model

sported

Ford quickly offered a variety of sizes and

design and engineering ideas on the market. In 1906, he

large, costly tourer, the

Model K,

his

first

six-cylinder car. All

the early Fords possessed a certain style, an indefinable hint of rakishness

to

adorn their mechanical excellence. Compared with most cars of the

159

Opposite. Bicycle racer Barney Oldfield switched to cars in

the

dawn

of

auto racing, and gained

still

more

notoriety.

Here, in 1902, he grasps the steering tiller of Ford's famed

"999." Ford himself raced in his early cars

Above. In 1903-04, the fledgling Ford Motor

erated on Detroit's

Mack Avenue

Company

op-

in a building represented

hy this one-quarter-scale structure.

The Mack Avenue

op-

eration was an assembly plant, with parts btought in and

assembled

at

work

stations.

The Model T and

acles of assembly line production

Ford's mir-

were years in the future

160

time, Fords

seemed jauntier and somehow more

K was no exception,

yet

even as he made

it

kinetic.

Ford was

The

lavish

Model

dissatisfied, for already

he was planning the work of genius that would put America on

self-pro-

pelled wheels.

y 1903, Alexander

Winton was

ultimate endurance

ready to essay the

trip: coast-Xjo-coa^t.

hig-

bodied, two-cylinder model, equipped with one of

the

new

steering wheels and driven hy H. Nelson

Jackson, churned across the continent in a race finished in sixty-three days.

Winton's satisfaction was

Less than a

brief.

month

later,

much

smaller one-

cylinder Packard shaved two days off the Winton's time.

That was

a particularly ironic

blow

to

Opposite, clocku;ise /rom upper

Alexander Winton. The Packard

Ward and William Dowd, were well-off young Ohioans

who had been provoked into building cars after buying a Winton in 1898

brothers, James

and experiencing

their twelve-horsepower,

San Francisco

to

mechanical trouble. In the great race of 1903,

a fiasco of

2,200-pound maroon roadster was driven from

New York by

Packard shop foreman

Tom

Fetch, relieved by

Marius Krarup. They sensibly packed such accessories as logging chain and

make their own road. The

two-month saga of Old Pacific, as the car was named, launched the Packard
Company on its long and distinguished career. Tiday the original Old
Pacific is one of the rarest relics in the museum.
pick and shovel, because in places they had to

America's turn-of-the-century car manufacturers accounted

seven thousand automobiles in 1900, year of the

United States.

Of the

first

for less

than

auto show in the

exhibitors in the great event, held in

New

York's

Madison Square Garden, not one survives as a car maker, although at least
two continue in altered lines. Oldsmobile was around, but didn't make the
show.

Young Ransom
tric cars in

Olds of Lansing, Michigan, had built steam and

E.

the 1890s before producing his

first

gasoline vehicle

wagon on enormous wheels

rather like a child's

in 1897

elec-

shaped

He moved

to

went into production, and soon stalled out with an unpopular,

money-losing first edition. Olds was experimenting with several new
Detroit,

models when a

fire

early in 1901 destroyed his factory,

saved was the prototype of a

curved in a graceful

scroll.

little

The

car was Olds's last hope.

Lansing, he produced 425 units in 1901, and 2,100

created 20,000 curved-dash models while

Oldsmobile was America's

first

ing one-third of the nation's

duction by two years.

The

making

mass-produced

new

little

and the only thing

one-cylinder runabout whose dashboard

Moving back

history as well; the

car.

to

1902. By 1905 he had

Merry

For a time Olds was

sell-

and he beat Henry Ford to mass proOlds became an enduring legend as one of
cars,

those rare cars to be clasped to the public

bosom

in universal affection

161

/e/t.

These are the Henry

Ford Museum's 1903 curved dash Oldsmobile, 1912 Rauch

electric town car, 1901 Columbia
and 1910 Stanley Steamer runabout

and Lang
ria,

M:iove. Stately, quiet,

Electric

and

electric Victo-

tractable was this 1914 Detroit

once owned by Mrs. Henry Ford

162

simple, reliable, well-made, easily controlled (and

some would

say cute)

machine. The museum's example, a 1903 model weighing only eight

hundred pounds,

is

a celebrated representative of America's oldest contin-

uing car maker.

Almost a

third of 1900's

ducing about

fifteen

The

was Columbia, which had emerged from

new models were

hundred

pro-

leader

electrics.

the ample organization of bicycle king Albert A. Pope in 1896. Pope would

go on to make a number of marques,

like

Pope-Tbledo and Pope-Hartford,

but the museum's 1901 Columbia Electric

is

a rare early

Hartford, Connecticut, tycoon's excursion into cars.

gant, having

example of the

also unusually ele-

been designed by an important carriage draftsman of the

William Hooker Atwood,

popular.

It is

The combination

of that classic shape with the clean, silent glide

of electric power created the era's ultimate car for the dignified

timid

day,

to follow the lines of the Victoria carriage then

owner. And women

felt

or

that they needed electrics, for cranking a

turn-of-the-century gasoline automobile required

maximum

and shoulder power.

Even after the advent of self-starters on gasoline

cars,

bicep, wrist,

around 1912,

elec-

known of some 150 companies to

make them was the Anderson Electric Car Company of Detroit, whose
famed "Detroit Electric" was made from 1907 to 1942. The museum owns
trics

enjoyed a share of the market. Best

two Detroits from the heyday of the

stately black 1914

electric car, 1912 to 1920.

One

is

the

opera coupe that was once the personal car of Mrs. Henry

Ford. Another popular electric is the museum's 1912 Rauch and Lang, a
company demonstrating the continuity that sometimes occurred in the car
business. The company had made fine horse-drawn carriages in Cleveland
since 1853, and began making electrics in 1905. The 1912 town car clearly
traces the Rauch and Lang heritage with its interior of pleated plush, an
upholstery theme rooted in the era of luxury carriages. Mechanically superior as well, the Rauch and Lang was pushed along by its forty-one-cell
Exide battery through six forward speeds, three reverse. Mourn as we may

low speed,
proved the

the passing of such majestic machines, their handicaps

trip

span between charges, excessive weight

in

short

end

insuperable.

The experience
trics:

of steam-powered cars roughly paralleled that of the elec-

each type had

Steamers were

fast,

prone to catching

its

advantages and

smooth,

fire,

reliable,

and slow

to

its

devotees, but each

its

fatal flaw.

but a bit complex and expensive,

work up

to operating pressure.

ance, they were more flexible than electrics, but

On bal-

women shied away from the

The manufacturers that made

Maine-bom Stanley brothers, E E.

necessary fiddling with valves and gauges.

steamers popular and practical were the

and E O.

a pair of bearded, derbied, identical twins

from Newton, Mas-

The Stanleys, who had already succeeded in producing X-ray

equipment, home gas generators, photographic dry plates, and violins, pro-

sachusetts.

163

Oppoiiie.
tion

is

One

Old

of the most historic cars in the Ford collec-

Pacific, the

Packard that endured a sensational,

two-month, coast-to-coast dash

in

1903

vided additional proof that clever inventors and tinkers could,

minds

their

to

it

duce a better car.

And the Stanleys made it look deceptively easy.

an immediate

steamer, in 1897, was

cality.

The

if

they set

and applied some hard-headed Yankee business sense, pro-

Stanleys, keen

Their

combining grace and

success,

and decorous, followed the crowd

way: seeking the publicity of successful speed

trials.

The

in only

Ormond

Beach, Florida, at 127.66 m.p.h. in a torpedo-shaped Stanley Rocket,

ting a

new

world's record

win since Henry Ford

To

and becoming the

in 1904.

sure raised to a prepotent 1,300

first

American car and

The next year, with

pounds (compared

was

the racer's steam pres-

seriously injured in the ghastly mess; while

servative Stanleys lost heart for racing.

The

set-

driver

to the Stanley standard

of 600), Marriott reached 197 m.p.h., went airborne,

riott

one

were

results

breathtaking. In 1906, race driver Fred Marriott hurtled diiwn

first

practi-

and crashed. Mar-

he survived, the con-

fact that the boiler did

not

explode was inadvertently a publicity bonus, but the Stanley was always
(Jpp'isite.

cosmetic

The immurtal Model

tacelitts in the

while

it

would undergo

course ot a nineteen-year history,

the original car (exemplified hy this 1909 model) remained

largely

unchanged

GMC

trucks and
Direct ancestor of today's
coaches, the 1906 Rapid was huilt by Detroit's Max

Above

Grabowsky

totally safe

from steam explosions; the brothers wrapped so much piano wire

around each boiler that bursting was impossible.

The museum shows two

Stanleys of high interest.

1903, eight-horse-

power model demonstrates the new design of 1902 that established the
Stanley's superiority over other steamers.

passenger Model 60 runabout

coffin-shaped

was

The

fast,

1910, ten-horsepower, tour-

the classic steamer of

hood proudly garnished by the

smooth,

their prices

is

American

legend,

brass script, "Stanley."

its

Here

powerful car for the modest figure of $850. Keeping

down was

further proof of the Stanleys' ingenuity, for they had

no truck with cost-cutting mass-production methods. Painstakingly crewhich ended

ating each car by ancient shop methods, their production
in the
ers

middle 1920s

totaled only eighteen thousand. All told, the broth-

were atypical ornaments of the early automobile business, even to the

tragedy that darkened their final years. In 1918, F E. heroically ditched his

steamer to avoid some careless roadblockers, thus becoming the

first

American car maker to die at the wheel of his own product.

Famous as it was, the Stanley did not have everything its own way

impor-

tant

in the

The chief competitor was the White, begun in 1900 by the

long-succe.ssful White Sewing Machine Co. of Cleveland. Early models
showed speed and reliability, and when the museum's 1902 Mt)del A Stanhope was introduced, the company bore down on one technological advantage White had on Stanley: it would get steam up taster. "Gives pressure in
world of steam.

five

minutes," White's ad copy said. By 1907 such Whites as the museum's

G touring car carried a majestic "Pullman" be)dy on

trimmed out "in the most luxurious fashion which
the carriage builder's art can suggest." The high, regal White, made originally for a French customer, was clear proof that in just a decade or so of
manufacture, American cars could compete with European ones in luxury

seven -passenger Model

a 115-inch wheelbase,

and sophistication.

164

'"^''WWP''^*

165

One

most appealing vehicles is also the historic ancestrucks and buses. Max Grabowsky, a talented

ot the collection's

tor of a long line of

Detroiter

cumbed

who had mastered

to the

under his

modem

the trades of machinist and locksmith, suc-

motor vehicle rage in

own name, Grabowsky

1901. After selling a few delivery trucks

switched to the Rapid

started building heavy gasoline-powered trucks as

enter that uncertain

field.

When

passenger vehicle, he called

applied to such machines.

with a cruising speed of

drawn

vehicles,

and was

it

The

title in

1904 and

one of the very

first

to

he created the museum's 1906, twelve-

a "tourist"-; the

fifteen miles per

word "bus" was not

to its name,

Rapid lived up

successful

hour

it

was twice

yet
for

as fast as horse-

a particular favorite for station-to-hotel service

nee Grabowsky was

sightseeing. For such reasons, the

Rapid

candidate for acquisition in 1909

when William C. Durant,

and

a logical

probably the

greatest organizational genius ot the automotive industry, was putting

The Rapid

together the General Motors Corporation.

under GM, and

lives today as a

throve and grew

world leader in trucks and buses. Grabowsky

name is today's GMC Truck &. Coach Division.

The Rapid gleams in pin-striped, showroom-new restored condition, as
do many of the museum's vehicles. Others survive in original condition,
and thus in varying degrees display their honest scars. That may be more
by another

evocative

made

if less

in Battle

beautiful.

One example

is

the rare 1909

American

truck,

Creek, Michigan, one of the few surviving early vehicles

with four-wheel drive. Despite having only two cylinders, the American
could pack a heroic five-ton load in

its

stake body.

Plumbing manufacturer David Dunbar Buick had already earned his way
into the pantheon ot innovation with a process for porcelainizing bathtubs.
Thereafter the challenge of the infant automobile business was too great to
ignore,

and Buick formed

his

company

in 1903. His reasonably priced,

sturdy car was acquired by William C. Durant,

company

to a place in industry sales

who by 1907 had pushed the

to Ford. The 1908 Model

second only

F in the museum collection was a good buy at $1,250; it was a straightforward car, whose side-entrance tonneau held five adults and whose twocylinder opposed engine generated a respectable twenty-two horsepower.
But the most significant thing about the museum's oldest Buick

is its

date,

1908, the year that Durant organized General Motors.

ntil

Ur

the Mtxlel

T Ford burst on the .scene in Octo-

ber 1908, cars were

still

toys for the well-to-do.

But the new. car was Instantly recognized as the

ong-awaited auto

for

the multitudes, and

ous usefulness shone through at the unveiling.

If

today

it

high off the ground, remember that the Ford was designed to

quagmires and clear the high-mounded centers

its

marvel-

appears comically

chum

of dirt roads. Pivoting

through

on

inge-

nious front nidius rods, cushioned on indestructible transverse leaf springs, and

166

rolling
trails

on chrome-vanadium

and

Advanced

steel axles,

the "T" was huilt to grapple with rocky

bumps.

cruel

for its time, the

engine was cast en bloc with four big cylinders

and, wonder of wonders, a detachable head. While

power may seem small,

engines. Nothing

it

on the

its

twenty-two horse-

was impressively greater than most steam traction

car,

with the possible exception of the planetary

transmission, was too arcane to be grasped and repaired by any reasonably

demand for simplicity meant there was little to

magneto produced the car's electricity. A single pump disengine, transmission, and universal joint. Gravity fuel feed

coordinated amateur. Ford's

go wrong.

pensed

and

oil to

thermosiphon cooling system forestalled troublesome pumps. The car

carried five in reasonable comfort, cruising at forty miles per hour

twenty-three miles per gallon.

