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 6 items.
Engraved woodblock of a "Navajo Indian with silver ornaments"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of “Navajo Indian with silver ornaments" was prepared, after a photograph, by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the print was published as Plate XX (p. 178) in an article by Dr. Washington Matthews (1843-1905) entitled “Navajo Silversmiths” 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
- Matthews, Washington
- block maker
- J. J. & Co.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.0442
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.0442
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of a "Vase of unusual shape"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of a “Vase of unusual shape” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Figure 211 (p.144) in an article by William Henry Holmes (1846-1933) entitled “Ancient Art of the Province of Chiriqui, Colombia” in the Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian,1884-85.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1888
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Holmes, William Henry
- block maker
- J. J. & Co.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1289
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1289
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of a "Haida totem post"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of a “Haida totem post” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Figure 24 (p.68) in an article by Garrick Mallery (1831-1894) entitled “Pictographs of the North American Indians: a preliminary paper” in the Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1882-83.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1886
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Mallery, Garrick
- block maker
- J. J. & Co.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1509
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1509
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of the "Moki method of dressing hair"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of a “Moki method of dressing hair” was prepared, after a photograph, by Henry Hobart Nichols (1838-1887) and the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate XLIII (p.583) in an article by James Stevenson (1840-1888) entitled “Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Pueblos of Zuni, New Mexico, and Wolpi, Arizona, in 1881” 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
- graphic artist
- Nichols, H. H.
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Stevenson, James
- block maker
- J. J. & Co.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1879
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1879
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of an "Australian grave and carved trees"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of an “Australian grave and carved trees” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Figure 37 (p.76) in an article by Garrick Mallery (1831-1894) entitled “Pictographs of the North American Indians: a preliminary paper” in the Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1882-83.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1886
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Mallery, Garrick
- block maker
- J. J. & Co.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1206
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1206
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of the "Earliest map showing [the] location of the Cherokees, 1597"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of the “Earliest map showing [the] location of the Cherokees, 1597” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate VII (p.128) in an article by Charles Royce (1845-1923) entitled “The Cherokee Nation of Indians: a narrative of their official relations with the colonial and federal governments” 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
- Government Printing Office
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Royce, Charles C.
- block maker
- J. J. & Co.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1531
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1531
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center

