New Donations to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History recently acquired several significant artifacts that reflect key moments in American history and culture. These additions include objects from the legendary Titanic, the culturally significant Broadway musical HAIR and jerseys from sports figures Carl Nasib and Shohei Ohtani. The new acquisitions were donated between 2023 and July 2024 and also encompass innovations in automobile and steel recycling; audio engineering, including closed captioning; and early computer-data processing. 

“These newly acquired artifacts highlight the museum’s ongoing commitment to preserving and showcasing the fascinating breadth of culture and diverse history of the United States, which elevates our mission,” said Anthea M. Hartig, the museum’s Elizabeth MacMillan Director. “We continually seek to expand our collection, ensuring it remains reflective of the nation’s rich cultural, social and technological evolution that shapes our shared experience.”

Highlights among the recent acquisitions are:

Titanic Artifacts: A Personal Glimpse Into a Tragic Past

One of the most poignant additions is a set of letters and photographs associated with George H. “Harry” Hunt, a second-class passenger on the ill-fated RMS Titanic. These rare documents, including letters written just days before the ship’s sinking, with one letter to his brother Albert and sister-in-law Rose, dated April 5, and the other on Titanic stationery dated April 10 to his parents. The White Star ocean liner hit an iceberg April 15, 1912. The Hunt family migrated to the United States in 1906 and Hunt had returned to England in 1912 to visit family. This acquisition offers a personal glimpse into the lives affected by history’s most famous maritime disaster.

The gift includes Hunt family photographs, marriage and birth certificates as well as 1955 correspondence from Cunard Line confirming that Hunt was aboard the Titanic and recorded as “missing.” His wife, Elizabeth, became a naturalized U.S. citizen that year, and the collection includes her naturalization certificate and her 1967 death certificate. This is a significant addition to the museum’s existing Titanic-related holdings.
Gift of the Estate of Carolyn Hunt, 2023.

Revolutionizing Recycling: The “Prolerizer” Collection

The museum has acquired a significant piece of industrial history with the donation of a section from the “Prolerizer,” a watershed invention that revolutionized recycling. Patented in 1961, the machine could shred an automobile or other large durable consumer products in minutes, transforming recycling in the U.S. and around the world. It made recycling cars and other durables that had reached the end of their useful lives possible. Prior to this, automobile recycling was a labor-intensive process involving handheld torch cutters and alligator shears, with derelict cars becoming a widespread problem for American towns and cities.

The Prolers found a way to grind up cars, extract clean steel and send it back to steel mills to create new products. The primary invention consisted of a rotor with many hammers, powered by a large engine, that could shred entire vehicles into small fist-sized pieces that could be separated into ferrous and non-ferrous materials, providing steel mills with a superior quality of scrap to recycle into steel. Ben Proler (1894–1970) started the family business in the 1920s, and with the help of his sons Izzy, Sammy, Hymie and Jackie, transformed a local scrap dealership in Houston into Proler Steel, a publicly held global company. Advantage Metals Recycling (AMR) decommissioned their 1961 Prolerizer, nicknamed “Deborah,” in the summer of 2024, donating a representative part of the machine and early archival materials to the museum. The Proler family invented a new business system, and the museum’s Archives Center has collected companion photos and drawings (1964–1974).

The archival finding aid is online, and this collection is open to researchers. With the help of ReMA, the national trade association for materials recycling, AMR and the Proler family, museum curators and archivists plan to continue to build this collection in the next year.
The Prolerizer hammer machine section is a gift through Joshua Jones, regional manager, Advantage Metals Recycling, Nucor Company. The Prolerizer Collection, 1964-1974, is a gift through Joshua Jones, regional manager, Advantage Metals Recycling, Nucor Company.

Athletic Achievement and Social Progress: Ohtani and Nassib

The museum has acquired jerseys worn by two trailblazing athletes: Major League Baseball player Shohei Ohtani, formerly with the Los Angeles Angels and now with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Carl Nassib, the Las Vegas Raiders defensive end who was the first active NFL player to play a regular season game after coming out as gay.  