The back

seat allowed

milk cans. At a price of $850, the Model

was

room

and

for a farmer's

a premier

mechanical

miracle.

Demand was

so strong that, by 1914, Ford

expanded production system on

a scale

had launched

a radically

unprecedented in manufacturing,

and grafted mass production onto the principle of

moving assembly

line.

Ford said he got the idea from a long-established technology in the mid-

western meat-packing industry, "the overhead trolley that the Chicago

packers use in dressing beef."

The

butchers were taking things apart; Ford

work
Model Ts through the
plant, belt conveyors fed parts to each work station. "Mass production,"
Ford wrote in his usual terse prose, "is the focusing upon a manufacturing

reversed the process and retained the basic principle of bringing the
to the worker.

As

moving assembly

line carried

project of the principles of power, accuracy, economy, system, continuity,

speed and repetition."

The man-hours

required to assemble a car soon dropped to about one-

tenth the former time, enabling Ford to drop prices as well.

The

car that

$850 in 1908 would average from $300 to $600 for most of its
long career. By 1925 a basic roadster without electric starting cost $260, a
fully equipped "Fordor" sedan $660. For a time, more than half America's
new cars were Fords. In the T's glorious eighteen-year history few mechanical changes ever came. Electric lights and optional self-starters were the
main technical refinements. The bright colors of early Fords were abolished
in 1914, and the brass radiator was a war material casualty in 1916.
A degree of cross-pollination marked the early automobile industry and
its motley crew of machinists, engineers, tinkerers, and promotional
geniuses. Henry M. Leland, a distinguished Detroit manufacturer of
machine tools, was first associated with Henry Ford in about 1901. Then
Leland quickly gave birth to the Cadillac, of which the museum's 1903
specimen is a rare survivor of the first production year. In 1912, Henry
Leland's Cadillac sprang two genuine innovations: a standard self-starter
and standard electrical lighting, first in the industry. Cadillac had won the
retailed for

167

On

the line in the Highland Park Ford plant, 1913: drop-

ping an engine into a

new Model

important Sir

Thomas Dewar Trophy

bihty in 1908;

American

starter, a sure sign

duced the nation's

time

when

Still

for its

mastery of parts interchangea-

scored another o( the coveted Enghsh awards for the

it

cars

had come of

Leland intro-

age. In 1915

V-type, water-cooled, eight-cylinder engine at a

first

the industry standard was four cylinders.

not finished, Leland in 1920 created the Lincoln, a massive prestige

car that he proceeded to

unexciting bodies

make by such expensive methods and with such

Henry Ford bought

that the venture was soon in peril.

the company, retained Leland's quality, restyled the bodies, and experi-

enced instant success on unveiling his new prestige

to those early Lincolns, they

car.

In an odd tribute

were soon favored by gangsters and police.

Henry Ford also gave one to his friend Thomas Edison. That car, a green
1923 V-8 of eighty-one horsepower, is displayed in the museum today, with
a photograph of Edison at the wheel.

When William
in 1909,

Durant was

General Motors

fitting together the pieces of

he hired French immigrant Louis Chevrolet to drive on his Buick

racing team. Durant lost control of

would stage

GM

dramatic recapturing years

almost as soon as
later)

began (he
over, began

it

and, starting

name fortuitously
first-year Chevy in 1912 found it

manufacturing a car newly designed by Chevrolet, his

enhanced by fame
a tough performer,

as a racer. Buyers of the

and the car succeeded despite

Some snap was added

a
is

companion touring

to the line in 1914

car,

its

rather

dowdy

profile.

with the Royal Mail Roadster, and

the Baby Grand.

The museum's

1915 Royal Mail

indeed a rakish sport, with an elliptical gas tank of distinctive profile

The Royal Mail was a good value for $750.

Many high-quality cars came and went in the tumultuous early years, but
for many Americans of means the choice was defined by a glib alliteration:
"Packard, Pierce-Arrow, or Peerless. "The Cleveland-based Peerless reigned
from 1901 to 1932, invariably as expensive as it was lovely. The museum's
slung behind the tonneau.

1911 Peerless Victoria closely

resembles the best horse-drawn carriages of

the transition period, and

leather-topped body was applied by Brewster

its

& Company for a total cost of $6,250.

a

Despite

its

vast dignity. Peerless

mechanical innovator, and one of the few makers of limousines

endurance runs, completing a 1,500-mile struggle from

New

was

to enter

York to St.

Louis in 1904-

Good

as

it

was,

somehow

the Peerless never quite lodged

itself in

ican folklore as Pierce-Arrow did. Perhaps that was because

to consistently

ury

advanced engineering, top

Pierce had a gimmick: after 1913,

faired into

its

fenders.

Thus

its

reliability,

a jewel-like

to affixing

1904

P-A

Amer-

in addition

and Olympian

lux-

headlights were ostentatiously

in a time of bewildering automotive variety, the

Pierce was so instantly recognizable that in only

company stoop

its

name

one year (1928) did the

The museum shows

to the radiator shell.

roadster with a fifteen-horsepower, two-cylinder

engine.

169

Opposite, clockwise /rom upper

Henry Ford Museum's

left.

Shown

here are the

Packard
"Twin Six," 1929 Packard speedster, and 1915 Chevrolet
Royal Mail
1911 Peerless Victoria, 1916

Above. Pierce-Arrow produced

its first

car in 1901

seum's 1904 "Great Arrow" looks sleek for

its

time

the

mu-

170

The end
lights

and

of the "brass era" roughly coincided with the advent of electric

starters after 1912,

although some

cars, like Fords,

clung to brass

radiators until World War 1. Most car owners and chauffeurs rejoiced in the
freedom from polishing brass, and enjoyed their reflections in the easy,
durable shine of new nickel-plated fittings. With lights, starters, and styling

came new engineering

progress, a surge forward just before

Packard was a clear polestar among luxury

cars. In 1916,

World War

I.

Packard scored

with the introduction of the twelve-cylinder Twin Six, a V-12 of superb per-

formance and

flexibility,

num

While

pistons.

its

and the

first

American engine to employ alumi3,000 revolutions per

eighty-five horsepower at

minute may seem bland today,

it

was sensational

in 1916.

A racing version,

De Palma to a new land speed

into World War I's famous Liberty

generating 240 horsepower, carried Ralph

record. Soon, the

Twin Six would evolve

aircraft engines, first of a long line of distinguished

the

air.

ing car

The museum's example

on

of the Twin Six

a 125-inch wheelbase.

not diminished

its

The

is

Packard power plants for

a gigantic black 1916 tour-

passage of almost seventy years has

force of character, revealed in a trenchant, almost brutal,

mass of angles, curves, and

rivets

under a vast leather top. "Ask The

crouched behind imperious headlamps

Man Who Owns One," indeed; everyWhen Warren Gamaliel Harding

one already knew he craved a Packard.

became the first president motor-home to his inaugural, he rode in

ard Twin Six.
The firm's red hexagon trademark already was long established by
well as the distinctive radiator shell contour that

a Pack-

1916, as

would evolve into one of

the loveliest in automotive history in Packard's aesthetic heyday, 1928-36.

Such examples as the museum's 1929 tan and black speedster are among the
most pleasing cars ever built, and epitomize the avidly desired "classic era."
But other choices confronted those smitten by the lust for advanced performance. Mercer and Stutz were special favorites of the hugs-on-the-teethand-goggles clique before the term "sports car" was even coined. Mercer, of
Trenton, New Jersey, unleashed its legendary Type 35 raceabout in 1911.

The

Mercer's greatest rival, the Stutz Bearcat,

came from Indianapolis,

War 1, both cars were

Indiana, in 1914. In their best days, just before World

brawny, stark machines that to the dismay of

down and

refined at the

dawn

of the flapper age.

macho purists were toned

The museum's 1923 Bear-

More grand touring machine than true

and black Stutz is still a jaunty, appealing roadster,
ahead of its time in style, and a favorite with museum visitors. Not far away
stands a 1916 Mercer sport touring car that testifies to the marque's reputation among automotive insiders of its time. It was the honeymoon car of
Mr. and Mrs. Edsel Ford.
Another speedster of formidable vigor was the Apperson Jackrabbit, of
which the museum shows a six-cylinder specimen from 1916. In the 1920s
a new performer arrived that would eclipse almost everything on the road.

cat confirms the domestication.

sports car, the yellow

171

Opposite.

Hubcaps from wooden wheels

of the teens

and

twenties recall some once familiar, hut long departed, au-

tomotive names

and August, hegan making distinguished

1, and hy 1920 they scored well on the
sports car market with the racer-based, ninety-horsepower Model A. It car-

The Duesenherg

hrothers, Fred

racing machines before World

War

ried the unusual refinement of four-wheel hydraulic brakes, pioneered by

the Duesenbergs

when most

cars

struggled to stop with rear-only

still

mechanical brakes. In 1926, the Indianapolis marque was obtained by financier E. L. Cord, who was already making popular and sporty Cords and

Auburns

Auburn, Indiana. Cord gave the Duesenbergs carte blanche

in

to

build the biggest, fastest, most altogether noble car in America, and they

responded with the wonderful Model

in 1928.

A "Dusie" could accelerate

Upon

to 100 in seventeen seconds.

from zero

its

monstrous, 153-inch-

wheelbase chassis, America's finest custom coachhuilders

kins,
opposite.

The

1931

Duesenherg

is

one of today's ultimate

collector cars

Above.

The

Duesenherg managed
its

he-man days

before World

War

draped

their best

bling the $8,500 cost of a chassis alone.

Stutz Bearcat of 1923 showed considerable re-

tinements from

Le Baron, Murphy

ever,

Derham,

Jud-

coachwork, more than dou-

Though

a car for millionaires, the

to survive the Depression to

1937

Its last

years,

how-

were without the uncompromising leadership of Fred Duesenherg,

who

in 1932 joined

driving their

Model

E. Stanley in that select fraternity of car

product.

The museum's

makers killed

majestic, two-and-one-half-ton

convertible Victoria dates from 1931.

Owning

When

own

the factory led automotive pioneers to some irresistible caprices.

Walter R Chrysler planned a new Imperial landau

tor his personal

use in 1932, he began by decreeing an all-aluminum body tor the big 146-

inch wheelbase chassis, powered by a high-compression straight eight ot

125 horsepower.

He ordered such deluxe

interior features as a bar, desk, van-

When

he received

ity cases,

and, naturally, a rear speedometer and ck)ck.

the car

was blue, but Mr. Chrysler changed his mind about the

owned

it

Ming

vase hearing a subtle,

the factory, and repaint.

like

The

result

smoky shade

was a

lovely,

ot red;

match

color.

thcU,

He

he told

low-slung creation glowing

cinnamon-hued marzipan, today one of the museum's most

artistically

satisfying cars.

Chrysler was entitled to enjoy the

fruits

of his success.

veteran of the

Buick and Willys organizations, he took over the Maxwell-Chalmers firm

in

1923 and soon replaced those names with his own, adding a luxury line

Dodge Company, launched the new

marques Plymouth and De Soto, and the modern Chrysler Cttrporation was
on its way. The Dodge had been a reliable it somewhat stodgy workhorse for
of Imperials. In 1928 he acquired the

years, favored for desert expk)ring

and army

use,

and by prosperous tarmers.

Dodge touring car, uninspiring as it may seem, repreits fenders broad and stout enough to lug bags
sents the sort of yeoman car
that endeared itselt to Americans more concerned with pracof fertilizer

The museum's

1918

ticality

than aesthetics.

enormous consternation among his dealers by

months to retool. Ford sent forth the Model
A. The industry's greatest sequel was a bit overdue, as time had caught up
several years before.
the immortal Model T
with the wonderful Flivver
In 1927, having caused

shutting

down

his plants for six

172

173

174

The

nation sang a popular

and the Model

new

song, "Henry's

Made

T was an overnight anachronism.

Lady Out of Lizzie,"

But

was the quiet

it

ence of Edsel Ford, more than Henry, that gave the Model
of design, resembling a baby Lincoln.

The "A" was one

its

influ-

excellence

of the very few basic

cars available in such snappy configurations that even the wealthy did not

mind occasionally being seen in one. A good example

sam green 1928 roadster; another the 1930 phaeton.
Ford tried to give the very

Thomas

Edison,

who

first

one

said thanks but

is

the museum's bal-

two-door sedan,

off the line, a

he preferred open

to

Ford remade

cars.

the car as a four-door phaeton, trimmed in leather. Edison accepted the

which in later years was presented by Mrs. Edison to the

museum, where it joins a select gathering of cars of famous personalities.
One is Charles A. Lindbergh's 1928 Franklin sedan. As Lindbergh's "Spirit
revised version,

of St. Louis" was air-cooled, the public relations value to the air-cooled

Franklin was evident, and the firm renamed one series the "Airman."

Morgan's Rolls-Royce

is

body by Brewster graces the 1926

Harvey

J.

another link with names of the past; an American

S. Firestone ordered a massive

1929 Lincoln with convertible

Victoria body by Dietrich, a leader in custom bodywork.

The

Firestone Lin-

coln reveals a Dietrich innovation: a back seat in a two-door convertible.

