Walmart Toy Truck: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This scale model of a Freightliner tractor trailer represents the importance of logistics to Walmart. Sam Walton founded Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962, and put great emphasis on lowering costs. To free themselves of middlemen, Walmart built distribution centers and operated their own fleet of trucks. Using barcodes, GPS, and networked computers, the company learned what customers wanted, where, and when. Walmart sought to take manufacturer’s deliveries at distribution centers (not warehouses) and immediately ship goods to stores and into the customer’s hands. As Jay Fitzsimmons, senior VP and Walmart Treasurer explained "The misconception is that we're in the retail business," rather, "we're in the distribution business."

Materials, dates and provenance

• Object Name: toy truck
• Physical Description: plastic (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 1 15/16 in x 10 1/8 in x 1 3/8 in; 4.92125 cm x 25.7175 cm x 3.4925 cm
• place made: China
• ID Number: 2013.0316.01
• accession number: 2013.0316
• catalog number: 2013.0316.01
• Credit Line: Gift of Peter Liebhold
• 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.