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A bit of Norwich history went on display Tuesday at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

Thermos, which for much of the 20th century was among the largest employers in Norwich, has donated lunchboxes and vacuum bottles to the permanent collections at the museum.

"Taking America to Lunch," will take a lighthearted retrospective look at historic school and workplace lunch kits and vacuum bottles from the 1880s to the 1980s.

"Lunchboxes and their bottles are fascinating storytellers, filled with the complexities of American childhood," said David Shayt, cultural history curator at the National Museum of American History. "The Smithsonian sees such food containers as memory boxes, where family and school merge with American popular culture."

Celebrities who've appeared on Thermos lunch boxes including David Hasselhoff of the Knight Rider television series, Shirley Jones of the Partridge Family, June Lockhart of Lost in Space and Lassie, and Meadowlark Lemon of the Harlem Globetrotters, were expected to attend the opening.

"The Smithsonian collection of lunchboxes and vacuum bottles reflects the evolution of America on-the-go, and Thermos is proud to be a contributor to this important part of American culture," said Rick Dias, Thermos' vice-president of marketing. "Generations of Americans have relied on Thermos brand lunch kits and vacuum bottles to help keep their foods fresh and safe, making Thermos one of the most recognized and endearing brands in this country."

And on the bottom of many of those vacuum bottles are the words "Made In Norwich."

Norwich City Historian Dale Plummer said that in 1912 city leaders lured Thermos to town by raising $75,000 and purchasing a mansion and land on the lower Thames River, which they offered to Thermos as a factory office. The city agreed to build the factory – now the Thermos on the Thames condominium complex – and would turn over the deed to the company only after Thermos agreed to pay a certain amount in wages to Norwich employees. Thermos also agreed to stamp "Made in Norwich" on all bottles manufactured there.

The company soon opened a second plant in Taftville, where a screen printing machine wrapped many of the Thermos bottles with the company's own logo or with promotional labels commissioned by coffee shops or other companies. Thermos became a city mainstay for some 70 years.

Operations in Norwich, along the Thames River, and in the Taftville section of the city were phased out in the mid-1980s as the company moved its plants to the south in search of cheaper labor and lower operating costs. Today the last Thermos plant in the country, in Batesville, Miss., manufactures plastic Thermos bottles and lunch boxes. All other manufacturing takes place overseas.

The company traces its beginning to 1892 when an Oxford University scientist who experimented with temperature retention, made the first vacuum flask by sealing two glass bottles together and pumping the air out in between. Thermos added a protective metal casing, making the technology practical for the general public and mass-produced the vacuum bottles.

The emergence of school lunch kits coincided with the rise of popular entertainment on television in the 1950s. In 1953, Roy Rogers graced the first fully lithographed steel lunch box and vacuum bottle set. It was an instant hit, selling more than 2 million sets in the first year.

"As the textile industry declined, Thermos soaked up a lot of former textile workers and became the largest employer in Norwich for years," Plummer said. "It was a very successful operation."

Very little evidence remains of the Thermos empire in Norwich today. Memorabilia mostly is in the hands of private collectors. The innovative glass-filling machine, however, did provide a source for many Thermos souvenirs.

The huge tanks of molten, green-tinted glass were lined with congealed globs of waste glass, sometimes two feet thick, Plummer said. Many homes — and even the building inspection offices in City Hall – today have on display chunks of misshapen globs of green Thermos glass.

During "Taking America to Lunch," three commemorative lunchboxes will be available in the museum's gift shop. The museum is located on the National Mall at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. It is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission is free.

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