Reading the rainbow: The origins of the pride symbol
In 2017, in response to a slew of racist incidents in the Gayborhood, Philadelphia added black and brown stripes to the traditional six-...
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...
Spinsters, confirmed bachelors, and LGBTQ collecting
As objects representing Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning history enter the museum's collection today,...

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A long history of attempts at treating plague are represented in the museum's collections. Clockwise: a bottle to hold a preparation of scorzonera, or viper’s grass; a container used to store a paste of eggs, honey, and other ingredients; a jar intended for pulverized bezoars; and a bezoar formed from ingested hair in the stomach of an ox.
Plague hits Mouse Town, USA!
Antibodies are always looking out for us, and this week we're taking a closer look at them. Antibody-based tests, vaccines, and drugs have...
Three amber-colored bottles that resemble upside down bells with handles. They have yellowed labels on them.
An-tee-bodies: T-shirts in celebration of the antibody
Antibodies are always looking out for us, and this week we're taking a closer look at them. Antibody-based tests, vaccines, and drugs have...
An open brown box. The top of the box has a label reading "via air mail" and a stamp that says refrigerate, but no other markings. Insides the open box, there is a pipette and other components of the pregnancy test.
Antibodies are a girl's best friend
Antibodies are always looking out for us, and this week we're taking a closer look at them. Antibody-based tests, vaccines, and drugs have...
On a boat with waves in the background, a young man with blonde hair holds a video camera to his face. He wears a military vest and pants with bare arms. In front of him--the subject he is filming--is a gun or other military equipment on the boat. An operator's forearm is visible holding/manipulating the gun or equipment.
Combat Photographer: Vietnam through the lens of Marine Corporal William T. Perkins, Jr.
The Vietnam War was the nation's first televised war. Within hours, combat footage of young Americans in uniform in the jungles of South...
An elaborate outfit comprising a crimson robe with matching skirt with gold lace overlay. There is a sloping sash placed around the shoulders and a hat with four points.
The woman who would be cardinal
In reflecting on National Coming Out Day, Curator Kenneth Cohen was reminded of the fascinating story of Charlotte Cushman that we've...
A model of the head and decolletage of what used to be a woman but is now a creature with leathery and deteriorating skin opening its lipless maw hungrily. It doesn't have arms.
Contemporary collecting: Creepy costumes and props from "The Walking Dead" join our collection
When my daughter, Katelyn, told me I would like a new TV show that had aired on Halloween night in 2010, I was skeptical. I'm not a big fan...
A folded white cloth napkin with writing on it. The notes and graph demonstrate Laffer's theory of supply side economics.
Great napkins of history: Laffer and Zandman's sketches of breakthrough ideas
Every museum curator searches for that incredible iconic object, a fabulous artifact that is both physically interesting and represents a...
Newspaper clippings, white cards with handwritten text, and a photograph on old, faded paper. There are dark streaks on some of the clippings and the page.
Scrapbooks: troublemakers and treasures in the archives
October is American Archives Month—a great time to flip through the old family scrapbooks and spend time preserving these homemade albums...
Cover of Leopoldo Martinez's red leather scrapbook. The embroidered book has features the text: Scrap Book.
Commemorating a LIFE: How one Latino ballplayer remembered his career
Leopoldo “Polín” Martinez was a highly talented semiprofessional baseball player who toured with clubs in Mexico, Texas, and Southern...
Photograph of Ernie Martinez's re-stitched baseball glove and repair tools.
Innovative solutions to baseball problems: Latina/o style
After hitting a double, the runner goes for glory and tries to stretch the hit into a triple. A throw, a slide, a cloud of dust, and...
Four figurines lined up against a background. They wear colorful clothing, carry different items and have objects on their heads
The small town sculptor and the American collector
When Janice Hatfield, a collector of Mexican American folk art, first visited Mexico in the 1960s, she had an instantaneous feeling of home...
A black and white photograph of a wall inside a building covered in a line of photographs with text panels and large lettering.
Looking back on "M*A*S*H," the show and the exhibition
As frightening reports of North Korea's nuclear missile tests fill the news, many of us long for the days when the only television coverage...
A dark-haired woman in a gold hat and top holds up a bottle of Coca Cola and smiles. There is a dark border created by the visible film strip around the photograph.
Yo Te Sigo Queriendo (I Still Love You): Memories of Selena
From the 1950s to 1970s, U.S. advertising started to shift from mass marketing to recognizing and defining distinct target markets. A...
A colorful mask with red antlers, a black face covered in yellow dashes with two yellow horns. The eyes are exaggeratedly large and the mouth is open with many thin white teeth. There are bells attached all over the mask.
Ask a Curator Day: Indulge your curiosity, history nerds!
Getting to handle and study treasured artifacts, pursuing fascinating research adventures all day, and building inspirational exhibitions—...
Photo of World Trade Center site after attacks of September 11, 2001. Two or three workers in hard hats and uniforms are in the cherrypicker of a crane, shooting a fire hose downward in a gentle arch. A battered wall or part of a building visible left.
