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How The Guild beat Hollywood, one webisode at a time
Codex costume and staff, as worn by Felicia Day in "The Guild." Costume designed by Sarah Trost; staff designed by Greg Aronowitz....
A sports star being political, 19th-century style
There has been a lot of debate over the last few years about whether sports should be political. From NFL players taking a knee to a range...
Recovered Ruby Slippers visit museum for examination by conservators, curators . . . and FBI agents
Dawn Wallace and Richard Barden stood in the museum's objects conservation lab over two shoes. Red. Sequin-covered. Small heels. Petite in...
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You Asked, We Answer
Minuteman Mickey Mouse: Disney and America's Bicentennial
The month of July plays host to the birthdays of both the United States of America (July 4, 1776) and Disneyland (July 17, 1955). This is...
The crop of the 21st century
"Information is your new crop!" proclaimed John Deere's brochure, announcing the company's newly launched GreenStar Precision Farming...
The All-Star Game returns to the nation's capital for the fifth time
All-Star Games of years past that were played in Washington were full of history: the historic arrival of a president, the effective end of...
Special Olympics at 50
"Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of Special Olympics, recited this oath at...
New York City’s Sängerfest of 1894
Piano manufacturer William Steinway kept a diary from 1861 to 1896. It resides in the National Museum of American History’s Archives Center...
William Steinway's New York
What was the Big Apple like in the second half of the 19th century? The daily diary of piano manufacturer William Steinway opens a window...
Alan Alda's insider view from the set of M*A*S*H
Hawkeye’s corduroy bathrobe looks purple in real life, but comes across as red on camera.The chronically jet-lagged actor Alan Alda got...
Remembering Robert Kennedy
June 6, 2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Robert “Bobby” Francis Kennedy. Being a native Northern Virginian, I knew that the...
When philanthropists convinced people to save lives
Young Charles Taylor drowned in June 1818. He was six years, seven months, and 10 days old, the son of Nathan and Sally Taylor. While a...
Queer coins: LGBTQ rulers through history
With Pride Month celebrations recognizing LGBTQ history and culture throughout the country this June, what better way to highlight the...
How do the arts promote social change?
The arts are "a space where we can give dignity to others while interrogating our own circumstances," Darren Walker, president of the...
What connects Abraham Lincoln and vampires? Bram Stoker, of course.
What is it about Abraham Lincoln and vampires? When Seth Grahame-Smith published his action/horror mash-up novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire...
You're invited to a Bowl of Rice Party
Wartime often catalyzes developments in philanthropy. In 2017, the museum added the Bowl of Rice party banner, from fundraising efforts to...
Does this ring a bell? School bells of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
What’s it like to intern with our Division of Home and Community Life? Elizabeth Wells found herself falling in love with our bell...
Grape gluts and Mother Clones: Prohibition and American wine
Congress passed the National Prohibition Act in January 1919, and a year later, Americans were barred from making, transporting, selling,...
La Choy and Korean cofounder Ilhan New: Negotiating Asian culinary identities in America
A photograph of Korean food products—rice wine, soy sauce, and galbi (marinated meat) sauce—at a grocery store in Washington, D.C., that I...
Mickey Mouse turns 90
It is hard to believe, but Mickey Mouse is celebrating his 90th birthday this year. For an old mouse, he still looks pretty spry! One of...
What does Alexander Hamilton have to do with the lace industry in Ipswich, Massachusetts?
If you were rich and powerful, from the late 1500s on into the late 1700s, you would show off your wealth by adorning your fashionable...
Entrepreneurial embroiderers
Embroidery by the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework is beautiful . . . but that's just the beginning of the story. These...
Oregon's Big Pine: Standing tall when the U.S. Constitution was signed
National anniversaries can be celebrated in many ways—parades, fireworks displays, and, of course, museum exhibitions. In 1983 Congress...
Who has the best hair in our Entertainment Collection?
April 29, 2018, marks the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Broadway opening of the rock musical Hair. Hair grew out of the counterculture...
Mickey Mouse morale: Disney on the World War II home front
On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into World War II. The very next day U.S. Army troops...
Souvenirs of science
I collect souvenirs, as do many friends and family members. Most of these souvenirs have scant monetary value, but we treasure them as...
