Military - Overview
The Museum's superb military collections document the history of the men and women of the armed forces of the United States. The collections include ordnance, firearms, and swords; uniforms and insignia; national and military flags and banners; and many other objects.
The strength of the collections lies in their enormous depth. Some 3,000 military small arms and 2,400 civilian firearms document the mechanical and technological history of the infantryman's weapons from the beginning of the gunpowder era to the present. Among the 4,000 swords and knives in the collection are many spectacular presentation pieces. The collections also include Civil War era telegraph equipment, home front artifacts from both world wars, early computers such as ENIAC, Whirlwind, and Sage, and materials carried at antiwar demonstrations.
"Military - Overview" showing 5 items.
Soviet poster, Nazi caricature
- Description
- During World War II, after the breakdown of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, the Soviet news agency TASS issued a series of propaganda posters. Topics included anti-Nazi caricatures and Socialist Realist art encouraging the war effort. Beginning in June 1941, the Union of Soviet Artists established a publishing collective to produce the posters on an almost daily basis. Because they were displayed in the windows of the news agency's Moscow office, they are known as TASS window posters. It is estimated that about 1,500 different posters were produced between 1941 and 1945.
- Well-known artists and poets worked on the designs and captions, and most of the posters were produced in limited editions using the stencil process for both graphics and text. Many posters were completed and reproduced within 24 hours, making them very responsive to political issues and war news. Copies were distributed abroad by VOKS, the Soviet Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Their messages helped present the USSR favorably to its new allies, including the U.S. The Museum has six of these posters received in 1943 through VOKS. Other collections outside Russia include the University of Nottingham in England and Columbia and Cornell universities in the U.S.
- TASS window poster No. 514 is a caricature of a Nazi soldier in his underwear carrying his clothes, with another figure at his side. It may be titled "Ragmen," but the point of the satire is not clear from the image.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1942-1943
- 1942
- artist attribution
- Lebedev, Vladimir
- author
- Marshak, Samuel
- ID Number
- GA*18848
- accession number
- 164567
- catalog number
- 18848
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Soviet poster, Hitler caricatures
- Description
- During World War II, after the breakdown of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, the Soviet news agency TASS issued a series of propaganda posters. Topics included anti-Nazi caricatures and Socialist Realist art encouraging the war effort. Beginning in June 1941, the Union of Soviet Artists established a publishing collective to produce the posters on an almost daily basis. Because they were displayed in the windows of the news agency's Moscow office, they are known as TASS window posters. It is estimated that about 1,500 different posters were produced between 1941 and 1945.
- Well-known artists and poets worked on the designs and captions, and most of the posters were produced in limited editions using the stencil process for both graphics and text. Many posters were completed and reproduced within 24 hours, making them very responsive to political issues and war news. Copies were distributed abroad by VOKS, the Soviet Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Their messages helped present the USSR favorably to its new allies, including the U.S. The Museum has six of these posters received in 1943 through VOKS. Other collections outside Russia include the University of Nottingham in England and Columbia and Cornell universities in the U.S.
- TASS window poster No. 503. Six-panel poster with caricatures of Hitler's rise to power, including the Munich beer-hall putsch, book burning, and the publication of Mein Kampf. Three artists—Mikhail Kupriyanov, Porfiry Krylov, and Nikolai Sokolov—known collectively as Kukryniksy are credited with the design, and poet Deyman Bedny wrote the text.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1942-1943
- 1942
- caricaturist
- Kukryniksy group
- ID Number
- GA*18850
- accession number
- 164567
- catalog number
- 18850
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Soviet poster, Bombing Berlin
- Description
- During World War II, after the breakdown of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, the Soviet news agency TASS issued a series of propaganda posters. Topics included anti-Nazi caricatures and Socialist Realist art encouraging the war effort. Beginning in June 1941, the Union of Soviet Artists established a publishing collective to produce the posters on an almost daily basis. Because they were displayed in the windows of the news agency's Moscow office, they are known as TASS window posters. It is estimated that about 1,500 different posters were produced between 1941 and 1945.
- Well-known artists and poets worked on the designs and captions, and most of the posters were produced in limited editions using the stencil process for both graphics and text. Many posters were completed and reproduced within 24 hours, making them very responsive to political issues and war news. Copies were distributed abroad by VOKS, the Soviet Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Their messages helped present the USSR favorably to its new allies, including the U.S. The Museum has six of these posters received in 1943 through VOKS. Other collections outside Russia include the University of Nottingham in England and Columbia and Cornell universities in the U.S.
- TASS window poster No. 707 is a two-panel poster showing bombing of Berlin on top, with Hilter, Goering, and Goebbels cowering in a bunker below.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1943
- ID Number
- GA*19084
- accession number
- 167088
- catalog number
- 19084
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Soviet poster, Making Hand Grenades
- Description
- During World War II, after the breakdown of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, the Soviet news agency TASS issued a series of propaganda posters. Topics included anti-Nazi caricatures and Socialist Realist art encouraging the war effort. Beginning in June 1941, the Union of Soviet Artists established a publishing collective to produce the posters on an almost daily basis. Because they were displayed in the windows of the news agency's Moscow office, they are known as TASS window posters. It is estimated that about 1,500 different posters were produced between 1941 and 1945.
- Well-known artists and poets worked on the designs and captions, and most of the posters were produced in limited editions using the stencil process for both graphics and text. Many posters were completed and reproduced within 24 hours, making them very responsive to political issues and war news. Copies were distributed abroad by VOKS, the Soviet Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Their messages helped present the USSR favorably to its new allies, including the U.S. The Museum has six of these posters received in 1943 through VOKS. Other collections outside Russia include the University of Nottingham in England and Columbia and Cornell universities in the U.S.
- TASS window poster No. 512 shows a man and a woman making hand grenades. In vivid Socialist Realist style, the poster both encourages and supports the war effort.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1942-1943
- 1942
- artist attribution
- Vyalov, Konstantin Aleksandrovich
- author
- Mashistzov, A.
- ID Number
- GA*18849
- accession number
- 164567
- catalog number
- 18849
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Soviet poster, Anti-Hitler catoons
- Description
- During World War II, after the breakdown of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, the Soviet news agency TASS issued a series of propaganda posters. Topics included anti-Nazi caricatures and Socialist Realist art encouraging the war effort. Beginning in June 1941, the Union of Soviet Artists established a publishing collective to produce the posters on an almost daily basis. Because they were displayed in the windows of the news agency's Moscow office, they are known as TASS window posters. It is estimated that about 1,500 different posters were produced between 1941 and 1945.
- Well-known artists and poets worked on the designs and captions, and most of the posters were produced in limited editions using the stencil process for both graphics and text. Many posters were completed and reproduced within 24 hours, making them very responsive to political issues and war news. Copies were distributed abroad by VOKS, the Soviet Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Their messages helped present the USSR favorably to its new allies, including the U.S. The Museum has six of these posters received in 1943 through VOKS. Other collections outside Russia include the University of Nottingham in England and Columbia and Cornell universities in the U.S.
- TASS window poster No. 711 is a two-panel poster with anti-Hitler cartoons.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1943
- ID Number
- GA*19085
- accession number
- 167088
- catalog number
- 19085
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center