Cultures & Communities - Overview
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.
"Cultures & Communities - Overview" showing 10 items.
Engraved woodblock of the "Dance of the Nahikai"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of the “Dance of the Nahikai” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate XII (p.438) in an article by Dr. Washington Matthews (1843-1905) entitled “The Mountain Chant: a Navajo ceremony” in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1883-84. The illustration was engraved by Henry Hobart Nichols (1838-1887).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1887
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- graphic artist
- Nichols, H. H.
- author
- Matthews, Washington
- block maker
- A. P. J. & Co.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1539
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1539
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mission Church, New Mexico
- Description
- Thomas Moran etched this view of a mission church in New Mexico in 1881 after a photograph by friend and traveling companion William Henry Jackson (1843–1942). Moran had met Jackson in 1871 on Ferdinand V. Hayden’s Yellowstone expedition, the first government-sponsored survey of that area. Jackson and Moran worked side by side recording views. While Moran’s paintings of the West made his reputation, fewer than one-fifth of his etchings depict Western or Mexican scenes. His signature “TYM” at lower left stands for Thomas “Yellowstone” Moran.
- The church shown in this print was replaced by a stone building in the early 20th century, and the San Juan Pueblo recently changed its name to Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. It lies twenty-five miles north of Santa Fe.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1881
- Associated Date
- 1881
- graphic artist
- Moran, Thomas
- photographer
- Jackson, William Henry
- ID Number
- GA*14750
- catalog number
- 14750
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of a "Zuni effigy"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of a “Zuni effigy” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the print was published in 1883 as Figure 463 (p.365) in an article by James Stevenson (1840-1888) entitled “Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Indians of New Mexico and Arizona in 1879” in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1880-81.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1883
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Stevenson, James
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.0141
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.0141
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of an "Aleut dancing or mortuary mask"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of an “Aleut dancing or mortuary mask” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the print was published in 1884 as Plate XXVIII.71 (p.201) in an article by William Healey Dall (1845-1927) entitled “On Masks, Labrets, and Certain Aboriginal Customs with an Inquiry into the Bearing of Their Geographical Distribution” in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1881-82.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1884
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Dall, William H.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.0164
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.0164
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of an "Indian mask from the northwest coast of America"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of an “Indian mask from the northwest coast of America” was prepared by Henry Hobart Nichols (1838-1887) and the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the print was published in 1884 as Plate XIII.20 (p.171) in an article by William Healey Dall (1845-1927) entitled “On Masks, Labrets, and Certain Aboriginal Customs with an Inquiry into the Bearing of Their Geographical Distribution” in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1881-82.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1884
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Dall, William H.
- graphic artist
- Nichols, H. H.
- block maker
- N. J. Wemmer
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.0165
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.0165
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of an "Iroquois mask"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of an "Iroquois Mask" was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the print was published as Plate XXII.49 (p. 189) in an article by William Healey Dall (1845-1927) entitled “On Masks, Labrets, and Certain Aboriginal Customs with an Inquiry into the Bearing of Their Geographical Distribution” in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1881-82. According to the annual report, the mask was “used by the order of ‘Falsefaces’.” Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) was the original artist.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1884
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Dall, William H.
- original artist
- Morgan, L. H.
- block maker
- A. P. J. & Co.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.0437
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.0437
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of a "Dancer holding up the great plumed arrow"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock for “Dancer holding up the great plumed arrow” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the print was published as Figure 54 (p.434) in an article by Dr. Washington Matthews (1843-1905) entitled “The Mountain Chant: a Navajo ceremony” in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1883-84.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1887
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- block maker
- A. P. J. & Co.
- author
- Matthews, Washington
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.0438
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.0438
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of an "Indian mask from the northwest coast of America"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of an “Indian mask from the northwest coast of America” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate XIV.23 (p.173) in an article by William Healey Dall (1845-1927) entitled “On Masks, Labrets, and Certain Aboriginal Customs with an Inquiry into the Bearing of Their Geographical Distribution” in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1881-82. According to the annual report, the image shows a “dancing mask used by the Indians of Cape Flattery, Washington Territory” and was originally drawn by J.G. Swan (1818-1900).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1884
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Dall, William H.
- original artist
- Swan, J. G.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1011
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1011
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of a "Dancer 'swallowing' the great plumed arrow"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of a “Dancer ‘swallowing’ the great plumed arrow” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Figure 55 (p.434) in an article by Dr. Washington Matthews (1843-1905) entitled “The Mountain Chant: a Navajo ceremony” in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1883-84.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1887
- block maker
- A.P.J. & Co.
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- author
- Matthews, Washington
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1112
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1112
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of a "Haida medicine rattle"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of a “Haida medicine rattle” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate XXII.50 (p.189) in an article by William Healey Dall (1845-1927) entitled “On Masks, Labrets, and Certain Aboriginal Customs with an Inquiry into the Bearing of Their Geographical Distribution” in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1881-82. According to the annual report, the mask shows “the shaman, frog, and kingfisher with continuous tongues.” The image was drawn from a “specimen obtained by J. G. Swan [(1818-1900)] at Port Townsend, W. T. from a Queen Charlotte Island Haida.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1884
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Dall, William H.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1294
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1294
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center