Can opener from Theodore Roosevelt’s African expedition, Nairobi, British East Africa, 1909
date: label: associated date
content: 1910
name: label: associated person
content: Roosevelt, Theodore
notes: label: Description
content: This fish-shaped can opener went to Africa with Theodore Roosevelt. A keen enthusiast of “vigorous blood-stirring out of doors sport,” Roosevelt began planning his African safari well before he retired from the presidency in 1909. Roosevelt specified the contents of each provision box, as he had for his hunting trips in the Dakota Territory as a young man. He ordered up cans of Boston baked beans, California peaches, and tomatoes, all “in memory of my days in the West.”
label: Description
content: An essential tool from the journey that Roosevelt had long imagined, the can opener is of cast iron, inset with a steel blade. The original finish appears to have been golden paint, worn by heavy use.
label: Description
content: Smithsonian African Expedition, 1910
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Political History: Political History, General History Collection
label: See more items in
content: Government, Politics, and Reform
label: See more items in
content: Souvenir Nation
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PL.259159
label: catalog number
content: 259159
label: accession number
content: 51304
objectType: label: Object Name
content: can opener
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: iron (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall approximately: 5 in; 12.7 cm