For nearly 175 eld , theSmithsonian Institutionand its connection of museums have been curating , preserving , and exhibit pieces of American history , from NASA spacesuits that allow astronauts tostepon the lunar month to Fonzie’sjacketfromHappy Days . While the exhibits are bountiful , they exemplify barely 1 percent of the 154 million item the organization has in storage . Have a look at some of the Smithsonian ’s lesser - known — but no less interesting — peculiarity that would sure draw curious stares if and when they number up for display .
1. THE FOLDING BATHTUB
bask take baths but hate the blank space your bath take up ? Circa 1900 , you could ’ve choose for a bath that folded upright and out of stack . First seen in a 1895 Montgomery Ward catalog , the tub — made by the Mosely caller out of Chicago — could bemovedout of the style when not in use , with the undersurface sport a toilet table mirror . The dingy piss was drained into a basin for empty . If this was n’t cool enough , the Smithsonian notes that other company made combination couch - bath , with fold - up seats that allowed people to climb in for a bath .
2. GIANT SLOTH DUNG
In 1941 , a Smithsonian curator named Remington Kellogg made a landmark find in the Grand Canyon ’s Rampart Cave : giant , fossilizedsloth poop . The feces was to begin with excreted by thegiant dry land sloth(Nothrotheriops shastensis ) , a creature that move extinct 12,000 years ago . This particular pile of droppings is think to be roughly 100,000 years old and was part of a repository of dogshit beloved by scientists . In 1977 , the cave get aprolonged firethat threatened to torch the big bucks , which was 5 feet stocky . In their unnumbered wit , The Washington Postreferred to the crisis as being a issue of “ endangered feces . ”
3. A TERRIFYING FAKE BABY
With the right amount of flecking paint and a proper thousand - yard stare , dolls can become one of the most sinister nonliving objects possible . But what if the dame was fitted with primitive train that could make it grovel ? This false - toddler waspatentedby inventor George Pemberton Clarke in 1871 , who labeled it the “ natural cringe baby chick . ” Buzzsaw - like wheels supply advancing momentum for the hellish object , while the flat surface on top may have been a honorable place to carry a deglutition … or dead animals .
4. PICKLED WOOLLY MAMMOTH FLESH
Mammuthus primigeniuswas a plebeian sight 12,000 years ago , before the ice old age eliminated a goodly share of wildlife . Some survived in Alaska and Russia , but no one has seen a woolly mammoth in the frame in 4000 years — unless you win over a Smithsonian conservator to extend the means to their preserved sample . In 1901 , a squad of Russian scientists key out a stock-still woolly mammoth that still had pieces of its physical body entire . In 1922 , when one of the scientists run into some financial trouble , hesold offmuscle tissue from the mammoth ’s hind leg to the museum , along with sample of its hair’s-breadth and tooth .
5. A 17-FOOT LONG BEARD
At 17 foot , 6 inches , North Dakota residentHans Langseth ’s beard might just be the farseeing ever grow . A hirsute adult male who wanted to enter a byssus competition , Langseth only let his facial hair extend to rise , tying off the bottom once it began dying off so he could keep the follicles . When he die in 1927 , heinstructedhis family to trim it off before he was buried . The intact nucha was donate to the Smithsonian , which sporadically brings it out of storage when a Langseth ancestor want to see the specimen for themselves .
6. A GIANT SQUID EYE
Things floating in jars typically do n’t push pleasant dreams , and this monolithic giant calamary eyeball is no exception . The middle of this animal cangrowup to 10 inch in diam with a 3.5 inch schoolchild and are intended to fancy surroundings in weewee depths which have low-down to zero profile . It ’s trust squid need such monolithic peepers in order tokeep tabson the sperm hulk , their natural predator . Such optic specimen are n’t common , as squid carcase are usually rotting by the fourth dimension they get in the hands of scientists . No one had even photographed a live squid in its natural environs until2005 .
7. AN IRON LUNG
BeforeJonas Salk ’s polio vaccinum , polio extend rearing , sometimes compromise a patient role ’s respiration to the head they needed stilted ventilation aid . Machinist John Haven Emersonimprovedon the first “ iron lung ” machines that used damaging pressure to billow and compress the lung and acquaint them in 1931 to assist aid with the attention of polio victim who had paralyzed chest muscles . The whole - body units offer variable breathing and a hand pump in case of electrical failure ; inside was a “ cookie tray ” that couldslidein and out to tend to patient . The number of citizenry using these types of tank respirators fall from 1200 in 1959 to just 39 in 2004 . Today , justthree peopleare still using them , including an 82 - year - sure-enough polio survivor .
8. PIGEON VESTS
During World War II , Allied forces used pigeon as message letter carrier . Strapping the shuttle to their chests before chute helpedmake surethe avian soldiers were n’t harmed during the descent . bandeau company Maidenform made 28,500 of the vests for the U.S. administration in 1944 . ( For reasons unknown , the instruction cautioned the user not to leave the birds in the vests more than six hour . ) Messages delivered by the birds had an impressive 95 percent success pace .
