Around 1793 John Trumbull painted this cabinet portrait of George Washington. Probably presented as a gift from the artist, the Washingtons hung the portrait in their bedroom at Mount Vernon.
Many immigrants sought to preserve their cultural heritage while at the same time embracing their new identity as Americans. Manfred Anson did so in designing this Hanukkah lamp to mark the centennial of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. Anson, who escaped Nazi Germany as a teenager, later reunited with family who had immigrated to the United States. For this lamp, Anson combined a traditional Polish menorah and figurines cast from a 19th century Statue of Liberty souvenir.
Abolitionist leader and civil rights champion Frederick Douglass in 1882 sent this quotation from his historic 1852 speech on the nature of American pluralism to Pennsylvania businessman and manuscript collector William F. Gable.