Browse Items (14 total)

This lithograph is one of several prints in Murphy’s “Bridge Worker” series in 1935, which was followed by a “Steel Riggers” series in 1936. The subject matter of both is construction of the Golden Gate Bridge whose active phase began in 1933 and was…

Harshly contrasting light values depict a factory of some kind, comprised of buildings, machinery, smokestacks, and mounds of an unidentifiable substance. The black & white lithograph’s upper third is framed by billowing smoke, the bottom portion…

7 images at GSA.

Eight men are captured at a moment both dangerous and routine, part of the steelworker's 12-hour day. Botts is likely depicting what was called an open-hearth furnace, used by Andrew Carnegie to dramatically speed up the process and undercut his…

This lithograph is one of several prints in Murphy’s “Bridge Worker” series in 1935, which was followed by a “Steel Riggers” series in 1936. The subject matter of both is construction of the Golden Gate Bridge whose active phase began in 1933 and was…

Full title of image reads, "A new map and profile of the proposed canal from Lake Erie to Hudson River in the State of New York," and several details indicate the project's state of flux. For example, two different routes west of the Genesee River…

The factory town of Lowell, MA was named after the inventor of a power loom that revolutionized manufacturing and, along with the technology, the structure of work. Owners of the mills employed thousands of people, most of them women called the…

Dressing flax was a complicated, labor-intensive process to remove seeds and stems so as to separate out the plant's valuable fibers. This image appears in an extensive advertisement for a mechanical dresser--or rather, three different models--that…

Prior to the 1800s, corn was planted by hand in hillocks or rows. Industrial technologies profoundly affected agriculture with many patent machines like this horse-drawn planter designed by Calvin Olds. In a language typical for other devices of the…

Two maps from an historical atlas show the rise of a southern textile industry, especially during the early 20th century. By 1926, the long-dominant New England region of textile manufactures was about even with the south; in another twenty years it…