Furniture, cooking wares, clothing, works of art, and many other kinds of artifacts are part of what knit people into communities and cultures. The Museum’s collections feature artifacts from European Americans, Latinos, Arab Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, African Americans, Gypsies, Jews, and Christians, both Catholics and Protestants. The objects range from ceramic face jugs made by enslaved African Americans in South Carolina to graduation robes and wedding gowns. The holdings also include artifacts associated with education, such as teaching equipment, textbooks, and two complete schoolrooms. Uniforms, insignia, and other objects represent a wide variety of civic and voluntary organizations, including youth and fraternal groups, scouting, police forces, and firefighters. |
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Selected Objects |
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Acupuncture Instrument Set
Acupuncture has gone in and out of fashion over the centuries in both China and the West. Part of a 2,000-year-old system of medicine that originated in China, acupuncture spread ...
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Barbie Dressed as La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre
This Barbie doll is costumed and accessorized as a representation of The Virgin of Caridad del Cobre, Patron Saint of Cuba. The doll wears the ornate blue and gold robe ...
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Carnival Mask
Carnival celebrations featuring performers dressed as devils are found across Puerto Rico and throughout Latin America. The presence of these characters during Carnival is understood by many as an ancient ...
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Dress
Virginia Lee Mead wore this salmon–pink silk satin dress when she was a young woman living in New York City's Chinatown, where her father, Lee B. Lok, a first–generation immigrant, ...
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Engraved wood block "Street View at Honolulu"
Joline J. Butler (about 1815–1846, working in New York City between 1841 and 1845) engraved this printing block after a drawing called Street View of Honolulu by Expedition Artist Alfred ...
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"In-Out" Basket
The process of manufacturing such baskets is called "sewing," but it is actually a process of binding and coiling long strands of grass. In the wetlands, two kinds of grasses ...
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Page from the Koran
This page is one side of a double-sided sheet from a copy of the Koran, a collection of revelations to the Prophet Mohammed that forms the basis of the Islamic ...
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Pitcher Honoring Frederick Douglass
This hand-modeled and molded, unglazed red earthenware pitcher honors Frederick Douglass, "Slave Orator/ United States Marshall, Recorder of Deeds D.C./ Diplomat."
Although the maker is unknown, we do know ...
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Poster, Cleveland: Many Peoples One Language
Waves of non–English–speaking European immigrants flooded the cities of industrial America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Local governments and civic groups sought to encourage immigrants to learn ...
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U.S. Civil War Colored Troops Medal
During the American Civil War, Gen. Benjamin F. Butler so appreciated the heroic actions of African American soldiers under his command at the 1864 battles of Fort Harrison and Fort ...
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Our Lady of Monserrat
Based on lore and church documents, this figure illustrates the Miracle of Hormigueros. In 1599, Our Lady of Montserrat appeared to Gerardo González, a farmer near Hormigueros in southwestern Puerto ...
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