Ohtani wore this jersey during a remarkable doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers July 27, 2023. That day, he threw a complete game (one-hit shutout) in the first contest and hit two home runs in the second. Born in Japan in 1994, Ohtani starred with the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization’s Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters from 2013–2017. He joined the Angels in 2018 and is exceptional for being the first player to qualify for both the batter and pitcher positions since 1950, and he is the first player in the modern era to reach statistical leaderboards for both duties. Ohtani signed with the Dodgers in December 2023. Ohtani has been a four-time All-Star player (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024) and a two-time American League Most Valuable Player (2021, 2023).

Nassib wore the donated jersey and gloves during the Raiders’ season opener Sept. 13, 2021, during which he became the first openly gay player in NFL history to play in a regular season game. He came out as gay over social media during Pride month 2021.A defensive end, Nassib had an important fourth-quarter sack in the contest, helping the Raiders secure a 33-27 win over the Baltimore Ravens. Nassib remains only the second active player in the history of North America’s “big four” leagues (MLB, NHL, NFL and NBA) to publicly come out as gay. His story marks an important moment in the fight for greater recognition and acceptance of LGBTQ+ players in American sports. Following his announcement, Nassib’s No. 94 was the NFL’s top-selling jersey on apparel sites. The Penn State standout played in the NFL from 2016–2023, suiting up for the Cleveland Browns, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Raiders.   
Shohei Ohtani jersey, gift of Shohei Ohtani. Carl Nassib jersey and gloves, gift of Carl Nassib.

HAIR Broadway Show Artifacts Preserve Legacy of a 1960s Youth Culture

Four objects from the late 1960s original Broadway production, HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, underscores a cultural milestone with songs that shaped American society. A handwritten score piece by composer Galt MacDermot for the song “Where Do I Go” and costume pieces, including a red shirt worn by actor Gerome Ragni in the role of “Berger” and a tie-dye vest worn by performer Shelley Plimpton who played “Crissy.” The museum also collected an original poster.

Conceived by actor/writers James Rado and Gerome Ragni based on New York City’s 1960s youth culture, the musical chronicles the story of a “tribe” of friends as they navigate their personal identities amidst the Vietnam War and rapidly evolving society. It grappled with the Civil Rights Movement, recreational drug use, hippie counterculture and the sexual revolution. MacDermot produced the musical’s score. Among its enduring songs are “Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In” and “Where Do I Go.” The album hit No. 1 on the Billboard Music charts and sold over 3 million copies in the U.S. by December 1969. That same year, it won a Grammy Award for Best Score from an Original Cast Album, and some of the songs were featured as Top 10 hits. These artifacts join the museum’s extensive entertainment collections.
Musical score, gift of the MacDermot Family. Red shirt worn by “Berger,” gift of James Rado Estate.
Tie-dye vest worn by “Crissy,” gift of Shelley Plimpton.

Advancements in Audio Engineering: The Texar Audio Prism

Developments in audio engineering in the latter 20th century are reflected in the acquisition of the Texar Audio Prism, which is a signal-processing apparatus first designed in 1979 by Glen T. Clark. The Audio Prism played a key role in enhancing radio broadcast quality and became an industry standard. The acquisition includes the prototype motherboard and an early commercial unit. Clark, an engineer at FM station WPEZ in Pittsburgh, developed a new type of circuit he called the “audio prism” in response to technical advances made at a competing station. At the time, stations tried to surpass each other in broadcasting the loudest signal without exceeding legal limits on transmission power. He founded Texar Inc. to commercialize his invention, which became a market success. He sold the company in 1988 but derivative units are still in use at radio stations today. This donation complements the museum’s holdings of sound recording and radio broadcasting technologies, as well as documentation of inventor-entrepreneurs involved with sound, including Alexander Graham Bell, Ray Dolby and Thomas Edison.
Texar Audio Prism, gift of Nathan S. Clark Jr., Martha J. Clark and April E. Clark, in memory of Glen T. Clark

Pioneering Fuel Cell Technology: The Kordesch Collection

This donation consists of a collection of experimental fuel cells and components made at Union Carbide from the pioneering work of Austrian immigrant Karl V. Kordesch, a key figure in the development of hydrogen fuel cells. Kordesch arrived in the U.S. after World War II as part of a program that brought German scientists and engineers to work on military-related projects called Operation Paperclip.

