Demand for inexpensive, mass-produced women’s clothing spurred the rise of early garment factories. The ILGWU was formed in 1900 by bringing together several smaller local unions to fight to end sweatshop production, higher wages, and improve working conditions in the cities where the garment factories were located. Building on the success of the 1909 New York City shirtwaist makers’ strike and the 1910 New York cloakmakers’ strike the union quickly grew to be one of the strongest labor organizations in the country. This guest badge for the 40th anniversary ILGWU convention includes a silver-colored medallion in the shape of a spool of thread.
This serving spoon is believed to be from Napoleon’s commissary, a detail of his army responsible for supplying necessary food rations and supplies. After his accession to power in 1799, Napoleon appointed Pierre Daru as Chief Commissary to the Army of the Reserve and later La Grande Armee, which defeated the Austrian Empire and Russia in 1805.
Public schools encouraged the Americanization of newcomers with programs and images intended to inspire patriotism. In most classrooms, American flags hung alongside images of the American eagle and images of George Washington.
This small handheld brass school bell reinforced the message of patriotism with an eagle shaped handle. It was used to alert students to the start of the school day, to the end of recess, and to gain student attention when the classroom became too noisy.
This soccer ball was donated by Luma Mufleh, founder of the Fugees soccer team for refugee children in Clarkston, Georgia. Mufleh formed the team in 2004 in response to the refugee resettlement that brought thousands of refugees from around the globe to Clarkston. Mufleh founded Fugees Academy, the only school in the United States founded to teach refugee children by focusing on soccer and academics. Using soccer, The Fugees overcame anti-immigrant backlash in Georgia. The school helps the students form social connections, practice their English, and develop leadership skills.
Hard boiled and painted eggs, are traditional Easter egg decorations called pisanka in Poland and Pysanka in the Ukraine. They are made to be exchanged at Easter to symbolize new life. The eggs traditionally blend geometric symbols that represent fertility, protection, and the natural world with emblems of Christianity.
This jersey was donated by Luma Mufleh, coach and founder of the Fugees soccer team for refugee children in Clarkston, Georgia. Mufleh formed the team in 2004 in response to the refugee resettlement that brought 6,000 refugees to Clarkston. Mufleh also created the Fugees Academy, the only school in the United States founded to help refugee children succeed in school while also having a dedicated soccer academy. Using soccer, the school helps the students from twenty-three countries form social connections, practice their English, and develop leadership skills. Facing an anti-immigrant backlash, the team overcame these difficulties by becoming a powerhouse soccer team in the state of Georgia.
This Norwegian drinking bowl is carved in the form of a goose and features rosemaling, or decorative floral folk painting originating from the low-lands of Norway. Bowls were typically carved from a single piece of birch wood and featured incised decoration produced through chip carving. Due to the revival of Norwegian folk art in the 19th century, kasas were widely reproduced for use as decoration.
Made in Ireland from native bog oak, the brooch features a harp as the national emblem of Ireland, and shamrocks, a spring of clover associated with Ireland's patron saint, Saint Patrick. The brooch dates to a period of mass migration to the United States following the Irish Potato Famine from 1844 to 1852. In the five years that followed the famine, approximately one million Irish immigrants arrived in the United States with concentrated settlement in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other cities along the Atlantic coast.
Brought from Bohemia (now Hungary) by Josef Benes and his wife, Katherine Syrwy Benes, when they immigrated to the United States in 1882. Their daughter, Carol Benes Miller, the donor, recalled, "We used it in Chicago, when we 4 girls had to go into back yard outhouse in 1892 till we moved into a cold water flat that had a bathroom." Their first home in Chicago was at Ashland Ave. & 20th St., according to the donor, and she was about 3 or 4 years old at the time the family moved to the United States.
This coiled grass basket was collected in Morgantown, West Virginia. However, by the style, shape, and use of bulrush and other plants, curators know that this basket was probably made in the late 1800s or early 1900s somewhere in the Lowcountry (coastal) region of the Carolinas and Georgia or on the nearby Atlantic Sea Islands. The basket was probably carried to West Virginia. The Gullah or Geechee people who made baskets of this type both carried on traditions from African ancestors and incorporated innovations created by American-born ancestors. This small basket could have been used to carry many small items. The distinctive Lowcountry region of the Carolinas and Georgia and the nearby Atlantic Sea Islands culture are now part of the National Park Service as the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor.
This coiled basket was collected around 1899 by Landry Robinson from Jackson, Mississippi. As he recounts the memory, he visited an agricultural exposition in Louisiana and bought this basket made by an “old lady named Mrs. Sahie.” This straight-sided work basket is very similar to the coiled grass baskets made on the Lowcountry (coastal) region of the Carolinas and Georgia where West African enslaved people and their descendants grew rice in the 1700s and 1800s. Through the “internal” or “domestic” slave trade, African people were sold to western plantation owners in Mississippi and Louisiana from the 1830s until the early 1860s. This basket might have been made by a woman or her daughter who was sold west away from her eastern family, but who kept up this distinctive cultural and familial tradition of basket-making. The distinctive Lowcountry region of the Carolinas and Georgia and the nearby Atlantic Sea Islands culture are now part of the National Park Service as the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor.
A black fine-tooth plastic comb collected in a remote part of the Sonoran Desert near the Mexican border. The past 20 years has seen a rise in unauthorized border crossing, border enforcement procedures, and debates about who and how migrants should be let into the country.
As the US federal immigration enforcement strategy known as Prevention Through Deterrence (PTD) increased the security presence around urban ports of entry in the mid-1990s, there was a shift in undocumented migration towards more remote regions of the American Southwest. Those making the perilous journey through this inhospitable desert landscape faced extreme temperatures (summer temperatures as high as 100° F/38° C and winter temperatures approaching freezing), rugged terrain, abuse from coyotes (human smugglers), and the risk of getting caught by the Border Patrol.
Tao-Zeun “T.Z.” Chu was born in 1934 in Shanghai, China; however, in a time of political uncertainty, his family decided to move to Mumbai (Bombay), India by 1948. Chu and his two sisters were sent to the Woodstock School, an American Missionary high school in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains where he learned English, developed his love of chemistry, and gained a sense of belonging in an international community. T.Z. continued his education in chemistry by traveling to the United States in order to attend college. As a foreign student of modest means, the University of California, Berkeley welcomed Chu as he found a home within the Berkeley Students Cooperative and the College of Chemistry. After graduation, T.Z. worked with a start-up company manufacturing gas chromatographs. As the business expanded, Chu went to Basel, Switzerland to spearhead the European branch of the company but also met his wife of 52 years, Irmgard Suetterlin, there. Through long 12 hour days and the experiences that he gained through his education and work, Tao-Zeun Chu became the first Asian CEO of a public technology company in America.
Drop-stem smoking pipe with bowl carved into a bird's claw. According to Carol Benes Miller, the donor, "The pipe was from Montgomery Ward's as Dad worked there 27 yrs. as their gunsmith." She recalled her father, Josef Benes, smoking it from 1900 until 1915 when he passed away. Her parents had immigrated from Chocen, Bohemia in 1882 to Chicago, Illinois, where they brought up four daughters. The pipe bowl is made from meerschaum, a clay material whose name translates into “sea foam” in German for it is often found floating in the Black Sea. Meerschaum was a popular pipe-making material in Germany and is frequently carved with German motifs.
These slippers are a part of ceremonial white clothing worn by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, known as Mormons. During religious rituals, Mormons wear white clothing that symbolizes purity and creates equality among the attending members. The slippers were donated to the museum in 1890 by George Woltz, who wore them to church rituals in Salt Lake City, Utah.