Among many

Ford family cars

is

Edsel's

chassis.

own Continental,

a design created

)/i/)Nsiif

Walter (.luvslcr's l'M2 ImpcTi.il

iwcs

its

Above. Sequels often disappoint, but not Ford's Model A,

one of the best cars of all time. After almost twenty years
of the Model T, the "A" was perhaps overdue; it lasted only
from 1927 to 1931. But then, as years passed, such models
as this 1928 roadster never really waned in popularity, and
eased gradually into the status of collector's item

under his personal supervision.

The museum's
V- 12 convertible limousine was built tor King George
VI and Queen Elizabeth, touring the U.S. and Canada in 1939. It was
dusted off again for a North American visit by Queen Elizabeth II and
Prince Philip. Another 1939 Lincoln attracts a great deal more attention,
however: the White House "Sunshine Special," an enormous four-door
Lincolns seemed to attract celebrities, or vice versa.

rather British-looking

convertible crafted for President Franklin D. Roosevelt,

with the top down. In 1942, security demanded

plating,

and bullet-proof

glass,

tires,

and

its

who enjoyed

fuel tank.

Bearing

weight uncomplainingly, the huge car rolled through World

eling with

FDR

riding

remodeling with armor

its

War

five-ton
II,

trav-

and Malta. President Truman finally retired the Sunshine Special in 1950, and accepted a new Lincoln, which served even longer. In the Eisenhower administration, the
addition of a new plastic lid over the rear bestowed its enduring nickname,
"Bubbletop."

to Yalta, Casablanca, Teheran,

The

car served as a spare during the administrations of John

F Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and arrived at

in 1967. Still
its

another presidential Lincoln

associations are tragic.

Kennedy

The

is

its final

museum home

here, but unlike the other

two

1961 convertible sedan that carried President

motorcade

in Dallas seems to surprise visitors. "Is that

"Are you sure?" Long, black, and somehow enigmatic, the car underwent major rebuilding and armoring after Dallas, and
finally was retired from White House service in 1977.
t)n his final

really the car?" they ask.

175

color to

Chinese vase from the auto magnate's collection

i^

176

The development

of America's networks of automotive dealerships, a

necessary apparatus, was rooted in the bicycle

boom

of the 1890s. Local

bike dealers were accustomed to franchise arrangements with such

facturers as Pierce Arrow, Pope, Rambler,

When

manu-

Steams, Waverly, and White.

making cars, many bicycle agencies became car

Henry Ford, himself an enthusiastic biker, plucked many

the factories began

dealers overnight.

successful two-wheel dealerships for his fast-growing dealership chain. For

the dealers

it

was a natural progression, and a necessary one; bikes entered

a precipitous decline in popularity as the twentieth century progressed.

The

red-blooded bikers of the 1880s and '90s were the pioneer automobilists of

The

the 1900s.

addition of the coaster brake in 1906 was basically the last

great bicycle invention. By 1910, bicycles were for kids.

Motorcycles were something

Hedstrom, created the

first

else.

Swedish-born toolmaker, Oscar

"Indian" for the Hendee Manufacturing Co. of

Springfield, Massachusetts, after only four

months on the

success in the marketplace, the Indian also proved

first

its

job.

An

instant

mettle in the nation's

motorcycle endurance contest, a Boston-to-New York run in 1902. For

more than

fifty years,

until the line's

lamented passing in 1953, Indians

were a daring, rakish accent on the American road. The

early specimens: a

and gold

ing red

museum shows two

1904 that weighs only ninety-eight pounds, and a dashpounds.

1911 of 140

Harley-Davidson, the
cycle manufacturers,

last

made

model that needed a push

survivor of

its

more than 150 American motor-

debut in 1903 with a one-speed, no-clutch

to start.

Production date of the museum's

first

Harley, a gray and maroon entry with a squarish tank, was 1907. After
World War I, our motorcycles took on essentially the profile that endures
today, and some of the museum's handsomest examples are veterans of the

Charles A. Lindbergh's twin-cylinder Excelsior was delivered to

jazz age.

him new

in 1920, whereafter

he used

pearance, but more powerful with

it

its

for

about

five years.

Similar in ap-

big four-cylinder engine, the

mu-

Opposite. Successor to the "Sunshine Special," this 1950

convertible Lincoln limousine served four United States

presidents, but

is

chiefly

senhower years when

its

remembered from the Dwight

tonneau was

Top.

War

The 1939
II.

Presidential Lincoln,

accompanied

FDR

to

such key settings as Yalta. Casa-

blanca, and Teheran. After the war, until 1950, the car re-

mained
Truman

in

White House

service under President Harry S.

Bottom. Next to serve the

car, this 1961

in the parade in Dallas

1963. Extensively rebuilt thereafter,

motorized

fire

tractors pulling existing

modem

White House

fire

trucks were gasoline-powered front-wheel-drive

steam pumpers. As early as

1910, however, the

truck appeared, drawing both motive power and

pump power

from a single gasoline engine. Perhaps as a bow to the turbulent traditions

new equipment was more ferociously strident than necand would remain so. Fire trucks were so massively engineered that
they never wore out but were phased out as technological refinements oc-

of firefighting, the
essary

Many today are in the hands of private collectors. The museum

shows a handsome 1928 American La France, of Elmira, New York, that
curred.

remained

in the city service at

Wayne, Michigan,

for half a century.

177

as

primary parade

Lincoln Continental was carrying President

John F Kennedy

first

dubbed the "Sunshine

The armor-plated behemoth (9,300 pounds) even

the speed was insufficient to outrace the Great Depression. Cleveland failed

The

Ei-

with a plastic

Special," carried Franklin D. Roosevelt through World

seum's big Cleveland of 1928 could better one hundred miles per hour, but

in 1930.

fitted

"bubble top"

it

on November 22,

was used by four sub-

sequent presidents and retired in 1977

178

he glamour of early 1900s motor vehicles had

counterpoint in the

its

of steam railroading.

virility

By 1902, when the museum's magnificent AlcoSchenectady passenger locomotive was built,

built

Gone were

the clear image of the twentieth century was apparent.

the high,

quaint, Gothic domes, the bulbous exhaust stacks, the overall balance of vertical

and horizontal

Instead, the

lines that

Schenectady

thrusting forward as

if still

is

made

the older engines objects of such charm.

the very image of power, immensely high yet

yearning to speed out on the Detroit-Chicago run

at its enormous, slim-spoked drive wheels and

machined connecting rods; climb into its solid walnut cab and see the
big dials and gauges, and all the nickel-plated trim. Imagine the Schenectady
thundering through the Midwest in the year before the Wright Brothers flew. In
such machines we see the start of the final phase of America's romance with

Look

of the Michigan Central.

crisply

the railroad.

Original coaches appropriate to the time include the private Pullman, or

business car, of a Michigan railroad president.
terior, just as

heavy and

solid as a pre- World

Its

War

massively crafted oak in1

designer could possibly

reminds us that George Pullman himself began his career as a cabinetmaker (although Pullman was long dead before this car was made). Like

make

it,

Cyrus McCormick, but

Pullman moved

for different reasons,

to

Chicago,

would be the hub of future transcontinental train travel over vast distances. He began making sleeping cars in
the 1850s, and during the Civil War created the innovative luxury car with

correctly perceiving that that city

convertible berths that set the pattern for generations of "Pullmans."

1867 on, the Pullman Palace Car

Company

From

seum's early twentieth-century "combination"

local runs,

it

The

hoi polloi trav-

car.

Very useful on small

included a coach, a smoking section, and a baggage

is,

years)

is

in

recent locomotives in the collection are as dissimilar as any

its

way, historic in the extreme.

The

paradoxically the most modern, for

sion into Diesel locomotive power.

Homely

it is

One

same work.
two (by fifteen

for the

older of the

the museum's only excur-

as a rolling construction shack,

the 1926 IngersoU-Rand represents the nation's

comotive.

first

successful Diesel lo-

of a series introduced in 1925, the machine was built in a

cooperative venture among General Electric, the American Locomotive

Company, and Ingersoll-Rand, which manufactured the Diesel engine and

marketed the locomotive. Power from the six-cylinder

oil

burner was con-

verted into electrical energy, used in turn by the locomotive's traction

tors to

produce strong,

mo-

smooth motive power. It was, as engineers

a means of getting the benefits of electrical power

reliable,

of the day saw the matter,

motor scooter was the Autoped of

for its tiny,
if

he man-

Above. Rakish mounts of our lengthening motorized past,

1911

179

still

suggest excitement and speed.

Indian (top) was one of a long, distinguished, and

The
now

extinct line. This one-cylinder model cost $225. Charles

A. Lindbergh bought the two-cylinder Excelsiot (bottom)

new

in 1920,

and drove

sonally presented

two machines could be, granted that each was designed

Each

first

one-cylinder engine: an Autoped driver could,

these early cycles

mu-

compartment.

The most

America's

Pcrtormance was certainly respectable

aged to keep standing, reach 35 m.p.h.

eled in less elegant circumstances, frequently in such coaches as the

and

)/)/>i'Mii-

1915.

controlled the luxury long-

distance trade through the golden years of railroading.

lines

(.

it

it

for

to the

about

museum

five yeats. Later,

he per-

>^

180

without
tricity.

all

the bother of building overhead wires and transmitting elec-

They were

correct in everything.

The IngersoU-Rand

mid' 1920s were so good that they remained in service

seum's example labored at the

New

Ingersoll-Rand, until donated to the

and thus despite

altered,

most
a

one of

Jersey plant of

museum

Diesels of the

The mu-

for decades.

in 1970.

It is

parents,

its

original

and un-

exceptional lack of charm constitutes one of the

its

satisfactory industrial-history artifacts of all time.

Old Number 90

is

genuine pioneer.

The same cannot be said for the most recent locomotive in the museum's
The 1941 Chesapeake & Ohio Allegheny class coal burner is

collection.

one of the

largest, strongest

motive power sources ever

one of the most beautiful. That

it

was one of the

War

more than
II

sixty like

built,

and

in a sense

only adds an ineffable

The Lima Locomotive Works

sense of doomed allure to the giant "Big Al."

built

last

in the 1940s, all destined to haul the

it

coal of labor chieftain John L. Lewis's United

World

Mine Workers. The

Allegheny's 8,000-horsepower boiler was the largest ever built in a steam

locomotive. The great engine steamed through the mountains of Virginia,
West Virginia, and Kentucky with 160 loaded coal hoppers, a burden of almost ten thousand tons, at speeds between thirty and sixty miles per hour.
More than sixteen feet tall and 125 feet long, the locomotive and tender
weighed six hundred tons, and cost $250,000 to produce in 1941. The
tender carried twenty-five tons of fuel and twenty-five thousand gallons of
water. "Big Al" rolled more than four hundred thousand miles before steaming up to the museum's back door on its final run. The door, naturally, was
too small, and
to

its final

some of the wall was dismantled before the locomotive eased

stop.

The orange

legend

"C&.0

for Progress" still

adorns the

black, brutish snout of the greatest steam engine ever to thunder through

the AUeghenies, and quite probably the favorite artifact of the thousands of
daily visitors to

Henry Ford Museum.

Ford loved steam engines and understood them perfectly, yet he sensed
their ultimate shortcomings.

He knew

in particular that the days of

steam

on the farm were numbered. In 1907, he experimented with an early tractor

even before launching the Model T But other manufacturers beat Ford to
the market with efficient, lightweight, gasoline-powered tractors. By 1913,
it was clear the new generation of lightweight power sources would prevail.
After experimenting for a decade. Ford unveiled the Fordson tractor in
Like the Model

designed to make

plummeted

as the

for instance,

it

was inexpensive,

life

reliable,

1917.

and simple, and thoughtfully

better for the masses. America's horse population

Fordson became our most popular farm

75 percent of

all

tractors

was a humble $495.

Ford had presented Fordson Number

tractor. In 1925,

made were Fordsons. By

1928,

its

OpposUe. Purposeful sculpture

price tag

netics,

Luther Burbank. In

Tof)

One

to that genius of vegetable ge-

later years, gathering

seum, the manufacturer asked

up

for the old tractor back,

munew one

artifacts for his

and sent

181

in steel, the nui-.cum

\'''.':

Schenectady locomotive rolled on 79-inch wheels. This

thoroughbred steamer was built for fast passenger service by
the American Locomotive Company

Supteme creation of the coal-burning

age, the

Allegheny class locomotive generates ineffable

Boltom.

The museum's

CSiO's

star quality

pioneering Ingersoll-Rand Diesel of

1926 heralded the future of

rail

power

'

_"

ji-'\.""#^

'^

^^^"c^

^--

^3I^^P^9^^^^^^^HI^E.
''^^Sm^^^*

182

to replace it. Burbank shipped the machine to Dearborn from his home in
balmy Santa Rosa, California. Water-cooled vehicles like the Fordson required no antifreeze in Santa Rosa, but they did in Dearborn, and the unprotected tractor soon froze. Cracked block and all, the homely Fordson

Number One

is

one of the most

historic

farm exhibits in the museum.

The

Experts refer to two major revolutions in American farming.

first

revolution's peak years coincided with the Civil War, brought efficient

mechanization to the farm, and substituted horse power

for

human

power.

which meant that an individual could farm more land,

continued through the introduction of gasoline tractors, and then culminated in 1938 with an odd-looking red and yellow device of supreme importance. The Massey-Harris combine, which pioneered self-propelled

That

revolution,

grain harvesters, eliminated the towing tractor. Highly maneuverable, frugal with fuel and manpower, and more efficient in gathering grain, the
Toronto-made Massey-Harris combine was the final burst of mechanization
of the first agricultural revolution. The second revolution, which is still in

progress

and not within the museum's purview,

is

the age of agricultural sci-

ence, the use of hybrids, pesticides, and herbicides that has so startlingly
specialized interest than such machines as the

museum's

The

machine of

1912, for

example, stood at the heart of Ford's ability to produce the Model

T so suc-

tieth century reach full speed.

cessfully.

