The nation's passion for sports is obvious every day—at NASCAR races, kiddie soccer matches, and countless other contests. From a handball used by Abraham Lincoln to Chris Evert's tennis racket to a baseball signed by Jackie Robinson, the roughly 6.000 objects in the Museum's sports collections bear witness to the vital place of sports in the nation's history. Paper sports objects in the collections, such as souvenir programs and baseball cards, number in the hundreds of thousands. Leisure collections encompass a different range of objects, including camping vehicles and gear, video games, playing cards, sportswear, exercise equipment, and Currier and Ives prints of fishing, hunting, and horseracing. Some 4,000 toys dating from the colonial period to the present are a special strength of the collections. |
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Selected Objects |
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1934 Trav-L-Coach House Trailer
The Cate family of New Hampshire purchased this trailer to serve as their vacation home. Cars and highways had created vast new recreational opportunities, and during the depression families who ...
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Basketball Jersey
During his thirteen seasons with the Boston Celtics, Bob Cousy (b. 1928) played in thirteen consecutive All-Star Games and earned two All–Star MVP awards, among many other accolades. This “Houdini ...
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Boxing Gloves
Muhammad Ali (b. 1942) “The Greatest,” gained fame for his boxing skills, charisma and the controversy he generated outside the ring. In 1976 the Smithsonian acquired Ali's boxing gloves and ...
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Football Jersey
Called “Roger the Dodger” for his ability to scramble with the football, Roger Staubach (b. 1942) played for the U.S. Naval Academy, winning the 1963 Heisman Trophy. After serving in ...
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Game Boy
The Nintendo Game Boy was released in 1989. It was a handheld video game console that combined aspects of Nintendos successful Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) television video game console with ...
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Louisville Slugger Baseball Bat
St. Louis Cardinal Stan “The Man” Musial (b. 1920) used this Louisville Slugger to collect his 3,000th hit on May 13, 1958, in Chicago's Wrigley Field. The umpires later presented ...
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Man O'War Statuette
Sculpted by Frederic G. R. Roth (1940), this bronze statuette depicts Man O’War (1917–1947), often considered America’s greatest racehorse. The thoroughbred, affectionately called “Big Red,” triumphed at some of the ...
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Odyssey 1 Dobsonian Reflecting Telescope
This is a Dobsonian-type reflecting telescope. It was made commercially in the 1980s as part of the "Dobsonian revolution" in amateur astronomy.
John Dobson began developing this form of ...
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Pair of Hockey Skates
These skates were worn by Phil Verchota (number 27), a member of the underdog 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team that astounded the world by capturing the Gold Medal at Lake ...
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Richard Petty's 200th Victory Car
The Richard Petty Number 43 Pontiac is a NASCAR racing car, built to resemble a 1984 Pontiac Grand Prix passenger car. It ran in the Winston Cup division, the highest ...
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Tennis Racket and Cover
This broken-stringed Wilson racket once belonged to Chris Evert (b. 1954), one of the top female tennis players in the 1970s and 1980s. Evert's determined attitude, her steady baseline playing ...
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"Volito" In-line Roller Skate
Before the invention of indoor rinks, ice skaters turned to the Volito when they needed to practice and didn't have access to ice. This in-line skate consisted of a wooden ...
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Related Items from the Archives Center |
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Louis S. Nixdorff 1928 Olympic Games Collection, 1926-1978
Louis S. Nixdorff of Baltimore represented the United States in the 1928 Olympic Gamers as a member of the lacrosse team. Nixdorff’s documented his experience in photographs and a daily diary.
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