Chapter 18 



Shops and 

 Maintenance 



THE MUSEUM IS MORE THAN laboratories and exhibit 

 halls, specimens and books. Without all its sup- 

 porting parts it will not work, and without proper main- 

 tenance it falls apart. When the new Museum was 

 planned, accordingly, the ground floor of the east wing 

 was designed for equipment and shops. The people 

 who worked there, reporting to the building superin- 

 tendent rather than the director, were necessarily the 

 first to be in the new National Museum. 



The machinery must have been impressive. When 

 Queen Marie of Rumania visited, Wetmore detailed 

 Bassler to escort her around, and he showed her all 

 the ground floor, suggesting that she seldom had a 

 chance to see how a museum really worked. I he new 

 building's huge boilers and direct-current generators 

 supplied heat and electricity for all the Smithsonian 

 buildings by means of tunnels running under the Mall.' 

 Each annual report gave meticulous figures on the 

 amount of coal used and the cost per kilowatt-hour of 

 electricity. Rathbun, not surprisingly, offered details of 

 every pipe and fuse. 



He regretted, however, that the heating plant "could 

 not have been located in a separate structure, on ac- 

 count of the annoyance caused by coal dust and soot 

 and by vibration produced by certain parts of the ma- 

 chinery, troubles that can best be remedied by the es- 

 tablishment of a central power plant for the Govern- 

 ment buildings in the western part of the city, as has 

 been proposed."" Twenty-five years after the heating 

 plant began operations, it was closed down; no one 

 missed it. The six permanent and several seasonal work- 

 ers whose jobs disappeared were resettled in other gov- 

 ernment positions. The government's power plant went 

 into service in 1934, and the Smithsonian theieafter 

 was content to purchase heat.' 



It also stopped manufacturing its own electricity, but 



Woodworking equipment in the new National Museum, 

 probably in the 1920s or 1930s. The bell-dr iven machinery 

 was powered by the Museum's power plant until the mid- 

 193 Os. The carpentry shop is the only shop that has not 

 changed its position on the grou nd floor. 



this was a different kind of story. The Institution cus- 

 tomarily had purchased electricity for two months or 

 so every sunnner, when its power plant was closed. By 

 1916 "the amount of electric current generated was 

 greater than in previous years, as more lights were used 

 and it has been found necessary to increase the size of 

 the lamps in inost of the exhibition halls. By the mid- 

 dle of the 1920s, some of the needed electricity had to 

 be purchased year-round. In 1928, the year the small 

 boiler for hot water to the offices gave out, the engineer 

 obtained new pistons for his three 25()-horsepower en- 

 gines and was able to produce more current. Demands 

 for light and power in all the buildings rose steadily.' 

 By 1931 the number of outside cables had to be in- 

 creased, and it was evident that the plant could not 

 cope with demand. In 1934, 191 !iew light fixtures were 

 installed in the third-floor laboratories. Judging from 

 the lighting of the 1950s, it must have been as bright 

 back then as the inside of a coal mine on a cloudy day. 



The switch to purchased power in 1934 did not end 

 all troubles. "The problem of obtaining additional elec- 

 tric supply becomes more serious each year, and it will 

 soon be imperative either to increase the number of 

 cables entering the Natural History Building or procure 

 alternating current," Wetmore wrote in 1938. "The 

 Smithsonian buildings are practically the only Govern- 

 ment group in Washington not using alternating cur- 

 rent, which may be purchased at more economical rates 

 than direct current."" In June 1940 the Museum finally 

 began to convert to alternating power, a job that took 

 about a year. The boilers were finally taken out of the 

 building. 



New passenger elevators were installed about this 

 time. Ancient as they look today, the ones in the rotunda 

 were completed in July 1941, and those in the north 

 pavilion in December, just before the United States 

 entered World War II. Whether it was lack of money 

 or the start of the war, the freight elevators were not 

 changed in 1941. They were slill being run by direct 

 current until the wings were put on, and the converter 

 had to be turned on before they could be used. 



An ice plant was authorized in 1911, ostensibly for 



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