The massive

Highland Park plant

Ingersoll milling

device, twenty-one feet long, was used in Ford's

blocks.

required to run the machine. Similarly,

vast

identical small parts.

Such machine
By the 1930s,
motors.

One

of a kind that enabled one unskilled laborer to produce

first

numbers of
a

bottoms and main bearing

Only one semiskilled operator was
an Acme automatic bar machine

to simultaneously mill the

mounts of fifteen Model T engine

represents the

tools

new

were among the

belt-driven factory equipment.

last

generation of tools was powered by individual electric

of the most significant in the museum's collection

is

a 1941

Bridgeport milling machine. In that streamlined apparatus, painted a nowfamiliar institutional gray,

we

see a

industry: a device, mass-produced

in price

and rugged

work of

One

a production line.

The

is

a 1961

artistic standards,

and

Unimate

robot spent

task of unloading fresh castings

toil

landmark of the machine tool

made other machines. Modest

its

machine

but nevertheless was

industrial engineers.

chronological finale tends to

signal exceptions.

would

that

in performance, the Bridgeport turret milling

art in the eyes of machinists

The museum's

cessors

modem

itself,

was no thing of beauty by orthodox

a

1919.

fall

around 1950, with

robot, the

first

a few

ever installed

on

working career in the hot, dangerous

and placing them

in a cooling bath.

Its

suc-

patiently in a myriad of assembly line jobs.

183

The

other

men

are unidentified

Above. This Fordson, production model #1, was presented

Luther Burbank by Henry Ford,

his

Massey-Harris are exemplars of factory equipment that helped the twen-

Henry Ford (center) seemed pleased with the

progress of a Fordson tractor working near Dearborn in

to

increased production per acre.

Of even more

Opposite.

museum

who

later retrieved

it

for

184

erman

physicist Heinrich Hertz discovered elec-

tromagnetic radiation in 1886. Others took his

laboratory experiments into the zone of practicality,

V
Morse code

for

and
J/arw
'

Italian

more than one mile

Guglielmo Marconi actually transmitted

in 1895. Inventing the

first

practical an-

tenna, he patented his invention in England, where he received financial backing

and

started building ship-to-shore wireless systems for

Among

the museum's

receiver

and transmitter of

haps the

first

relics

from the birth of radio are

1901,

Morse transmissions.
replicas of a

and a 1906 American-made

Marconi

wireless set, per-

production-model receiver.

Experiments soon began with the wireless transmission of voice and music.

England's John A. Fleming invented the radio-wave-detecting tube in

and Lee de Forest created the three-element, or audion, tube, which

1904,

amplified the waves as well.

The next

leg

up came

in 1912, with

Edwin H.

Armstrong's contribution of the regenerative receiver, and was followed in

1918 by his invention of the superheterodyne circuit. The right elements
were in place at

and, in 1920, radio station

last

KDKA went on the

air in

Production-model receivers from the years of radio's commercial beginnings are some of the most appealing examples of American industrial de-

The complete development

the 1920s.
jures

of

RCA Radiola models

is

1924 Federal, a bristling concoction of black

something of the

water Kent Model

thrill that

touched

10, affectionately

its first

owner.

traced through
dials, still

con-

The wonderful At-

known as "the breadboard," is displayed

Anyone who thinks

along with several other rare, excellent specimens.

craftsmanship died with the nineteenth century needs only to examine

these exquisitely

made

radios from the late, lamented Philadelphia

manufacturer.

While the battery-powered

headphones, the

first

made tor
embodthe Bums, a

receivers of the early 1920s were

loudspeakers arrived in 1925.

They were

first

phonograph speakers, like

By 1927, such equipment was
obsolete wherever there was electricity: powerful new models like the RCA
Radiola 17 operated directly from AC house current. The age of modern radio had arrived. The authoritative machine or laboratory look of the battery radio gave way, in a mere decade, to the more liquid sculpture of Art
ied as flaring horns in imitation of

1925 model made of

Deco.

The Atwater Kent Model

II

radio receiver of 19

featured high-quality, molded Bakelite components

mounted on a "hreadhoard." This tour-tube, battery-powered set offered one stage of radio frequency amplification

Pittsburgh.

sign.

Opposite.

The museum

artificial tortoise shell.

captures

its

very essence in a 1935, five-tube Sparton

model whose case is glass tinted a rich, smoky blue, a complex of

planes and curves, the motifs of skyscrapers and sets for movie musicals.
The radio has a companion piece: a General Electric clock set in a halfmoon mirror, on chrome feet.
The 1920s and '30s were the age of radio, but the age of television was
having birth pains. The museum has the evidence in one of the strangest,
rarest devices in the communications collection: the Jenkins Optical Scantable

185

and two stages of audio amplification. Displayed with

here

is

an appropriate Burns loudspeaker, with an

tortoise-shell

it

artificial

horn

Above. This 1936 Sparton Model 558 blue glass mirror

radio, the quintessence of Art Deco, is admired for its
"Century of Progress" styling. The five-tube superheterodyne receiver with a short-wave band was made by the
Sparks-Withington Company

ner.

With

tral lens,

four glass rotating prisms or discs geared together around a cen-

the scanner was the actual experimental

Francis Jenkins of Washington, D.C.

tures for the

time.

first

The

TV camera with which

successfully transmitted

moving

hen one technology has been developed

W-

pic-

date was June 13, 1923.

rity,

we

around

usually look

to find

to

matu-

something new

waiting to replace'it. TTius in the nineteenth cen-

tury's last decades,

when coal- and wood-huming

came gas. But right on the

kitchen stoves had been essentially perfected, along

came

heels of gas

electricity,

with pioneering

electrical stoves developing in the

1890s. Stoves fueled by kerosene appeared as well, to the special joy of rural

housewives. Thus, early in the twentieth century, an unprecedented bonanza

of choices was available. After 1915,

when

the application of thermostats ren-

dered both gas and electric stoves miraculously automatic,

it

was clear that

those two fuels would be the major rivals in urban kitchens.

(Jpp.iMtt'

primal

relic

trom the dawn

ot

TV,

this

is

the

prismatic disc optical scanner of Charles Francis Jenkins.

In 192), he used

it

to successfully transmit "radio vision."

Four rotating prisms, geared around a central lens, formed

a mechanical scanning forerunner to today's electronic

scanning system

Ahne. Something of the pride, solidity, and skill ol preWorld War 1 America is suggested hy these two "railroad
grade" Hamilton pocket watches of 1915-16

A remarkable example of early electric stoves is the 1913 Standard, which

manages to seem perilously topheavy and graceful as a lily simultaneously.
In the T)ledo-made Standard we see the basic black iron structure of the
coal- and wood-burning stove, but ridiculously slenderized, as if announcing that massive fireboxes, grates,

and ash dumps were

Perched high above the soaring burner surface

crowave oven of the 1980s. Those attuned

fashion

may

is

to the interdisciplinary links of

see, in this extraordinary range of 1913, the

then in women's clothes:

skirts

pinched

forever eschewed.

the oven, suggesting a mi-

to a

same

narrow hobble

lines favored

at the ankles,

voluptuous curves in the torso, vast towering headgear.

No

such fripperies of design mark the 1923 Westinghouse combination

electric

and coal-burning range. Massively

was unusual,

practical, ready for anything,

it

by 1923 the standard kitchen range was a slender- legged

for

creatitm in pale porcelainized finish, a style applied to both electric and gas.

Often the color scheme was three-tone, with white, pastel gray, and black.
Typical of the era is the Tippan range in the museum's marvelously authentic re-creation of a 1930 kitchen, a .setting that inevitably strikes mid-

dle-aged and elderly Americans with nostalgia. Every artifact in the

is

R)om

on the stove, the porcelain-topped kitchen

slide-out work surface and flour dispenser, the

familiar: the graniteware pots

table, the

cabinet with

its

small electric appliances, the boxes of prepared dt)mestic products with

bels picturing

young housewives with bt)bbed chestnut

the 1930s kitchen, the Ford

Americans over

The

fifty,

fiftyi.sh

when

collective heart of

its

stacked mass of cooling coils, rciniiids

visitors of the relatively brief histt)ry of electric-powered

cooling. Nearly everyone

also recalls

la-

preparing

and found

kitchen's refrigerator, with

the same

186

Museum reached into the

common memories.

hair, in

who can remember

rhe family next door

still

the coil-crowned refrigerator

used an icebox. By then the ice-

187

important transition in washing machines is

c. 1875 hand-powered rocker scrub board,
and the pioneering electrified Thor, made c. 1907 by the
Hurley Manufacturing Company of Chicago

Above.

An

represented by a

Right.

Americans

past age fifty

may

find the

Kitchen of 1930 a hauntingly nostalgic sight

museum's

box had subsided into a blue-collar bluntness from

its grander years, and was

on the back porch.
Electric refrigerators usually remained in the kitchen or pantry Manufacturers made design changes with extraordinary speed in the 1930s, registering a sequence of contemporary styling themes. Consider the 1938
streamlined Norge, crisp and complacent in black-and-white porcelain and
torpedo-shaped hinges, echoing contemporary cars and skyscrapers. The
advertising copywriter's skill had alreadytriumphed over the engineer's
straightforward thesaurus, and such words as "hydrovoir" and "rollator"
burst upon the 1930s housewife who, late in the Great Depression, was
lucky enough to take delivery of such a marvel.
The 1930s kitchen displays common denominators of the time, and
moves us by its familiarity. But as always, the era had its advancing edge of
style and technology, far ahead of the crowd, and some interesting dead
ends as well. Both characteristics spring ebulliently from a 1930 electric
stove in the domestic arts collection. Like some odd but successful grafting
of stove technology and Art Deco styling onto a Duncan Phyfe pedestal table, the Detroit-made Electrochef is graceful, elegant, and lonely among
others of its time. Its space-wasting shape was doomed by the grubby necessity of pots and pans storage. A monument to uncompromising aesthetic
tenacity, the twin-ovened Electrochef is
if the word can be applied to

routinely located

kitchen stoves

a classic.

In the world of washing machines, the early twentieth century delivered

a pair of

welcome

electrically

tainer with an agitator,

and

powered new mechanisms:

a vertical

con-

a horizontal cylinder that revolved. First op-

erated by hand, the washers soon were fitted with electric motors. Roller
wringers,

which had been around since before the Civil War, were bolted
modem washer had arrived. The museum's formidable 1907

on, and the

Thor Number One

is

a true pioneer of the breed.

And Thor

pioneered

again in the early 1930s, electrifying the wringer.

Many

early labor-saving devices, such as the hand-pumped vacuum

demanded almost as much human energy as they saved. One of the
museum's supreme examples is the 1910 Rochester hand-cranked dishwasher, a truculent-looking wooden hopper lined with galvanized steel, its

cleaner,

viscera bristling with coiled wire fingers to clutch the dirty di.shes.
it was to use, the dishwasher was on the right track. Elsemuseum's encyck)pedic dt)mestic collection are entire evolutitmary cycles which, like that of the dinosaur, simply ended when their
time expired. We are amazed to learn how much effort and ingenuity our
ancestors put into keeping their feet warm. A parade of foot-warmers from

Difficult as

where

in the

the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

made

life

more bearable

for

such

outings as carriage and sleigh rides, for beds, and for such public gathering
places as church,

which was often unheated.

the early days of automobiles.

A few footwarmers lasted

into

Many
like iron

other domestic

relics are

more

familiar to the

modern

eye.

Some,

bread toasters from the days of hearth cooking, at least have mod-

em counterparts.

So do

flatirons,

and certain mashers and

graters.

A sense

of discovery comes with discerning the gradual change in style that marked

new

how

generations of the same product; noting, for example,

tieth-century

aluminum cookware

imitated the massive castings of

Recently, the

museum added

usual break with

its

new development

early twen-

unnecessarily

iron forebears.

its

a pioneering 1957

microwave oven, an un-

general rule of ending the collections with 1950, and

attesting to the revolutionary importance of

truth, as the artifacts show,

around

most of

for a while. Electric stoves

electric waffle irons since 1918,

microwave cooking. For

today's kitchen appliances have

have served us

and

for

in

been

about eighty years,

toasters since 1909.

Westinghouse

vs?"

in-

troduced an electric frying pan in 1911.

"Bathing did not become commonplace in America until the nineteenth
century," snaps the text from a

caught on then,

ber than toilette.

The

stanchion. Small wonder

it

even

bathtubs hints more of torture cham-

brave bather's

made product combining

tin basin that

museum

for the collection of

first

a horse trough

choice was between a cooper-

and

a coffin,

and

a tottery- looking

emulated an inverted sombrero. Other creative designs

opposite,

top.

fol-

The Standard electric stove, patented m

new slenderization made possible by elim-

1913, reveled in a

lowed; most were merely aids to sponge bathing, not relaxing immersion.

inating the firebox. But

When the full power of Victorian innovation focused on bathtubs,

construction features of

One

the results were unspeakable.

with

its

own

hot water heater.

uncomfortably

however,

of the most popular was a folding tub

Some folding tubs, arrayed for action, looked

The main trouble was that tubs were wait-

general conformation of future bathtubs (and flush

toilets,

perfected in the

1890s) had been clearly determined. The shape of the future shows in the
museum's 1894 copper, wood, and zinc bathtub made by R. M. Wilson of
Rome, New York. Tj harbor such welcome new appliances, space quickly
for a separate

room, the bathroom. By

1910, porcelainized fixtures

were the norm, and the modern bathroom was in place.