Adventures in collecting: Kenneth Salisbury's robot hand
A visitor to Kenneth Salisbury's Stanford University office can't miss the evidence of his life-long fascination with hands.Kenneth...
The Fair Housing Act: Fifty years later
Fifty years ago, on April 11, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a bill that was to end discrimination in most of the nation’s housing...
In other words: Norman Granz, by the musicians who knew him
During this year’s Jazz Appreciation Month, we are exploring the relationship between jazz and justice by looking at the dynamic ways jazz...
Prohibition was fantastic for American beer, or, cheers to homebrewers
Did that title grab your attention? Great.Happy National Beer Day! When you open your fridge shortly after five o'clock this evening (or...
Norman Granz: Revolutionizing jazz for social justice
A civil rights protest often invokes the vivid images of sit-ins, boycotts, and marches, but the fight for racial equality took many...
The case of Luisa Moreno
In my first week as a curator at the National Museum of American History, I made a list of women I wished were present in the museum's...
Madam C. J. Walker’s philanthropy
A former laundress who became a millionaire from her hair-care company, Madam C. J. Walker (1867–1919) was a leading philanthropist of the...
5 objects that James Smithson might be surprised to find in the institution he founded – until he learned their philanthropy stories
James Smithson might be surprised to learn about some of the objects in the collections at the institution he established. The Englishman...
Past to present: History of philanthropy inspires contemporary giving
I caught up with collections manager Katharine Klein as she worked on rotating objects in the museum's Giving in America exhibit, to learn...
Helen West Heller: artist, poet, activist
She found symmetry in baseball. She made a triptych celebrating American agriculture. Her portraits featured the work of human hands, her...
A story in clay: Sara Galner and the Saturday Evening Girls
I didn't drool on the objects, but exploring the ceramics storage room as an intern at the National Museum of American History was pretty...
A new podcast: Order 9066
Each year we mark the Day of Remembrance with events recognizing Executive Order 9066, signed on February 19, 1942, after Japan’s bombing...
Sewing for joy: Ann Lowe
"I was 17 years old at the time and the dress made me feel so grown up and beautiful," Pauline "Polly" Carver Duxbury wrote about the dress...
300 years and counting: A new look at New Orleans and “Creole cuisine”
Celebrating the 300th anniversary of its founding this year, New Orleans is a city whose culture and cuisine have captivated the American...
Madam Speaker: A famous first joins the national collection
Museums are full of “firsts”—objects that represent the first person to complete a task, to win an award, to hold a position, to achieve a...
Abolitionist and Reformer Lucretia Mott
January 3, 2018, would have been Lucretia Coffin Mott’s 225th birthday. When it came to birthdays, Mott had a particular way of celebrating...
Special delivery by sled dogs
In this social media world of Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, everyone has heard of email (and even those of us who aren’t tech savvy...
One coin, two coin, old coin, new coin: Searching for Dr. Seuss in the National Numismatic Collection
Beloved children’s author Dr. Seuss celebrated the importance of small things in the book Horton Hears a Who! with his famous declaration...
From seams to strikes: Exploring women at work through clothing in our collection
What was life like for women in the workforce over the past 150 years? To help answer that question, I turned to the museum’s...
These tractors show 150 years of farming history
2018 is the Year of the Tractor at the museum. Curator Peter Liebhold explored gems of the museum's tractor collection and what they can...
Grab your books and tall striped hats: It's time to celebrate “Read Across America Day”
This week, teachers, librarians, and students across America will be looking around their homes for tall, striped top hats and red ties....
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders donate iconic uniforms to the museum’s sports collection
In 1976, I was an 11-year-old girl who had always wanted to be a cheerleader, and the only part of Super Bowl X that caught my attention...
What has the flair of K-pop? Historic Korean coins, obviously.
The 2018 Winter Olympics are taking place in PyeongChang, South Korea. I cannot wait to watch the competitions and see some of the...
Creating home, creating legacies: how the Del Valles built Camulos
This group portrait of Del Valle family members is on display in “Many Voices, One Nation.” This photo of the Del Valle family and...
Mourning pictures: How women used embroidery to memorialize George Washington, family, and friends
The trauma of losing its first leader, George Washington, was greatly felt by a new nation. Ezra Stiles, a pastor of the Second...
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