The day I decided not to collect: A curator's view of Ground Zero
About a month after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, I received a phone call from a colleague asking if I wanted to take a trip up to New...
On a white background lies a rectangular piece of paper with chunks missing. It looks like a puzzle because some pieces are lined up next to each other. There is a second partially destroyed document laying to the right.
Preserving and displaying layers of history: The stock certificate nearly destroyed on September 11
The history behind a single object can often tell many stories. In 2004 the museum acquired a stock certificate from an early Internet...
Photograph of lunch counter with four chairs
Greensboro, Charlottesville, and the nation we build together
"I walked away with an attitude that, if our country is screwed up, don't give up. Unscrew it, but don't give up."   ...
Photograph of Skorton welcoming visitors at the opening of the new wing. He is joined by two museum staffers dressed in Statue of Liberty costumes.
Smithsonian Secretary Skorton's introduction to our new wing, The Nation We Build Together
I had the pleasure of participating in the grand opening of the museum’s impressive new wing, The Nation We Build Together. The design of...
An object that appears to be made of a rolled piece of crimped paper with accordion folds that is sat upright. There is a painted design on it that appears to be an eagle with American imagery.
Shedding light on lantern conservation
Even before they got the vote, young people were historically involved in politics, particularly in the last half of the 19th century. From...
(Zoom/Detail) Black and white photo of a woman on a stage. On stage are six fridges, two lamps, and a big banner that says "REA." On a table on the floor in front of the stage, a lamp. There are decorative tassels.
Now you're cooking with electricity!
Before Alton Brown, Rachael Ray, and Giada De Laurentiis, there was Louisan Mamer (1910–2005). An early employee of the Rural...
A shiny metal object with a round base and small wooden handles. There is an object resembling a covered bowl with white material inlaid bearing an illustration
Pass the syrup and enjoy a slice of history for National Waffle Day
Americans eat a lot of waffles. According to the restaurant chain Waffle House, approximately 145 waffles are sold at the eatery throughout...
A woman stands inside a case with metal objects attached to poles, and there are lanterns hung up. She holds a white cloth out and attempts to clean the glass in front of her.
10 things to know about exhibition installation
As collections managers and museum specialists, our job is to care, physically and intellectually, for the museum's objects. We research...
Page from children's book illustration with a skeleton illustration in black link.
"Xerxes the Great did die, and so must you and I": Learning about the alphabet and the inevitability of death in early Protestant America
Do you remember the books that helped you learn to read—maybe Dick and Jane, Dr. Seuss, or Clifford the Big Red Dog? No matter the...
A black and white photograph of a balding, bearded man wearing a suit jacket and tie, looking to his right away from the camera.
Unmasking photographer George Collins Cox
 [[{"fid":"23645","view_mode":"large","fields":{"format":"large","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"A black...
Scan of newspaper-style image. A little girl in uniform with big smile gives a salute and so does her spotted dog, who looks up at her.
Dogs for defense: how Skip, Spot, and Rover went off to fight World War II
Imagine being asked to contribute your best friend to the war effort, if your best friend has four legs, is furry, and goes by the name of...
Photograph of the eyepiece of a telescope-type device
Donkeys, lard, and a telescope: eclipse exploration in 1878 and 1900
[[{"fid":"23607","view_mode":"large","fields":{"format":"large","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Photograph of...
Color photo of two women in a kitchen surrounded by cookbooks, rosemary plants, dishes, plates, and more. One is holding a pan or pot and peering into it, while the other, by her side, does something that is hard to see due to a rosemary plant.
Adding weight to Julia Child's kitchen
On the 105th anniversary of Julia Child's birth (August 15, 1912), the museum's food history team is thinking anew about Julia's life and...
A portion of a piece of currency. It depicts a bird upside wen surrounded by stamp-like decorations in green, red and black. There are many scratch marks on the right side of the frame.
Valuable nicknames: The monikers we give our money
Honest Abe, Old Hickory, His Accidency, Old Rough and Ready, Cool Cal, and Handsome Frank are but a few fond (or not so fond) nicknames...
A portion of a piece of paper currency. A pair of tigers frolic in a stream. There is text above and below them within an ornate order. The paper is cream-colored with blue and orange stripes
Cats on cash
Coins are a powerful tool used to communicate strong messages through varied symbolism. In addition to portraits of influential people and...
A sepia photograph of a woman with dark coiffed hair in a military-style shirt. She is smiling.
Alice Tetsuko Kono: Wise, well-traveled, WAC
Museum Specialist Noriko Sanefuji and Curator Katherine Ott invited students in Dr. Samuel J. Redman's Museum and Historic Site...
A black suitcase whose case is old and warped with stripes down the center under the handle.
Leaving home behind: The fates of Japanese American houses during incarceration
Museum Specialist Noriko Sanefuji and Curator Katherine Ott invited students in Dr. Samuel J. Redman's Museum and Historic Site...
An illustration of a head of a man. He has a floppy cap on with a green ribbon and a large mustache and appears to be smiling.
