Fairbanks-Morse One Cylinder “Z” Engine: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

The nature of farming dramatically changed in the 20th century through what came to be known as the Green Revolution. From the 1920s-1950s farming productivity rose dramatically due to mechanization, fertilizers, chemicals (fungicides, pesticides, herbicides) and the hybridization of plants and animals. Agricultural innovations continue to be important to farming today. While the museum has over a dozen full-size tractors and other pieces of farming equipment, most technical developments of the 20th century are represented in the collection through toys and models.

This is a metal model of Fairbanks-Morse one cylinder “Z” engine. Fairbanks-Morse manufactured the Z engine from around 1916-1932. Engines like this were used on farms to power a variety of machines to perform a variety of tasks.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Object Name: engine, one cylinder, Fairbanks-Morse
• ID Number: AG.79A07.2
• catalog number: 79A07.2
• accession number: 1978.2373
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.