As American homes waited

for

Thomas Edison

to invent the

phono-

The music

box, an

graph, they were not bereft of mechanical music players.

ancient device wherein delicate metal fingers are plucked by the turning of
cylinders or discs, produced sounds of

marked beauty and

delicacy.

sortment of automatic pianos provided similar repertoires.

One

An

as-

elaborate

alternative was the Violano Virtuoso, which combined automatic piano

with a violin. Probably the favorite toward the end of the nineteenth century,

could not quite break with the

its

wood- and coal-burning

predecessors
Opposite, boltom.

made

this

Norge

The Borg-Warner Corporation

electric refrigerator in

of Detroit

1938

like guillotines.

ing for the general introduction of indoor plumbing with hot running water.
That occurred around the turn of the twentieth century, by which time the

was made

it

and well into the twentieth, was the Regina, made in Rahway, New
Resembling the china cabinets of its time, the Regina was cased in

Jersey.

Renaissance revival

style, "especially suitable for

and some models played

as

many

use in the dining room,"

as twelve discs automatically

with one

191

Above.

Around

the turn of the century, the folding bathtub

with attached water heater served homes lacking indoor

plumbing. Such devices were being offered as

late as

1920

J92

 about

half an hour's worth of music, not had for the turn of the
would he many years before any phonograph could equal it. A
Regina Type 35 in the museum collection dates from c. 1912; the model's
heyday was 1900-1907, though some were made as late as 1920.

winding
century.

It

Opposite.

Modem aviation was born in this shop,

cycles.

They

also designed

dream of Midwestern

ike a

Wright evokes an Ohio nostalgia almost powerful

W
New

yesterdays, the blue-

home of Wilbur and Orville

enough
em

to

mask the house's

historical significance.

when bought by the Wrights' father, it sheltered the famous brothers through much of their lives and, moved to Greenfield Village from Dayton,
remains as it was when modernized by the young Wrights around the turn of
in 1870

the century, the point where

would be forever fixed

it

weatherboarded house retains that precise era when

cessfijlly

experimented with

flight.

probably the most authentic of

the house transcends

its

all

the structure

it is

connection with famous former owners and becomes

society.

itself,

owners suc-

curtains,

Greenfield Village's historic buildings. Yet

and

It is

urban American

instantly,

home life of the 1900-1910 era.

Above all, the Wrights' eight-room house demonstrates
consumer

its

window

Original even to the

a three-dimensional text that explains, vividly

of the

Thus the com-

in time.

fortable,

the final triumph

mass-produced household, beginning with

a "balloon"

frame building made of standardized lum-

and by framing and trim techniques agreed on by carpenters nationwide. All the furnishings, appliances, and housewares inside were factory

ber,

made. Indoor plumbing, a porcelain-lined kitchen sink, aluminum cookware, linoleum on the

floor,

an icebox, and an arsenal of such labor-saving

made life easier for the Wrights and

gadgets as the Bissell carpetsweeper

their housekeeper. Significantly, the

men who

designed one of history's

greatest technological revolutions revealed their strong conservative bent by

deciding against electric light in their 1903 modernization.

comfortable with that old reliable, gas.

They

felt

more

The Welsbach mantles produced

splendid illumination, and gas enabled the Wrights to upgrade their heating

apparatus conveniently and economically.

They designed and

burning fireplace units, surrounding each with

In 1904, the year after their

brought the
at the

first

first flight

stylish tan

at Kitty

running water into their home. The

built gas-

ceramic

tile.

Hawk, the Wrights

pump

they installed

kitchen sink recalls the brothers' modest plunge into indoor plumb-

ing, ultimate

proof of a twentieth-century household.

The Wright Cycle Company

is

now just next door.

and Wilbur seems an unlikely domestic cover

If

the

home

of Orville

for the fathers of flight, their

technological and manufacturing springboard defies understanding. Did the

air age truly

The

begin in this drab, dim shop behind a southern Ohio store?

answer, as

we have

seen,

golfier brothers their due.

is

yes. Give the MontFrenchman Henri Giffard's

complex, but generally

Properly credit fellow

193

and

in

1903

and
Hawk,

built early gliders

planes, including the historic craft that flew at Kitty

North Carolina,

shuttered, pale yellow

originally

Dayton, Ohio. Here, between 1897 and 1907, Orville

and Wilbur Wright manufactured, sold, and repaired biin

194

powered dirigible. Recall Thaddeus Lowe, soaring over the popping muskets

Do not forget Germany's brave Otto Lilienthal,

of Virginia's battlefields.
tally injured in a glider

wreck

in 1896, the

same year that

ley of Washington, D.C. earned little but ridicule for successfully flying
powered models. Yet having made appropriate bows to those and other
,

we must always

oneers,

fa-

Samuel Lang-

Dr.

his
pi-

give the prize to two young, provincial bachelor

brothers from Dayton, the

first

to fly a

manned, powered, heavier-than-air

machine.

Almost alter egos in their interests and abilities, the Wrights mastered
and photography before opening their bicycle business in 1892,
when Wilbur was 25, Orville, 21. They began by retailing and repairing the
printing

bicycles of other manufacturers, but by 1896 they introduced the

their

own

played in the shop today. (The St. Clair displayed on the

is

first

of

An original Wright Van Cleve bike is dis-

models, the Van Cleve.

the only Wright-made St. Clair

known

museum concourse

to exist.

Reading of the experiments of the late glider Lilienthal, the Wrights

dreamed of flying while thriftily attending to business. Their new passion
was tempered by an intensely methodical approach, an innate sense of scientific caution that led them to weigh
and, in general, find wanting
the
day's meager fund of information on flight. In 1900, after experimenting
with kites and small gliders, they began building gliders designed to carry
a pilot aloft, lb study the unknown science of airfoils, they modified one of
their bikes to carry a free-rotating third wheel, mounted horizontally on the
handlebars. On the wheel, in turn, were mounted fragile metal flaps. Pedaling furiously around Dayton, the Wrights gathered their own data on air-

foils

by observing the

of test surfaces.

first wind tunnel, testing nearly

one year making the leap from bike-technology research
the very symbol of aeronautical research laboratories. Meanwhile they

By

late 1901, the brothers

fifty airfoils

to

movement

and

had

built their

in

determined that the broad, oceanfront beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, offered the

optimum

qualities of steady

In 1903, they built their fourth flying

wind and

cylinder engine and two pusher-type propellers.

hindsight,

when
tion.

we can accept

soft, treeless

machine, and equipped

With

as inevitable the events of

all

it

sand.

with a four-

the benefit of

December

17,

1903,

32-year-old Orville Wright clattered aloft in their kitelike contrap-

The

flight

remains etched in drama and surprise nevertheless, a deed

stunning and brave and poignant. In

nology,

is

there a

all

the history of invention and tech-

more imperishable image?

True, the world took

Orville and Wilbur.

little

note at the time, a reaction disappointing to

The Dayton newspaper

ignored their

though the Norfolk, Virginia, press rendered good

if

first flight (al-

inaccurate

cov-

erage). But the Wrights were not of a kidney to be deterred by public

indifference. Rapidly improving their fragile flyers, the brothers were in de-

mand

in

Europe by 1908. French and German companies purchased Wright

195

Opposite. Fdf

mure than

the Wright family

were moved

to

thirty yenrs.

home

house in 1912 of typhoid

in

tiiLs

1^70 house was

Dayton. Wilhur died

fever. In

1938, the

in the

home and shop

Greenfield Villatje under the supervision of

Orville

Above. Orville

(left)

porch of their home

in

and Wilbur Wright, on the

Dayton, around 1910

front

airplanes,

and

Dayton

finally

in the family

typhoid
ratory,
II

fever.

U.S. Army Signal

own manufacturing company in

so, at last, did the

incorporated their

threw

a gala for

Corps.

famous native sons. In

its

The Wrights

1909, the
1912,

same year
still

living

home, Wilbur died of one of the time's implacable scourges,

Orville persevered, founded the Wright Aeronautical Labo-

and invented the automatic

stabilizers that

dive bombers. In 1937-38, he helped Henry Ft)rd

would guide W)rld War

move

the old

home and

shop to Dearborn.
Like the Wrights' home, the shop seems to capsule the very air of 1903.
In the back of the
reflect the

showroom, the

brothers' office desk, chair,

back rooms, where bicycles and airplanes were made,

the original
ville

1%

and typewriter

foursquare probity that marked their owners. In one of the shop's

wooden wind

tunnel.

The

first

is

a reproduction of

one had been destroyed, but Or-

provided information that aUowed Henry Ford's staff to reproduce

it.

Orville, founding father, elder statesman,

1948, into the age of

airman of the dawn,

lived

on

to

jets.

By 1909, the year of the Wrights' home-town recognition, no heavier-

manned

had yet flown across the English Channel, although

more than 120 years had passed since the first balloonist soared across. The
London Daily Mail decided to incite flyers to a Channel conquest by offering
a $5,000 prize. Among the contestants was Louis Bleriot of France, who
had already prospered as the inventor of an automobile searchlight, and
whose new passion was building airplanes. He had already survived several
crashes, but he gamely took off again in his little monoplane, which bore
an odd resemblance to a dragonfly A mere three hundred feet above the
fog-shrouded waves, without instruments, Bleriot throttled his threecylinder Anzani engine against stiff winds and completed the crossing in
thirty-seven minutes. It was the first international airplane flight.
than-air

craft

197

In 1909, Louis Bleriot was first to fly across the English

Channel, completing the world's first international flight.
The daring Frenchman flew a plane of his own design and

manufacture, and
Bleriot in the

it

was the virtual twin of

museum

this other

1908

w/.

WK

.-

.'viVflrjTTjr,

The

is the museum's oldest airplane is nearly

one that flew the Channel, and was built by Bleriot in the
same year, 1909. Its combination of metal fuselage panels with open wood
framework, and the shape and positioning of its black fabric wings and tail,

fragile little Bleriot that

identical to the

reveal the transition period

from the original Wright

ginnings of more modem-looking aircraft.

the be-

flyer era into

The sequence

continues in the

museum's 1915 Laird biplane used by pioneer woman flyer Katherine Stinson; a 1916 Standard J- 1, forerunner of the World War I "Jenny"; and a 1917
Curtiss "Canuck," a Canadian version of the "Jenny."
survivor of
first

more than

aircraft to

ten thousand of

be controlled by a

stick, the

ular barnstormer, air-mail carrier,

As

the founding impulses of

its

and the

modem

The

Curtiss

model went on
first

plane

to

fitted

1919 Curtiss Flying Boat, or Seagull, was the

maker,

Glenn H.

first

The

a pop-

skis.

The museum's

commercial

flying boat.

Curtiss, was another bicycle manufacturer

a swift transition to aircraft; in 1910,

1.

aviation gathered strength in the

1920s, another generation of legendary planes took charge.

Its

become

with

a rare

is

kind made in World War

he made the

first

who made

landing on water, and

pioneered landings and takeoffs on Navy ships before there were aircraft
carriers. In 1919, Curtiss

that

summer launched

began manufacturing the famous Seagull, which

between San Pedro and Santa

regular flight service

Catalina Island, in California. The museum's example has a

wingspan, and

is

powered by

fifty-foot

Hispano-Suiza V-8 of 150 horsepower.

made the first transatlantic flight, in 1919.

Even more renowned were the trimotors of the 1920s. First came the
1925 craft built in Holland by A. H. G. Fokker, and promptly flown by him
to victory in the first Ford Reliability Tour. Subsequent Fokkers, made in
larger version

199

Opposite. "Flivver" had the potential for success as a light,

simple, inexpensive personal airplane. But the crash of a

similar plane

and the death of

its pilot

so affected

Henry

Ford that he cancelled the project

Above. In this 1925 Fokker, the

Lieutenant
flight

first

Commander Richard

over the North Pole

E.

trimotor ever built,

Byrd made the

first

2(J(J

Holland and New Jersey, completed the first Califomia-to-Hawaii flight, the
maiden international flight of Pan American Airways (Key West to Havana), and Amelia Earhart's transatlantic flight to Ireland. But the original
Fokker Number One, the very craft displayed in the museum, participated

more breathtaking news event of the Roaring Twenties: famed exfirst flight over the North Pole, piloted by Floyd
Bennett, May 9, 1926. Byrd, then a Naval lieutenant commander, named
in a

still

plorer Richard E. Byrd's

the ship "Josephine Ford" after the daughter of Edsel Ford,

nance the

who helped

fi-

flight.

Another

historic trimotor

the museum's 1928 Ford (the "Floyd Ben-

is

nett") that carried Byrd,

now

a rear admiral,

The

craft

was powered by two wing-mounted Wright

South

Pole, in 1929.

Whirlwind engines and

acteristic

on the

cowl-mounted Wright Cyclone. With

corrugated skin and plain-Jane

profile.

beloved, dependable craft around the world for

hundred of them were

that

still

built at

Dwarfed by such

museum and

relatively large planes

is

many

years.

its

Almost two

to 1932 in a building

village.

a little-known Ford airplane of

the 1920s that might have changed aviation history, had

tragedy that nipped

their char-

Ford Trimotors became a

Dearborn from 1925

stands, adjacent to the

over the

first flight

it

not been

development in the bud. True to his colors

as a

1926 to build an experimental, one-seat, low-winged monoplane.

sulting twenty-five-foot-wingspan,

ahead of

its

Harry Brooks. Less than two years

killed.

