3. Curious Machines¶

The Living with Machines project at the Turing Institute and the British Library is looking how our relationship with machines evolved in the period from 1780 to 1914, looking at newspaper reports and other documentary sources held in the British Library collections.

As a companion piece to this serious project, let’s also explore how machines are documented historically in the V&A collections.

To do this, we need run a query for any objects containing the word “machine” from within the period. We’re going to focus on 1780 to 1820, as there are many machine made objects from later in the century that obscure some of these earlier results (and as this is just an example demonstrating our API, the fact we cherry picking the data to ensure it’s interesting for you the reader should not trouble us too much)

V&A Collections¶

To find the relevant records, we will need to pass the following parameters to the API:

q=machine - We want to query for the word “machine” appearing anywhere in the record
year_made_from=1780 - Showing objects made tom 1780
year_made_to=1820 - To objects made upto 1820

We also specify we want the results in CSV format for ease of use with pandas, and we want 80 results to give a good sample size.

import requests
import pandas as pd
lwm_df = pd.read_csv("https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/objects/search?q=machine&page=1&year_made_from=1780&year_made_to=1820&response_format=csv&page_size=80")
lwm_df.sample(5)

	accessionNumber	accessionYear	systemNumber	objectType	_primaryTitle	_primaryPlace	_primaryMaker__name	_primaryMaker__association	_primaryDate	_primaryImageId	_sampleMaterial	_sampleTechnique	_sampleStyle	_currentLocation__displayName	_objectContentWarning	_imageContentWarning
30	T.289&A-1986	1986	O353068	Pair of stockings	NaN	England	Unknown	NaN	19th century	2019LM2909	cotton (textile)	machine knitted	NaN	In store	False	False
49	T.279-1973	1973	O142422	Evening dress	NaN	Great Britain	Unknown	NaN	c.1820	2015HN3034	silk satin	hand sewing	NaN	In store	False	False
41	T.278&A-1968	1968	O354074	Pair of sleeves	NaN	England	Unknown	NaN	1815-1825	2018LE8995	NaN	NaN	NaN	In store	False	False
75	W.61-1989	1989	O12610	Mould	NaN	London	Unknown	NaN	19th century	2017JY9997	Wood	Hand carved	NaN	In store	False	False
79	W.73A-1989	1989	O18827	Mould	NaN	London	Unknown	NaN	19th century	2017JY9946	Wood	Hand carved	NaN	In store	False	False

Graphing Machines¶

Let’s look at that in a graph now to more easily see what types of object mentioning ‘machine’ were most popular from that time period.

import requests
import altair as alt
import pandas as pd

req = requests.get('https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/objects/clusters/object_type/search?q=machine&year_made_from=1780&year_made_to=1820&cluster_size=100')
lwm_df = pd.DataFrame(req.json())

bars = alt.Chart(lwm_df).mark_bar().encode(
    x='count:Q',
    y="value:O"
)

text = bars.mark_text(
    align='left', baseline='middle', dx=3
).encode(
    text='count:Q'
)

(bars + text).properties(height=1000, title="Objects mentioning machine from 1780 to 1820")

So it seems likely that many of these objects were created using some form of machine (‘mould’ and ‘dress fabric’ for example), but there are some un-expected objects here that might perhaps be considered machines themselves, including an ‘Exhibition Box’ and a ‘Deceptive Glass’.

Let’s look in more detail at the Deceptive Glass, retrieving the image.

Deceptive Glass¶

req = pd.read_csv('https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/objects/search?q=machine&year_made_from=1780&year_made_to=1820&kw_object_type=deceptive%20glass&response_format=csv&page_size=50')
req

	accessionNumber	systemNumber	objectType	_primaryTitle	_primaryPlace	_primaryMaker__name	_primaryMaker__association	_primaryDate	_primaryImageId	_sampleMaterial	_sampleTechnique	_sampleStyle	_currentLocation__displayName	_objectContentWarning	_imageContentWarning
0	C.210-1913	O3417	Deceptive glass	NaN	England	Unknown	NaN	ca. 1820-1880	2006AM3610	NaN	NaN	BRITAIN	British Galleries, Room 122b	False	False

## ipyosd not working yet

from ipyosd import OSDViewer
from ipywidgets import Layout
OSDViewer(url="https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AM3610/info.json", layout=Layout(width='75%', height='675px'))

from IPython.display import Image

Image(url = "https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AM3610/full/600,/0/default.jpg")

Hmmm, it’s not entirely clear what’s machine like (or even deceptive) about this. Let’s look at the object description:

req = requests.get('https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/museumobject/O3417')
object_record = req.json()
object_record["record"]["summaryDescription"]

"<b>Object Type</b><br>A modest, entirely plain glass used for ices, perhaps made by the newly invented ice cream-making 'machine'.  Although in outline the same shape as a drinking glass, the bowl is all but solid, allowing only a minimal lick. Made in the mid-19th century, at a time when cheap, press-moulded glass was beginning to become the most available type, a hand-made but undecorated  artefact such as this was still extremely marketable.<br><br><b>Ownership & Use</b><br>Used in cafes, seaside booths and places of entertainment, a smear of ice was spread on the surface and licked off by the customer. The glass was then returned to the seller for immediate use by the next customer.<br><br><b>Materials & Making</b><br>This 'lick' is made in strong, brilliantly clear lead glass.  Hand-blown and tooled, the 'bowl' is virtually solid. Each section of the foot, stem and bowl is made from extra glass added at various stages, and probably at least two people were involved in the making of this glass."

So, the glass was not made by a machine, but was perhaps designed for use with new ice cream-making “machines” from the mid-19th century.

Note

From lessons learn from recent world events, we do not advise sharing an ice cream licking glass without proper cleaning in-between.

Exhibition Box¶

Let’s go back to look at another of the possible machines from our search query, the “Exhibition Box”

req = pd.read_csv('https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/objects/search?q=machine&year_made_from=1780&year_made_to=1820&kw_object_type=Exhibition%20box&response_format=csv&page_size=50')
req

	accessionNumber	systemNumber	objectType	_primaryTitle	_primaryPlace	_primaryMaker__name	_primaryMaker__association	_primaryDate	_primaryImageId	_sampleMaterial	_sampleTechnique	_sampleStyle	_currentLocation__displayName	_objectContentWarning	_imageContentWarning
0	P.44:1 to 4-1955	O118142	Exhibition box	Showbox	Great Britain	Gainsborough, Thomas	designer	ca. 1781-1782	2006AE7709	Oak	NaN	NaN	NaN	False	False

## ipyosd not working yet

from ipyosd import OSDViewer
from ipywidgets import Layout
OSDViewer(url="https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AE7709/info.json", layout=Layout(width='75%', height='675px'))

from IPython.display import Image

Image(url = "https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AE7709/full/600,/0/default.jpg")

Well, this is looking a bit more machine like. The Exhibition Box has a fascinating history, you can read up more on the object page It would be interesting to see if this “machine” (and others of a similiar kind) was discussed in newspapers from the era.

Further Work¶

Combine more mentions of machines in newspapers with examples of the objects from the V&A collections
Hopefully the Living with Machines team will be carrying out the very important task of mapping the spread of ice-cream machines throughout the United Kingdom, as reported in regional newspapers.

Data Explorations