The Kordesch collection includes components from his personal experiments, including a stack from his hydrogen-powered A40 Austin automobile (converted from gasoline to hydrogen power in 1970), one from a motorbike he modified in 1967 to demonstrate the durability of fuel cells and a demonstration unit displayed at the 1957 World’s Fair in Brussels. There are also educational materials, including a light box and presentation slides, used to demonstrate fuel cell technology. Fuel cells, like batteries, generate direct current electricity through chemical action. First developed in 1839, they combine hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity, emitting water and heat as byproducts. Fuel cells continue to be actively researched for a variety of uses with a goal of using them to replace fossil fueled engines and help mitigate climate change. Kordesch was a co-holder of a U.S. Patent for what became the Energizer alkali dry-cell battery. 
Experimental Fuel Cells and Components, gift of Martin E. Kordesch.

Closed Captioning: A Technological Milestone in Accessibility

This collection of closed-captioning devices and documentation from the family of the National Captioning Institute’s founding president, John E. D. Ball, trace the development of captioning technology that made TV, film and other video technology accessible to millions of people with hearing impairments. Known as telecaptioning (and later, Closed Captioning), it began during the 1970s, and regular broadcasts of selected programs began in 1980. Since then, technical advances produced several generations of increasingly affordable and capable telecaptioning decoders. Ultimately, these devices shrank to the size of computer chips that could be installed in TV receivers during the manufacturing process. In addition to enabling access for people with hearing impairments, telecaptioning has been used to advance literacy among native and non-native language speakers.

This donation represents a significant chapter in the history of media accessibility and reflects the museum’s mission to preserve technological advancements that have broadened societal inclusion. It includes examples of several generations of equipment and papers documenting the devices and Ball’s work at NCI. Captioning required several technical, economic and political steps in order to be successfully implemented. Set standards were required so that telecaptioning decoders would function with any TV receiver, as well as procedures so that programs’ audio tracks could be transcribed (a task that required people to physically type the transcriptions) along with funding and coordination with content producers. Federal government interest in making this service available required political intervention, in this case resulting in the establishment of the non-profit National Captioning Institute in 1979.
Closed captioning devices and documentation, gift of Elizabeth S. Ball.

Early Computing: The Findex System

During the early decades of the 20th century, Americans experimented with devices that processed data, especially data on cards. One of those early systems was known as the “Findex” system. California inventor Leo Robinson envisioned this relatively small system as one suited for business personnel offices. Used in World War I and patented in 1917, the system acquired by the museum was purchased in the 1920s by the Southern Teachers Agency in Charleston, South Carolina. The agency wanted to match potential teachers to jobs in independent schools.

The donation includes a bank of drawers from the Findex system, a drawer of cards and a card punch. Cards describing qualifications of each potential teacher were punched and filed. Steel rods were then inserted into the card file corresponding to desired attributes of a teacher (e.g., someone who could teach voice and band, had a college degree and could teach in a high school). The drawer with the cards was inverted and the punched cards corresponding to possible candidates slid down. Further manipulation of rods assured that the cards were fixed in place, the card file turned back up and the protruding (found) cards could then be examined in more detail. The system was used into the 1970s. It represented an innovative approach to sorting and matching data, marking an important step in the history of information management.
Findex File Cabinet with Punch Cards and Card Punch, gift of Carey Goodman, Southern Teachers Agency. 

Opened in 1964 as the National Museum of History and Technology, the museum is responsible for the acquisition, care and preservation of approximately 1.8 million artifacts and three shelf miles (or 22,000 linear feet) of archival documents and photographs as well as oral histories, held in 110 rooms and across three states. Approximately 3–5% of the collection is on view at any one time. The collection includes the Star-Spangled Banner, First Ladies gowns, Abraham Lincoln’s top hat, Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers, 100,000 pages of Duke Ellington’s unpublished music along with key artifacts from America’s civil rights and voting rights history. 

Through incomparable collections, rigorous research and dynamic public outreach, the National Museum of American History seeks to empower people to create a more just and compassionate future by examining, preserving and sharing the complexity of our past. The museum, located on Constitution Avenue N.W., between 12th and 14th streets, is open daily except Dec. 25, between 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. The doors of the museum are always open online and the virtual museum continues to expand its offerings, including online exhibitions, PK–12 educational materials and programs. The public can follow the museum on social media on Instagram and Facebook. For more information, go to https://americanhistory.si.edu. For Smithsonian information, the public may call (202) 633-1000.

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