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 888 items.
Page 2 of 89
Face Vessel
- Description
- The tradition of shaping human likenesses on ceramic vessels is thousands of years old. Face vessels held different meanings in different cultures around the world. Some were probably used in burial rituals, others satirized the person whose features were captured in clay, and still others were made just for fun.
- The earliest face vessels known to have been produced by white southern potters were probably not made until the end of the 1800s. White potters working in the Edgefield area in the mid-1800s may have seen the slave-made vessels and taken the idea with them as they moved out of South Carolina.
- This jug, on the right, was made by Georgia potter Cheever Meaders (1887-1967) who produced a small number of face vessels. Although they were popular, Meaders felt that they were too much trouble to make. Meaders used pieces of broken, glazed plates for the eyes and teeth on this piece.
- Starting in the 1960s, a growing interest in southern face vessels as examples of 20th-century folk art prompted collectors, historians, and cultural institutions to seek out and encourage the potters who produce them. This piece was donated to the Smithsonian by Ralph Rinzler and his wife. Working for the Smithsonian's Office of Folklife Programs, Rinzler was instrumental in the rediscovery and popularization of face vessels.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1967
- maker
- Meaders, Cheever
- ID Number
- 1981.0287.7
- accession number
- 1981.0287
- catalog number
- 1981.287.7
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Pitcher Honoring Frederick Douglass
- Description
- 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 that the design for the pitcher was copyrighted by a J. E. Bruce of Albany, New York, in 1896, one year after Douglass's death.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1895
- designer
- Bruce, J. E.
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 1981.0353.1
- catalog number
- 1981.353.1
- accession number
- 1981.0353
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
The Last Moment of the Emperor Maximilian
- Description
- This relief print from The Magazine of Art dramatically illustrates the final moments before the execution of the Mexican Emperor Maximilian I in 1867. An Austrian noble by birth, Maximilian was installed by Napoleon III of France. French forces had invaded Mexico in 1862, after President Benito Juárez suspended payments on its foreign debt. Despite a major victory by Mexican forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, the French seized control of large sections of Mexico, including the capital. Maximilian was initially supported by Mexican conservatives in a backlash against the changes instituted by the Mexican War of Reform (1857–1861). However, once on the throne, his support of a free press, open universities, land reform, and other progressive ideas of the day proved to be out of step with his conservative constituency and the Catholic Church. Menaced by the government of the United States, victorious after its own civil war, and the rising success of Mexican nationalist forces, the French withdrew their military support of Maximilian, the last emperor of Mexico. This historic image is one of 45,000 artistic and commercials prints housed in the Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1890
- graphic artist
- Babbage, T.
- publisher
- Magazine of Art
- ID Number
- 1996.0197.350
- catalog number
- 1996.0197.350
- accession number
- 1996.0197
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Carnival Mask
- Description
- This papier-mâché mask was made by Miguel Caraballo in 1985. Masks like this are typically worn by young men from the neighborhood, who don the costume of a vejigante , a character who roams the streets during Carnival, playfully scaring children and other revelers, and swatting them with vejigas (balloon-like, inflated animal bladders).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1985
- maker
- Caraballo, Miguel Angel
- ID Number
- 1997.0097.0002
- accession number
- 1997.0097
- catalog number
- 1997.0097.0002
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Carnival Mask
- Description
- Mask maker Antonio Muñiz has added the horns of a traditional carnaval de Ponce mask (usually representing a devilish face) to a gorilla. This papier-mâché mask has an articulated jaw and a vinyl tongue.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1980
- maker
- Muniz, Antonio
- ID Number
- 1997.0097.0009
- accession number
- 1997.0097
- catalog number
- 1997.0097.0009
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Niño Jesús
- Description
- Jesus Christ is represented in a variety of forms in Catholic art and devotion, one of the most familiar being the scene of his crucifixion. Almost as frequently, Christ is shown as an infant, often being held by his mother, the Virgin Mary. This wooden figure of El Niño Jesús, the Christ Child, is from the late 19th century.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- Late 19th century
- ID Number
- 1997.0097.0035
- accession number
- 1997.0097
- catalog number
- 1997.0097.0035
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Tile from La Fortaleza
- Description
- This tile is from La Fortaleza, a military and government complex in San Juan built to defend the city from naval attacks. Construction began in 1533 and was finished in 1540. This tile resembles the Spanish ceramic style of Talavera, a tile factory established in the 16th century near the city of Toledo, Spain. The tiles produced in Spain became widely used and copied throughout the Spanish colonies.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 18th century
- ID Number
- 1997.0097.0142
- accession number
- 1997.0097
- catalog number
- 1997.0097.0142
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
The All-Powerful Hand
- Description
- The ancient symbol of a protective hand is common to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. This figure, the Mano Poderosa or All-Powerful Hand, from the late 1800s, is a specifically Catholic version of its Roman predecessor. The five small figures atop the fingers are: Baby Jesus on the thumb; St. Joseph on the index finger; the Virgin Mary on the middle finger; St. Joachim (Mary's father) on the fourth finger; and St. Anne (Mary's mother) on the pinkie.
- Date made
- late 19th century
- maker
- Caban Group
- Caban Group
- ID Number
- 1997.0097.0225
- catalog number
- 1997.0097.0225
- accession number
- 1997.0097
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Amuleto en Forma de Espada
- Description
- This 20th century protective amulet takes the form of a sword. Amulets like this are worn with the belief that they ward off evil, danger, or bad luck, and provide strength and reassurance to the wearer.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 20th century
- ID Number
- 1997.0097.0325
- accession number
- 1997.0097
- catalog number
- 1997.0097.0325
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Slave shackles
- Description
- In the 15th century, decades before they sailed into the Caribbean, Spanish merchants, captains, and adventurers had already conquered and enslaved the people of the Canary Islands in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. On the western coast of continental Africa, the Portuguese had been cultivating a slavery-based economic policy. This legacy of conquest and slavery shaped the colonization of Puerto Rico and other islands in the Caribbean. Some of the first American encounters between Europeans, Indians, and Africans took place in Puerto Rico, and its early history of genocidal violence and physical exploitation was repeated throughout the Americas.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 19th century
- ID Number
- 1997.0097.0370
- catalog number
- 1997.0097.0370
- accession number
- 1997.0097
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center