Vertical Steam Engine, Baldwin, 1829
name: label: Maker
content: Matthias W. Baldwin
notes: label: Description
content: In 1829, Matthias W. Baldwin, an American inventor and manufacturer, built this vertical steam engine. Standing eighty-four inches in height and eighty-four inches in flywheel diameter, Baldwin’s engine was widely considered the most complete and powerful steam engine in the United States at the time. Notably, this engine included the “yoke-type” connecting rod, an original invention of Baldwin’s that lessened the engine’s size while maintaining its power, further demonstrating this engine’s significance to technological innovation and advancement during the early nineteenth century. This engine drove machinery at the Broad Street Boiler Shop in Philadelphia until 1873. In 1956, the Franklin Institute gifted the engine to the Smithsonian Institution, and much of the engine was restored in 1965.
label: Description
content: Matthias W. Baldwin was born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, in 1795. Baldwin first learned to craft jewelry in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and later assumed the manufacture of bookbinding tools and machinery and calico printing. The success of Baldwin’s 1829 engine led him to focus on the manufacture of steam engines throughout the rest of his career. In 1832, Baldwin completed <i>Old Ironsides</i>, his first full-size locomotive, and its trial marked the first movement by steam on a railroad in Pennsylvania. In addition to the yoke-type connecting rod of his 1829 engine, Baldwin contributed many significant improvements and innovations to locomotion technology throughout his career as a steam engine manufacturer, such as the ground steam joint for boiler fittings and placing copper ferrule on the outside of the boiler tube to prevent leakage. Alongside being a technological innovator, Baldwin was a member of the Presbyterian church and was an advocate for the abolition of slavery, with his locomotives being the subject of a southern boycott before the outbreak of the American Civil War.
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
label: Exhibition
content: Power Machinery
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Franklin Institute
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MC.314822
label: catalog number
content: 314822
label: accession number
content: 210004
objectType: label: Object Name
content: engine, steam, vertical, baldwin, 1829
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: cloth (bag material)
label: Measurements
content: base: 41 in x 56 in; x 104.14 cm x 142.24 cm
label: Measurements
content: flywheel: 84 in; x 213.36 cm