Henry

Flivver project.

ing as though

The

man-

The

in
re-

"Flivver," looking a bit

time in design, was piloted aloft in Dearborn in July 1926 by

endurance record
was

550-pound

Brooks attempted a new

light

plane

Ford, deeply affected by the loss of his pilot, canceled the

The

it

later,

another Flivver, but crashed in the Gulf of Mexico and

in

only surviving example

could

still

is

the original prototype, look-

buzz eagerly into the sky

year 1927 was a milestone in the history of commercial flight.

commenced

of twenty-four Boeing biplanes

the nation's

scheduled transcontinental passenger and mail service.

It

first

A fleet

regularly

was a stop-and-

go process, as the Boeing 40-B2 had a range of only 350 miles, cruising at
105 miles per hour.
pit

The

pilot sat

exposed to the elements in an open cock-

about midway in the fuselage; two passengers with sufficient courage

could be

crammed

into a cabin

between the

pilot

and the

earsplitting Pratt

& Whitney radial engine. The museum's specimen, proudly original down
to the

"United Air Lines

Coast

Chicago-to-San Francisco

Only one

year

later,

Lockheed. The Vega

to

Coast" on

its

battered flanks, flew the

leg of the historic schedule.

a significantly

quickly

more modern

won acceptance

craft

Above. Designed in 1935, the Douglas

DC-3 became

the

backbone of commercial aviation, and many examples were

flying in the 1980s. This one was built in 1939, and

still

logged almost 85,000 flying hours before finally retiring to

for a

Henry Ford decided

ufacturer of affordable transportation machinery,

The Lockheed Vega was a pace-setting craft, and

was the favorite of record-seeking pilots and explorers.
Moreover, it was one of the first successful commercial
airliners. The museum's example dates from 1929
Opposite.

was introduced by

by such pilots as Wiley Post,

Amelia Earhart, Billy Mitchell, Charles Lindbergh, and Jimmy Doolittle;

in such hands it won more long-distance records, over land and sea, than
any comparable craft. Partial plywood construction cut down on the Vega's

201

the

museum

in

1975

202

modern instrumentation allowed

weight, and surprisingly

a pilot to "fly

J
, ,! ^^Qf (mrr, 1Q7Q. it survived
a
dates from ly/y, it <7i.i-i>ii7<rl o
Ihe museums r\andsome example
long career as an airliner, and was used in Arctic exploration. It is restored
today in the white-and-maroon colors of a forerunner of Continental

J T-i

U.ind.

Airlines.

As an

however, the Vega was soon upstaged by that great work-

airliner,

horse of the

air,

the DC-3. Created by Donald Douglas in 1935,

handedly ushered in the age of modem commercial aviation, and

is

reflected

even in the

jetliners of

special one: built in 1939,

it

today

The museum's

it

single-

its

design

representative

is

logged 84,875 flying hours in a thirty-six-year

career with Eastern Air Lines and

North Central Air Lines,

world record

when it retired. In a flight history equaling twenty-five round trips to the

moon, the airplane consumed 25,000 spark plugs and wore out 136
engines.

The

homeliest aircraft in the collection

also

is

one of the most

signifi-

cant. Resembling a soapbox racer grafted onto a giant electric fan, the original

1939 Vought-Sikorsky helicopter was the

first

The
War

practical "chopper. "

designer was Igor Sikorsky, one of aviation's true originals. In World

he pioneered building big, four-engine aircraft in his native Russia. Migrating to the United States in 1919, he designed and manufactured a fa-

mous

flying boat, the

S-42 China Clipper. Sikorsky had worked on the

later, he triumphed with a fab-

helicopter principle since 1919; twenty years

VS-300. In 1943, Sikorsky took

it to Henry Ford on a bril-

ric-covered, open-cockpit craft called the

this very helicopter to
liant blue

October

Dearborn, and presented

day.

Edsel Ford had died only six

seum and

village.

had named Henry

Young Ford

months

before,

company He had never

presidency of the

and Henry had resumed the

mu-

relinquished the reins of the

But while the old tycoon was there to greet Sikorsky, he

II, his grandson, to make the official acceptance speech.

referred to the obstacles Sikorsky

the helicopter as "the

fires

had encountered developing

that temper men's determination."

He called

the

strange craft "one of the marvels of our time."

Sikorsky's test pilot, C. L. Morris, put the craft through

the crowd as a Ford-built B-24 Liberator

overhead on a

test flight.

ing a handkerchief

finally,

nose, the pilot Morris

iron ring.

stunts for

helicopter descended with one wheel touch-

on the ground, then hovered with

mechanic's hand, and

ter's

The

some

medium bomber rumbled high

a

wheel cupped in a

with a spear that protruded from the helicoplike a jousting

Someone pointed out

knight

impaled

the bicycle basket also

a suspended

mounted on the

and Sikorsky said he used that to carry his lunch.

He'd seen transportation collections all over the world, the inventor said,
but this was the best, and it was a privilege to present "his little machine."
nose,

Then he took
last

it

for a final ride,

and the helicopter

fluttered

down

for the

time on a lawn beside Village Road.

203

Opposue. Last

flight of the hrst

hehcpter:

Igor Siki>rsl<v

prcsented
his historic craft to the Henry' Ford
^

Museum

in

^J-'

'mH gji
\

wk
^ 'Wr

.,^^

and

Credits

he combined Henry Ford

Village

The Edison

favorite spots

on

Museum and Greenfield

Institute

earth. But glad as

one of my

is

The wicker

Opposite.

Packard

is

picnic basket on this 1904

a carryover

Model L
from those used on horse-drawn

coaches in the days of elegant

al fresco

dining

was to begin a

^ new
ne book on the world's greatest indoor-outdoor
museum, the work would never have been completed without the support and
cooperation of the institute's curatorial and administrative
their expert guidance,

would surely have

museum and

of riches the

lost

village fling before

staffs.

Deprived of

my way What an embarrassment

any observer! Building a coherent

narrative order for that vast collection of treasures was a challenging

and some-

times frustrating assignment, demanding the sifting of thousands of artifacts,

the study of complex interpretive programs, and the tracing of The Edison Institute's

own

evolution across the years. Fortunately, as

skilled counsel, as well as friendly

encouragement.

say,

Among

had the benefit of

who

the curators

generously shared their expertise were John Bowditch (power and shop

Donna

machinery).

Cheyne

R. Braden (home

arts),

Nancy Bryk

(textiles),

Robert

(horology), Peter Cousins (agriculture), Robert E. Eliason (music),

Hamp

Steven K.

(archives),

Randy Mason

(transportation),

Matteson (communications), Larry C. McCans (guns,

toys,

Donald

photography),

Simmons II (metals), and

Kenneth M. Wilson (fijmiture). Special thanks go to
Matelic, manager of interpretive training, Ed Merrill, manager of

Christina H. Nelson (ceramics and glass), Walter E.

director of collections

Candace

interpretive programs,

Adams,

and John L. Wright, director of education. G. Donald

and public relations, and Peter Logan, of the

director of marketing

institute's

media

relations department, helped in a

Harold K. Skramstad,

Jr.,

throughout the project. Harold Sack, president of

^rk

Israel

Sack, Inc.

City, obligingly shared his rare personal recollections of

antiques collector.
steadfast ally

At my

from the

publisher's, senior editor

project's beginning,

Sheila Franklin also guided

Finally, for

of all

thousand ways. President

rendered enthusiastic aid and encouragement

me

of

New

Henry Ford

as

Joan Fisher was a skilled and

and helped chart

its

course;

^e

and

through dangerous thickets of gist and syntax.

support both practical and inspiriting,

my journeys: Gwen C. Wamsley, my

my thanks to the companion

wife.

All photographs are by Ted Spiegel except for those on

pages 29, 34, 36, 38, 40, 44, 46-51, 56-58, 60, 64, 70,

72-3, 94,

James

S.

Wamsley

205

101,

108, 116, 124, 130,

132-34,

137,

140,

which are reproduced courtesy the collections of Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn,

Michigan

Richmond, Virginia

97,

144-48, 150, 152, 156, 158, 160-62, 164-65, 167-69,

172-79, 181-83, 187, 190 (top), 191, 195-99, 201-2,

Index

A.

]^umhe.-(% in iixAic

Ackley Covered Bridge, J4

Acme automatic bar machine, 183

ivAxcaxe. \]\.us,tmii(m.s

Affleck,

bhott,

Agnew

Anne, 129

Thomas, 42
99

Eagle,

airplane collection, 130, 135,

197-203
Albany cutter,

97, 99, lOJ

Alcobuilt Schenectady passenger

locomotive, 179, 180

Alexander, William, 49
Allen,

Lathrop, 85

J.

85
Amati, Nicolo, 57
Ambler, Enoch, 88
"American blousel' 125
American Diaiaxvxr-j of the English
Language, An, 62, 63
American Eagle Bank, 130
"American flip-flop" hay rake, 48
alto horn,

American La France, 177

American long rifle, 89, 90
American truck, 163
amethyst

flask,

75

Anglo-Irish style cut-glass pitchers,

76, 208
Apperson Jackrabbit,

171

appliances, 122, 125, 186-91

arc lamps, 107

Arkwright, Richard, 35
armchair,

41,

4i

Armington and Sims Machine

Shop, 105, 109, 113, 114-15,
Armstrong, Edwin H., 185

119

Art Deco, 185, 185, 190

"Art Garland" stove, 122, I2i
Artillery Mechanical Bank, 130
Atlantic cable, 95

Atwater Kent Model

receiver, /H4,

10 radio

185

Atwood, William Hooker,

Austin,

W,

163

148

automobile collection, 27 143,

148-51, 152, 153-77

206

147.

automotive dealerships, 177

boring mill, 35

Autoped, 178

bottle collection, 6-7, 51, 75-77,

78-79
Boulton, Matthew, 33

B.

W,

aldwin, Matthias

136

banjo, 84

box stove, freestanding, 67

box telephone, 117
bracket clocks, 55

MathewB.,97, 128
and German silver tuba, 85

Banjo clock, 54

Brady,

banks, 130

brass

"Barber vasel' 129,

BO

brass instruments,

baritone horn, 85
Barlet elbow melodeon, 85

bar machine.

83

"breadboard, thel' 185

Acme

breechloading muskets, 91

automatic, 183

Brewster and Carver chairs, 41

barshare plow, 37

Brewster George IV phaeton, 137

bassoon, 56

Brewsters, 137

bathtubs,

Bridgeport milling machine, 183

191, ]9I

beer wagon, 136-37

Bell,

MO

"britannia" 81

Alexander Graham,

Brooks, Harry, 201

113

Bennett, Floyd, 201

brougham

Bennett Tower, 214

Brush, C.F, 107

carriage, 137

Benz, Karl, 149

Bryant, Clara Jane, 157

Benz Velocipede, 149

buggies, 137

Best Friend, 101

bugle, keyed, 83

Bible,

25

Buick, David Dunbar, 166

bicycles, 99,
J45, 146,

lOl,

MZ

141,

143, 144,

192, J93, 195

177,

Buick Model F 166

Burbank, Luther, 19,

Bums

"Big Mike;' 138

Andrew, 55
dynamo, Edison, 109

Billings,

buses, 166

bipolar

butchers' wagon, 136

Bissell carpet sweeper, 125

181,

183

radio, 185

Byrd, Richard E.

201

blanket chest, 64, 67

Bleriot, Louis, 197, 199

Bleriot

mono-plane, 19697,

197,

C/.i
/ H. Brown

199

& Co.

blockfront desk, 42

Cadillac, 2-i, 167, 169

Blue-backed Speller, 65

calculators, 117

calico cotton, 55, 71

Boeing 40-42, 201

boilers, 32,

camera equipment, 97 117

camera obscura, 97
Campbell, Angelica, 39

33

bones (musical), S4
boneshaker, 141

book and document

27

engine, 105

collection, 25,

119

card table, 42, 65

Carey

jointer, 113

bookcase, 42

carpeting, 73

boots, 73

carpet loom, 73

207

208

caqiet sweepers, 125

clock shop, 23, 26

Carr, James, 128

clothing, 55,

carriages, horse-drawn, 36, 39,

Clymer, George, 95

136-38

57

Top.

Lower left. Covered compute by Gdlinder

"Westward Ho"

Lower

136-38

97

coal-burner locomotives,

Cartwright, Edmund, 35

coal-burning stoves, 186

Carver, George Washington, 20

cobalt slip decoration, 75

Case traction engine, 121-22

coffeepots, silver, 52

Cay ley, George, 130

ceramic heating stove, 45

Cohen, Mrs. D., 20

Cole Brothers engine, 99

ceramics collection, 49, 128-29

Colt, Samuel, 91

chairs, 40, 41,

41,

42, 42

chair table, 40, 41

chariot, horse'drawn, 36, 39

Chesapeake

& Ohio Allegheny

coal burner locomotive (Big Al),

181, J8J

chest(s), 41,

Columbia Electric, 160, 163

Columbian press, 94, 95
column and cornice clock, 86
combines, Massy-Harris, 183

communications
117, 185-86

collection, 113,

comptometer of Felt and

Concord coach, 97

Chevrolet Baby Grand, 169

Chevrolet Royal Mail Roadster,
166, 168, 169

china, 128-29

China

Clipper, 203
Chinese plates, 49
Chinese porcelains, 49, 50, 51
Ching-teh, chen tea service, 49
Chippendale-style chairs, 42, 4i

Corliss engines, 103, 105

cornet, valve, 83
Cotswold Cottage, 45

Chippendale-style furniture, 42-44

cotton, 73

Chippendale-style highboy, 45

cotton calico, 55, 71

Chrysler, Walter F, 172

cotton gin, 55, 61

Chrysler Corporation, 172

coupe, 39

Chrysler Imperial landau, 172, 174

courthouse, 20, 23

Chrysler parade

covered dish,

car, 152

Cincinnati Milling Machine of

creamware

77,

208

pottery, 51

crinoline cage, 125

1881, 113

crock, 75

era bottles, 77

Crolius inkwell, 75

83

cup

Clemens, Samuel, 96
Clinton,

Tarrant, 117

Conestoga wagon, i8, 39, 41

cook stoves, 68, 69-70
cookware, 71
Cooper, James Fenimore, 89
Cord, E.L., 172
Corliss, George Henry, 103

Chippendale-style clock, 55

clarinet, 56,

181, 181

compote, 77

42

Chevrolet, Louis, 169

De Witt,

77, JOO,

101

plate,

righl.