Illustrating Prisoners in the Great War
When the United States entered the Great War in 1917, the U.S. Army commissioned eight professional artists to record the activities of the...
Detail of one of the rewards shown in the blog post below. It includes an illustration of a blue bird on a branch with a red flower and says, "Reward of Merit."
Merited behavior: Rewarding the 19th century schoolchild
When I was young, one of my favorite things about school was when I could bring something home to show my parents. I relished their...
An excerpt from an old, yellowed newspaper with black type
Soldier-printers' interjections of encouragement on the Civil War battleground
During the American Civil War, after the capture of New Orleans in the spring of 1862, Union troops were stationed at the former...
A wooden case with the cover pushed to the side. Inside there is a metal dish attached to a stick with purple strings.
Dotchin or "opium scale"—What's in a name?
Working with museum collections, I am often reminded that the names we attach to objects can reflect powerful social and political forces....
A gold coin. It is very bright and has a long, snakelike dragon coiled in the middle with cloud-like designs around it.
It's not heads or tails in the "Game of Thrones"
Spoiler alert: If you aren't caught up on your Game of Thrones viewing, there may be a few surprises inside.Even though it's...
In a black and white photograph a woman in a white collared shirt and hair sticking up in every direction is laughing
Three ways to celebrate Phyllis Diller on her 100th birthday
Phyllis Diller, the groundbreaking stand-up comic, would have been celebrating her 100th birthday on July 17, 2017. The Smithsonian honored...
An object that is a circle with alternating white and green bands. In the middle is a red circle with M&D and the universal medical sign in it. There is a bronze-colored part sticking out of the bottom with a hole in it.
Move aside, the doctor is driving through!
While walking alongside a street or through a parking lot, do you ever notice the different signs adorning cars? Bumper stickers are the...
A double black and white image of a number of adults in a parlor surrounding an infant in a blanket. The central man is holding some sort of strap with a hook in his hands that is attached to the cloth the baby is lying in.
Weighing the baby
Parents today proudly announce the weight of each new child, along with the baby's height, name, and sex. When did the practice of weighing...
An illustration of a man in a chariot riding in a stadium under a yellow sky.
Part 2: Treasures from Hollywood's silent era
America has long been home to enthusiastic movie fans. Even back in the 1910s and 1920s, a period in American film history known as the "...
A lunchbox with a rectangular base and a curved top. It has a red handle and metal clasps. Its surface depicts a barren landscape with a starry night sky. A futuristic silver van on many wheels drives across the front. On the side, one can see two people with their arms raised. A giant green monster stands in front of them.
For Roswell Day, a celebration of aliens at the lunch table
First, they crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, sometime in July 1947. Then they crashed into our lunch boxes and our lives.Our imaginations...
Postcard-sized illustration in color featuring three children. Two little boys light fireworks and play with toy soldiers while a little girl covers her ears and clutches a doll. Text reads "Wishing you a glorious 4th of July" in gold.
When real patriots got Tetanus
"The coming stupendous holocaust, caused by the sky-rocket, the giant fire cracker and the toy pistol, that leaves an annual trail of...
A horizontal glass bottle with metal machinery inside. There is wiring, a semicircular object, and a glass spout on one end with a tube attached below it filled with a black substance. Above, there is an object that is shaped like an golden, upside-down light bulb.
Well, that sucks…or does it?
Vacuum technology is fascinating to me. Unfortunately for my house, I'm talking about a vacuum defined by the absence of matter, not the...
A picture of a large bell on wooden supports. There is a metal wheel next to it on its large frame
Paul Revere's church bell from "Religion in Early America"
For several decades after the Revolution, Paul Revere was as famous for his church bells as for his midnight ride. His role as a horse-...
A loaf of bread on a wooden surface. It is light wheat colored and the surface is rough
Taking on Fannie Farmer: How a baking-impaired intern negotiated a 100-year-old bread recipe in a modern kitchen
I do not bake. My cookies burn, my pie crust is either too dry or too sticky, and my pies turn out watery. So how did I find myself lead...
A black hog stands in an enclosure of logs. It has straw all over it.
George Washington weighs his hogs
George Washington is seldom seen as a man of science. But, like others who lived during the Enlightenment, he used scientific ideas,...
A statue or object resembling the statue of Liberty. The robe and crown are a mint green color and The statue holds an apple up. There are more in a container she holds at her side. She has dark hair and olive brown skin.
Looking for Liberty in the Nation We Build Together
On June 17, 1885, a French ship, the Isère, arrived in New York Harbor laden with very special cargo—more than 200 crates filled with...
A single-page, typed letter dated July 21, 2010 from David Rockefeller. It begins: "Philanthropists, at their best, try to address serious societal problems and occasionally come up with innovations that lead to enduring change. In the end, success requires much more than financial resources, although money is, of course, essential." It continues fora total of four paragraphs.
Contributing to a conversation: Reflections on David Rockefeller's Giving Pledge letter
In March, David Rockefeller died at the extraordinary age of 101. He was one of the first signers of the Giving Pledge, a commitment by...

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