National Building Museum

Adopt an Artifact: Antique Blueprint Machine

The National Building Museum is home to the nation’s foremost archive of American architectural and design heritage. The Adopt an Artifact program allows you to directly support the proper care and preservation of objects with critical conservation needs, helping the Museum continue its mission to inspire curiosity about the world we design and build. To support this initiative, click here.

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Found in an abandoned warehouse in Mobile, Alabama by the LaGrave family, the Antique Blueprint Machine was a hidden treasure that remained in a storage unit for several decades. In the summer of 2024 Joan LaGrave gave the machine to NBM for our Visible Vault: Open Collections Storage Exhibition and now it’s a fan favorite of staff and visitors alike!

Made by the Chicago-based C.F. Pease Company in 1910, the Antique Blueprint machine is used to make contact prints on paper from original drawings on tracing paper, parchment paper, or other types of translucent or transparent materials. From its size and shape, visitors have fun guessing what the machine was used for and are often surprised to learn about its original purpose.