Sons called

Cut-glass pitchers from England

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (right)

cartridges (bullets), 91

War

&

coaches, horse-drawn, 39, 97,

cartes de visile,

Civil

American

Early and middle ninetcenth-cenriiry

pitchers

73, 125

77

Curie, Eve, 19

clock collection, 54, 55, 86, 214

Currier and Ives lithographs, 27

clock movements, 87

Curtiss,

Glenn H., 199

209

(left)

and

210

Oak armchair

Curtiss "Canuck" (airplane), 199

Duesenberg (1931), 173

Top

left.

Curtiss Flying Boat, 199

dump wagon,

137

Top

right.

Duncan Phyfe
Duncan Phyfe

pedestal table, 190

Luuer

left.

piano, 86

Luwer

right.

208

cut-glass pitchers, 76,

Dunlop, John, 143

Durant, William C,
S. Pillsbury Collection,

DahoU carpet

sweeper, 125

M., 96
Daguerreotype, 96, 97, 97
Daguerre, Louis

J.

83

Duryea, Charles,
Duryea,

Duryea

Dutch

137, 166,

169

151

Frank, 151

J.

(car), 150

fan, 119

Daimler, Gottlieb, 149

Danforth, Josiah, 81

Davenport, Thomas, 93
Davy, Humphrey, 93

agle Tavern, 20, 22,

23

decanter, 77

earthenware, lead-glazed, 73, 74

deep-dish, 75

Eastlake, Charles, 128

Deere, John, 86, 88

Eastlake-style icebox, -128

de Forest, Lee, 185

Eastman, George,

delftware, 51

Eby, Jacob, 55

De Palma, Ralph,
desks,

Eddy,

171

G.W.,67
Thomas

Edison,

42

"Detroit Electric T 160, 163

169, 175

Detroit Racing Club, 157

death, 20

117,

Alva,

Diesel, Rudolf, 105, 107

inventions, 111-12

Diesel engines, 105, 107

life of,

107,

119

17,

97,

97

109

Diesel locomotives, 179, 181

Edison bipolar dynamo, 107

dirigibles, 130, 135

Edison electric pen,

117

dishes, 75, 77

Edison Illuminating

Company

building, 107 109, 112

dishwasher, 190

Doble (steam car), 149

Edison Institute, dedication, 19

Dodge touring

Edison Institute buildings, 1723,

car, 172

45,47

doglock, 59
dolls, 130, 131

"elbow melodeon," 85

domesticity, cult, 71

electrical stoves, 186, 190, 190

Douglas, Donald, 203

electric cars, 163

Douglas DC-3,

electric motors,

201,

203

93

Doyen, The, 57
Downes, Ephraim, 214

electric refrigerators, 190, J90

Draise, Karl von, 99

electroplating, 81

Draisine, 99,

Empire Organ Co., 85

lOl

drinking bowl,

silver,

Electrochef stove, 190

52

Encyclopedie (Diderot), 25

drug jar, 51
Duesenberg, Fred, 172

English guitar, 57

Duesenberg Model A, 172

Duesenberg Model J, 172

Eureka mowing machine,

"English square action," 86

121

Evans, Oliver, 96

211

New

from Massachusetts,

England maple armchair,

Queen Anne

1750

chair,

Chippendale

chaii

1755

c.

c.

1650-

1700-25

career, 159-61

ewer, porcelain, 129

Expert Columbia,

141,

143, J44

early

157

154,

life,

education, 157
marriage, 157
Ford, Henry,

Khr
ahric collection,

55, 57, 71, 73

Fairhottom Bobs, 32

Ford B-24 Liberator Bomber, 203

farm equipment collection,

118,

37,

86,

119-21, 120, 181-83

farm steam engines, 120,

mahogany

Ford Dearborn Ttiwnship farmhouse, 23, 154-55

Ford Fordor sedan, 167

121

fashions collecticm, 55, 57, 125

Federal

203

Ford "Arrow," 159

Faraday, Michael, 93

88-89,

11,

Ford, William, 157

clock, 55

Ford Franklin sedan, 175

Fordmobile, 159

Federal radios, 185

Ford Model A, 159, 172, 175

Fetch,

Tc')m,

Ford Model K, 159

fiddle,

84

56

firearms collection, 59, 61, 89-93,

91,

X
T

Ford Motor

Company (Mack

15, 165,

bucket, pitch-doubled, 49

fire

engine

fire

fighting equipment, 48, 49,

130

(tt)y),

27 29

Avenue Building), 159

hose, 49

fireplaces, 45,

Ford Quadricycle,
Ford

98, 99, 99, 138, J39, 177

Number One,

tractor, 181, 182, 183, 183

five -pi ate stoves,

pisttil,

fowler, 61

75

Franklin,

69

freight wagons, 38, 39, 41, 137 142

"friendship" quilt, 70, 73

flintlock fowler, 61

furniture collection, 24-25, 40,

Flivver,

198, 201

"Floyd Bennett" (airplane), 201

Fokker,

A.H.G., 199

Fokker

Number One,

Benjamm, 57 45

Franklin fireplace stove, 45, 66, 67

Fleming, John A., 185

29
"Flivver" monoplane,

91

Fort Meyers laboratory, 19, 112

45

56

C,

183

Stephen, 85

flasks, 51,

J.

182,

Forsythe, Alexander, 91

flageolet,

Fletcher,

181,

Tri motors, 201

Forsythe

Firestone Lincoln, 171

159

Fordson
Forster,

67

15, /5Z

racer, 156

Fordson
Ford

47

fireplace stove, Franklin, 66,

199, 201

Fokker trimotor plane, 199, 199

Ford, Clara (wife of Henry), 23
Ford, Edsel, 171-72, 175, 203
Ford, Henry, 20, 23, 24, 33,65,

41-42,43, 44, 45, 65-67

127-28

alvanometer, 95

Gardner, Alexander, 97 128

gas stoves, 186

143, 149, 156, 177, 181, 182, 196,

General Motors,

201

generators, 107

birth. 157

Germanic

212

166-67

touring car,

Ford "999," 158, 159

92

fire

fire

Ford Model

Ford Model

Cyrus, 93, 95

Field,
fife,

161

166, 169

pottery,

75

German

silver baritone

horn, 85

Haynes-Apperson (motor

Giffard, Henri, 130, 193

hay rakes, 88

Gilbert, William, 37

haystack

Gilmore, Patrick, 83

Headman, Andrew, 75
heating stoves, 67 122

glass bottles, 8. 51, 75-77,

78-79

boiler,

32

glazed earthenware, 73

Hedstrom, Oscar, 177

20
Heinz home, 20

Glidden, Carlos,

helicopters,

glass, pillar

glassware,

molding, 77

128-29

gold bugles,

Heinz, H.J.

117

6-7 83

car), 151

202

Henry, Joseph, 93

Henry

grand piano, 126

rifle, 91, 93
Henson, William, 130
Hepplewhite clock, 55
Hepplewhite desk-bookcase, 62, 65
Hepplewhite mahogany piano case,
58, 59
Hepplewhite sideboard, 65

Grasshopper beam engine, 96

Gray and Woods planer, 112-13

highboy, 42,

"golden-oak" furniture, 128

Grabowsky, Max, 175

grain reapers,

88-89

Grammatical

Institute of the

English Language, 63, 65

Gramme, Zename T,

107

35

gristmill, tower,

Guamerius, Joseph, 57
gmtars,

85

57, 59,

guns, 59,

61,

'^4, 45
Highland Park factory generator, 25

highwheeler,

144

141,

Medad, 61
Hitchcock, Thomas, 59
"hobby horse," 99
Hoe, Richard, 95
hog plow, 37
Hills,

89-93, 92

//ad
-adley chest,

Hertz, Heinrich, 185

Hoover, Herbert, 19

41

Hall, David, 82

horns (musical), 83, 85

Hall, John, 91

horology collection, 23, 52, 54,

Hall,

Rhodolph, 82

Hall flmtlock

55, 56, 86, J86

rifle, 91

Hamilton "railroad grade" pocket

i86,

18,

36, 39,

136, 137

Hall muskets, 91

watch,

horse-drawn carriages,

horse-drawn wagons, 38, 39

Howe,

2H

Elias, 71

hand-pumper, 48, 98, 99

hubcaps, 170

hansom cab, 137

Harahan Sugar Mill, 121
Harland, Thomas, 55

Hunneman pumper, 99
Hussey,

H&

Obed, 88

W motor

car, 151

Harley-Davidson Cleveland, 177

Harley-Davidson Excelsior, 177 U9

harmonicon, 85
harpsichord, 59

Harte, Bret, 96

ice skates, 15

Hatch, EL., 137

Indian (motorcycle),

hats, 73

Indian (India) spinning wheel, 25

Haynes, Elwood R,

cebox, Eastlake-style, 128

151

Ingersoll milling

177,

179

machine, 183

213

214

Ingersoll-Rand Diesel locomotives,

Top

Kip, Jesse, 52

c.

Top

combustion engine, 149

Irish-made plate,

51

Isaac Fiske valve bugle, 85

and M. Peckham park)r

67

knee breeches, 73

Lower

125

suit,

161

Lallement, Pierre,

Jacquard, J.M., 71

lamps. See lighting and lamps

Jacquard coverlet, 73

Langen, Eugen, 105

aird biplane, 199

141

Langley, Samuel, 195

61

45
Janney, E.H., 135
jars, 51, 75

Lannuier, Charles Honore, 65

Jarves,

Deming, 77
Jefferson, Thomas, 37, 57 86

laundry equipment, 127 188, J90

Jehl, Francis, 19

Lee, Robert E., 49

Jenkins, Francis, 186

Leland, Henry M., 167 169

Jenkins Optical Scanner, 185-86

Lenoir, Etienne, 105

stoves,

lantern clock, 55
lathes, 34, 35,

112

lead-glazed earthenware, 74

LeSage, George, 93

187

JohnB., 101
jewelry, mourning, 57 57
John F Stratton alto horn, 85
John Mitchell plan of North
America, 27

Jervis,

jointer,

37

lever-action pistol, 91

Lewis,

Leyden

WK.,
jar,

75

37

lightbulbs, 19

lighting

and lamps,

47, 49,

"Josephine Ford" (airplane), 201

Lilienthal, Otto, 135, 195

80
Jumbo dynamo,

Lincoln,

jugs, 75,

108,

77 93,

107 127

Carey, 113

109

Abraham,

20, 23, 89,

128, 131

Lincoln Continental, 169, 175, 176

Lincoln rocking chair,

K.

ay,

Kendall,

131

Lincoln V- 12 convertible
John, 35

Edward (Ned), 83

limousine, 175

Lindbergh, Charles A., 175

Kennedy, John E, 172

Kentucky rifle, 59

Lockheed Vegas
201, 203

kerosene lamps, 127

locomotives, 4-5, 100,

kerosene stoves, 186

Kinetograph, 112
Kinetoscope, 112

left.

Hamilton pocket watches

now

in Greenfield

of 191')-16

Lower right. Pillar and scroll shelf clock, c. 1820, crafted by

Ephraim Downes of Bristol, Connecticut

jamb

dated

Clock tower of the Sir John Bennett Jewellry

Village

126, 127

Jackson, H. Nelson, 161

rifle,

right.

Knabe piano,

Jack'in-the-Box, 130

stove,

Jaeger

is

1860

Store, originally from London, England,

Krarup, Marius,

S.

c.

kitchen (1930), 186, J88-89

knickerbocker

is

Ladies lapel watches manufactured by the Ameri-

1890; tight,

Kirckman, Jacob, 59

inkwell, Crolius, 75
internal

left.

can Watch Co. of Waltham, Massachusetts. Top

Kip Cup, 52

179, 181, 181

(airplane), 200,

101, J34,

135-36, 179-81. See also

railroads

locomotive (toy), 130, 133

215

Logan County Courthouse, 23

102,

109-11,

no

Lumiere, Louis, 119

Mercer sport touring car, 171

Mercer Type 35 raceabout, 171
Mergenthaler, Ottmar, 95
metal-working lathes, i4, 35, 37
Michaux, Ernest, 149
microwave oven, 191
millmery shop, 20, 2\
milling machines, 113, 183
mills, 35
Miner, Uzal, 83

Lycett, Joseph, 129

Mission-style furniture, 128

log cabin, 65

"Long-legged Mary Anne," 109

Loomis, Samuel, 42
looms, 35, 71
Loranger, Gristmill, 105

Lord Fauntleroy

125

suit, 124,

Lowe, Thaddeus, 130, 195

Lownes, Joseph, 52
Lumiere, Auguste, 119

lyre clock,

Moravian

54

pitcher, 75

Morris, C.L., 203

Morse, Samuel EB., 93, 96

M.

