The New England Wireless and Steam Museum

Mission Statement

The New England Wireless and Steam Museum is an electrical and mechanical engineering museum emphasizing the beginnings of radio and steam power. The museum honors engineers who achieved greatness and served the public good by analyzing and solving tough engineering problems. The museum is both archival and educational.

In 1875 Rhode Island was the world center of the stationary steam industry. According to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) the New England Wireless and Steam Museum has the finest collection of Rhode Island made engines, together with the finest collection of original stationary steam engine drawings.

The museum's assembly hall is an 1822 neo-classic New England meeting house which, like the Massie station, was moved here to be saved from demolition. This charming building is available for weddings, christenings, club functions, corporate presentations, etc.

The museum shows rare early radio and steam apparatus - much in working order. Keeping these things working and demonstrating them is part of our mission.

OUR MISSION:

1. Preserve historically important engineering artifacts, books, and buildings emphasizing the generation which began with the founding of the ASME and the AIEE - now IEEE.
2. Honor great mechanical and electrical engineers.
3. Urge the teaching of engineering and science by reason, not by rote.
4. Promote enthusiam for math and physics, and excite an urge to find out why!
5. Instruct and enlighten by doing these things.

The museum is run by volunteers. Your generous financial help supports it. So do admissions, and proceeds from museum functions. The museum solicits no government grants though it is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit institution. Willing private foundations, donors and helpers do it all. The directors are deeply grateful and thank everyone of you for your continued support! Please call if you can help.

It's great because its focus is sharp: wireless communications and steam engines - branches of electrical and mechnical engineering.

It's great because its historic collections are world class. Some things you can only find here. Today's bright young minds grow skeptical of what they see on video screens, but they can't doubt the real thing. Study becomes fun.

It's great that this museum encourages the study of math and physics. Scientific illiteracy is a national disgrace.

It's great becuse it saves priceless scientific and engineering relics that, through ignorance, would otherwise be lost. Preservation is a big part of our mission. This museum actually began more than 100 years ago because it represents the coming together of several important earlier private collections of engineers and science historians.

It's great because its board has decreed that the museum always remain sharply focused on the few decades that followed the formation of the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) and the AIEE (American Institute of Electrical Engineers, now the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IEEE). Also the board decreed that the museums's subjects should be wireless and steam, emphasizing wireless telegraphy and stationary steam engines. The board has said that whatever the future current fancy of historians and others may consider politically correct this museum must continue to emphasize the subjects chosen at its founding. The board said further, let other institutions scramble after whatever is the rage of the moment. This museum will keep its anchor firmly in place. It must remain an excellent specialized museum following the instructions of its founding directors.

• Armington & Sims steam engines, the favorite of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.
• A Marconi distress transmitter, the same as Titanic's.
• A Marconi 1900 coherer and jigger.
• The oldest equipped radio station in the world.
• The only George H. Corliss steam engine under steam today.
• An Edison 1882 diode - the first of all radio tubes.
• The original steam engines of Rhode Island manufacturers.
• An 1881 Professor Dolbear radio receiver. It still works.
• The first commercial transistor.
• A museum in a National Historic District and listed in the National Register of Historic Buildings.
• ASME designated International Historic Site.

Thank you

Robert W. Merriam, Director