Morton, Herbert E, 23

achine

tools, 34, 35,

112-13,

motion pictures,

112, 119

motorcycles, 148, 149,

183

McCord, Susan, 73
McCormick, Cyrus Hall, 88

motor
motor

McGuftey, William Holmes, 20, 65

McGuffey, birthplace,

16,

McGuttey home, 65
McGujfey Readers, 16,

20

177

vehicles, 27, 121-22,

\2\,

143, 147 148-51

mowing machine,

121

Murphy, Charles ("Mile-a17,

25, 65

Mclntyre, Samuel, 65

McNamee, Graham,

137,

151,

scooter, 178

Minute"), 143
musical instruments collection,

57-59, 58, 60, 81-86, 82,

19

Magic bank, 130

Manny's Patent Reaper, 88-89
"Mansion ot Happiness," 129

music box, 191-92

mantel clocks, 86, 87

muskets, 59,

map

Mussechenbroek, Peter van, 37

Muybridge, Eadweard, 119

collection, 27

Marconi, Guglielmo, 185

8i, 126, 127

music collection, 27
61, 91

Marconi radio receiver and

transmitter, 185

Marcus, Siegfried, 149

Marriott, Fred, 172

A.

Martin, C.E, 85

New Bremen

Mason

Fairlie

locomotive,

4-5

T ational

Game

Ttuirist,"

Glass

bt)ttlc, 51

Newcomen, Thomas,

BO

3 3

Massey-Harris combine, 183

Newcomen steam

matchlock, 59

Newsham, Richard, 48, 49

New Warrior mowing machine,

Matthew, David,

101

New

Maudslay, Henry, 35

Maybury stove, 45
Mcnk) Park laboratory,

216

engine, 33

118

York reaper, 89

Niepce, Nicephore, 96
17,

19, 19,

Norge

electric refrigerator, 190, i90

North, Noah,
Noyes, John,

phonographs.

61

117,

Phyfe,

119

Duncan, 65

piano collection, 58, 59,

0,

boe, 83

oil

112, 191, 193

111,

photography equipment, 96-97,

51

81,

85,

85, 86, 126, 127, 191

tank wagon, 137

pianoforte, 81

Oldfield, Barney, 143, 158, 159

pie plate, 75

Old

Pierce-Arrow "Great Arrow," 169

Ironsides locomotive, 136

Old Number 90, 181

Old Pacific (Packard
Olds,

Ransom

Oldsmohile,

omnibus,

E.

161,

160.

Pierce-Arrow roadster, 169

car), 161, 162

163

"pillar molding,"

77

"Pioneer,"

161

77

pint flask, 75

pistols, 89, 91

18

opaque white glass, 75

ophicleide, 83
organ collection, 85

pitchers,

72, 75, 76, 77,

51,

77

81,

208

Pittsburgh decanter, 77
Pittsburgh glass tumbler, 77

punch howl, 77

Oriten, 143, J46

Pittsburgh

Otto, Nickolaus August, 105, 149

planers, 112-13

Otto engines, 105

Owens, Lane
Dyer steam

plates, 49, 51

&

plows, 37, 86, 88

plumbing,

engine, 121

193

191, I9i,

Plymouth House, 45, 47 47

Plympton, Abigail, 45
Plympton, Thomas, 45
ackard, James Ward,
lid

161

pocket watches, 56, 186

Packard, Model L, 204

Pope, Albert A.,

Packard, tan and black speedster,

Pope-Hartford, 163

168,

143, 163

141,

Pope -Toledo, 163

171

Packard Twin Six,

J68,

171

Packard, William

Dowd,

Papin, Denis,

33

31,

161

porcelain(s), 49, 50,

Port

Huron

51, 77, 81,

portrait prints,

97

Parian eagle vase, 128

"possible Delaware" clock, 55

Parian porcelain vase, 129

pottery,

"Patersons," 91

73-75
powder flask, 92
powder horn, 90
power machinery,

pearl ware, 51

President, The, 134,

Pearson house, 4

printing presses,

pedestal table, 190

Pullman, George, 179

parlor stoves, 67, 67, 69, 122, J23

Parsons, Charles A.

105

105, 107

135

95-96

Peerless Victoria, 168, 169

Pullmans, 179

pewter, 81

punch howl, 77
Putnam Machine Company

Philadelphia highboy, 42, 45

Philadelphia Public Ledger, 95

129

tractor, 119

planer, 112

217

fi

Roper

uadricycle, 15, 157, 159

Queen Anne

chair, 42,

148-49

Architectural details in Greenfield Village

Rover, 143

quilt collection, 73

(car), 143, 147,

Ross, William, 39

42

Rudge rotary tricycle, 145

Rumford roasters, 47 49
rum jug, 80
acingcars, 157, 158, 159,

161,

171-72
radio receivers, 185, 185

135-36, 179-81.

railroads, 19, 134,

s.K

Columbia, 109

S.

S-42 China Clipper, 203

See also locomotives

railroad coaches, 179

Sack, Harold (son of Isaac), 24

Railway Express freight wagon, 142

Sack, Isaac, 24

Rapid

Rapid trucks, J60, 166

Salamandar Works, 73
Saltbox house, 46, 47

Rauch and Lang

salt-glazed stoneware, 51,

electric car, 163, 166

electric car, 160,

73-75, 80

163

RCA Radiola,

Sam

17 185

Recamier Grecian

sofa,

Hill (locomotive), 135

"Sandwich" glass, 77
Sarah Jordan Boarding House,

reaper-binder, 121

65

redward, 75

111,

JJJ,

(locomotive), 135

reed organs, 85

Satilla

refrigerators, 186, 190, 190

Savery,

Regina Type 35 music box, 191-92

schoolhouse, 20

Reis,

Schurtz, A., 97

J.

Phillip, 113

Remington, Philo, 117

Reuben Tower tall-case clock, 86
Revere, Paul, 52

Thomas, 33

89

Scott, Grant,

screw-cutting metal lathe,

34, 35, 112

scrub board, hand-powered

Revere coffeepot, 52
Revere teapot, 52

rocker, 188

revolvers. See pistols

Seagull (airplane), 199

riding chairs, 39

Sears, Kate B.

rifles,

59, 61,

89-93

129

Selden, George B.

rifle-shotgun, 92

149

serpent (musical instrument), 81

Riker truck, 151

Seth Thomas clocks, 86

sewing machines, 71, 122, 125

robots, 183

sgraffito

Rochester hand-cranked

sharps carbine, 91

Riker,

Andrew

L.

151

dishwasher, 190

John D.,
rocker lap organ, 85
Rockefeller,

technique, 75

Sheffield plate, 81
Jr.,

19

shoes, 73

Sholes, Christopher L., 117

Rogers, Will, 19

shotguns,

Rogers 303-0 American Class

Sikorsky, Igor,

Hay ward,

61,

92

203

silverware, 51-52, 53, 81, 83

locomotive, 135
Roper, Sylvester

19,

112

143, 149

Singer, Isaac, 71, 125

219

Comte

Sivrac,

99

de,

steeple

Skramstad, Harold K.,

Stevens,

Jr.,

19-20, 23, 24, 25

Slater, Moses, 85
Slater,

Stiegel,

stoneware,

99

stove',

67-71,

Smith, Horace, 91

Smith and Wesson, 91

Smith Creek railroad station,

45, 47, 49, 66,

17,

67. 69,

122, 123, 186,

190, 190
19

snaphance, 59

68

stove, Troy, 67,

streetcars, 136, 137

tall-case clock,

86

Society of the Cincinnati, 49

hone ash porcelain,

soft-paste

Eranklin, 67

stove collection,

decoration, 75

Soap Hollow

73-75, 80

51,

Stoney Creek Sawmill, 105

Slater's Mill, 35, 55

slip

Thomas, 141
Henry W, 51

Stinson, Katherine, 199

Samuel, 35

sleighs, 97,

compound marine steam

engine, 105

skid engines, 105

Almon

Stutz Bearcat,
81

B., 117

171,

summer-winter

172

fabric pattern,

Supreme Court furniture, 42

Swan, Joseph, 109

sott-paste pitcher, 72

Soule, Samuel, 117

Sparton Model 558 blue glass

mirror radio, 185,

Strowger,

switchboards, 117

\9>'i

spinning looms, 35
spinning wheel, 25
square piano,

To

d>5

stage coaches,

>

"stakes," 81

Standard

electric stove, 186, 190

Standard

J-

(airplane), 199

Stanford, Earl

ot,

Stanley,

tankards,

52, 75

51,

Tiws, Charles, 59

EO., 164
M.N., 69

Tayk)r, Zachary,

95

teapots, silver, 52,

Stanley eight-horse power model

53

telegraph, 93, 95, 113

telephone, 113, 117

(1903), 164

Stanley Model 60 runabout, 160,

television,

185-86

49
86

ten-plate stove,

164

Stanley Rocket, 164

Terry, Eli, 55,

Starley, James, 141, 143

textbooks, 65

Starlight stove, 17

textile mills, 33, 35,

steamboat

Thayer, Ephraim, 49

(toy), 130

steam-driven generators, 107

steam engines, 23, 31-33, il, 96,

103-7

m,

105,

steam locomotives,

\\5,

120,

121

181

steam-powered cars (steamers),

163-64

220

piano, 86

128-29
Talbot, William H.E, 96
tall-case clocks, 54, 55, 86
Tippan range, 186

33

Stanley, EE., 163-64, 172

Stanley,

Gilbert &. Co.

tableware, 49-51,

97

55

Thompson, Benjamin, 47
Thor Number One wa.shing
machine,

188,

Tiffany, Louis

190

Comfort, 129

tin-glazed delftwarc,

tinware, 71

51

73

Tom Thumb,

/^d

Eddy screw-cutting

101

Tench Lake (locomotive),

4-5

also trucks

waistcoats, 73

"tourist" vehicle, 175

toys,

10- JJ, 129-30, 132,

tractors, 1J9,

lathe, 112

wagons, commercial, 136-37. See

112-13

tools, 17,34, 35, 37,

121-22,

B5

Walter,

Thomas U.,

181-83

Walker,

WH.,

121,

128

119

Tribune Blue Streak, 143

washing machines, J88, 190

Washington, George, 49, 51, 129

tricycle, 143, J45

Washington, Mary Ball (mother of

Tripp Sawmill, 105

George), 42
Washington camp bed, 25
Washington highboy, 42, 44
Washington press, 95-96

transfer-printed creamware, 51

trousers, 73

Troy stove, 67, 68

trucks, 151, 166

trumpet, 6-7, 82

watches, 52, 56, 86, J86, 214

tuba, 85

watch shop, 23
watercooler, 80
Watson, Thomas,
Watson thumper,

Tucker,

William

chma

Ellis, 81

by, 72, 81

typewriters,

117

116,

117
117

Watt, James, 33, 55

Watt steam engines, 33

Wayside Inn (South Sudbury,

a.

naimate robot, 183

utility jars,

Massachusetts),

17

Webster, Daniel, 99

75

Webster, Noah,

63-65

Webster, Rebecca, 63

Webster home, 20,62, 63, 65

acui
r acuum

cleaners, 125, 127, 190

Vail, Alfred,

93

Van Dom, Jacob, 52

Van Dom, Maria, 52
Van Rensselaer, Stephen, 57
vases, 77,

stove, 186

128-29, 130

West Orange laboratory,

"Westward-Ho," 77

Velo, 149
vests,

73

112

wet-plate camera, 117

whale

Victoria, 137, J40

Violano Virtuoso,
violins, 57, 60,

Welsbach mantle, 127

Wesson, Daniel, 91, 93
Westinghouse, George, 109, 135
Westinghouse electric/coal-hurning

84

Virginia, University of, 65

Virginia Housewife,

or,

Volcanic Repeating

pistol, 91

Arms Co.

91

vote recorder, HI

Vought, Sikorsky 300 helicopter,

202, 203, 203

lamps, 77
119

wheelocks, 59

Methodical

Cook, The, 71
Volcanic lever-action

oil

Wheeler and Mellick thresher,

Wheelock, Mama, 41

191

Whieldon, Thomas, 51
White, Peter, 89
White House china, 129
White House "Sunshine Special,"
175, 176, J77

White House

vehicles, 137 171,

175, 176, 177

221

222

White Model G touring

White pistols, 89
Whitney,

164

car,

^^'="1 ^^'^ s^"^

Eli, 61, 91

Whittier, John Greenleaf, 99

Whitworth, Joseph, 35, 37

Wilkin, Godfrey, 67
Wilkinson, John, 35
Willard, Aaron, 55
Willard, Simon, 55

William and Mary high chest of

drawers, 42,

44

Wilson, James, 67

Wilson bathtub, 191

Winchester rifle, 93
windmill, 30
windowpanes, 77
Wingert rifle-shotgun, 92
Winton, Alexander, 153, 157
159, 161

Wintons (motor

cars), 153, 157

Wise, John, 130

Wizard ofOz (first edition), 25

Wood, Calvin, 20
Wood, Jethro, 86
Wood, Walter A.,

Wood and

121

Caldwell pitcher,

51

woodwinds, 56, 83
woodworking tools, 112-13
Wright, E.G., 83
Wright, Orville,

195-96,

195,

19, 20, 193,

197

Wright, Wilbur, 193, 195-96, J95

Wright Cycle Company, 192
Wright family home, 2-3, 20,
193, 194

Wright

St. Clair (bicycle), 195

Wright Van Cleve (bicycle), 195

Wright wind tunnel, 195, 196

ouave jacket, 125

223