Religion
One hallmark of the American experience captured in the Museum's collections is the nation's broad diversity of religious faiths. Artifacts range from Thomas Jefferson's Bible to a huge "Sunstone" sculpture carved for a Mormon temple in Illinois in 1844 to a household shrine from the home of a Pueblo Indian in the 1990s. Furniture, musical instruments, clothing, cooking ware, and thousands of prints and figures in the collections have all played roles in the religious lives of Americans. The most comprehensive collections include artifacts from Jewish and Christian European Americans, Catholic Latinos, Protestant Arab Americans, Buddhist and Christian Asian Pacific Americans, and Protestant African Americans. One notable group is the Vidal Collection of carved figures known as santos and other folk religious material from the practice of Santeria in Puerto Rico.
1,793
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medal
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 2000.0002.069
- accession number
- 2000.0002
- catalog number
- 2000.0002.069
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Prescription Label, Elephanten Apotheke von W. Biegmann in Duisburg
- Description (Brief)
- The Bristol-Myers Squibb Collection has over two hundred early prescription labels from dozens of apothecaries across Germany and Austria.
- Early labels were plain and without adornment. Later embellishments included decorative borders, images of animals such as stags, lions, or elephants associated with the name of the apothecary.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1991.0664.1267
- catalog number
- 1991.0664.1267
- accession number
- 1991.0664
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Engraved woodblock of an "Indian mask from the northwest coast of America"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of an “Indian mask from the northwest coast of America” was prepared by Henry Hobart Nichols (1838-1887) and the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the print was published in 1884 as Plate XIII.20 (p.171) in an article by William Healey Dall (1845-1927) entitled “On Masks, Labrets, and Certain Aboriginal Customs with an Inquiry into the Bearing of Their Geographical Distribution” in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1881-82.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1884
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Dall, William H.
- graphic artist
- Nichols, H. H.
- block maker
- N. J. Wemmer
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.0165
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.0165
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Prescription Label, Vanselow'sche Apotheke
- Description (Brief)
- The Bristol-Myers Squibb Collection has over two hundred early prescription labels from dozens of apothecaries across Germany and Austria.
- Early labels were plain and without adornment. Later embellishments included decorative borders, images of animals such as stags, lions, or elephants associated with the name of the apothecary.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1991.0664.1281
- catalog number
- 1991.0664.1281
- accession number
- 1991.0664
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Amuleto en Forma de Espada
- Description
- This 20th century protective amulet takes the form of a sword. Amulets like this are worn with the belief that they ward off evil, danger, or bad luck, and provide strength and reassurance to the wearer.
- Description (Spanish)
- Amuleto de protección del siglo XX en forma de espada. Estos amuletos se portan bajo la creencia de que previenen contra el mal, el peligro o la mala suerte y de que otorgan fortaleza y convicción a quien las lleva.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 20th century
- ID Number
- 1997.0097.0325
- accession number
- 1997.0097
- catalog number
- 1997.0097.0325
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Poema Comico-Historical El Indio Mas Venturoso...
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1828
- depicted
- Virgin of Guadalupe
- author
- Avila y Uribe, M. G.
- publisher
- Valdez
- ID Number
- 1988.0466.01
- catalog number
- 1988.0466.01
- accession number
- 1988.0466
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Hand Fan
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1970
- maker
- Happy Mills
- ID Number
- CL.306787.34E
- accession number
- 306787
- catalog number
- 306787.34E
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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I'm Goin' Back with Him; No Room in the Hotel
- Description
- The Chosen Gospel Singers. side 1: I'm Goin' Back With Him; side 2: No Room in the Hotel (Specialty 864).
78 rpm. - Location
- Currently not on view
- recording date
- 1954
- recording artist
- Chosen Gospel Singers
- manufacturer
- Specialty
- ID Number
- 1996.0153.08717
- catalog number
- 1996.0153.08717
- label number
- 864
- accession number
- 1996.0153
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Joseph's Dream
- Description
- After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s. Subjects included classical, biblical, and historical scenes, as well as mourning pictures.
- In an oval with a 1/4" silver wire outline is Joseph, with his dog, asleep under a tree near a stream. To the right are wheat-sheaves in a field, three buildings, and three palm trees, with mountains in the distance. In the foreground are low-growing plants, some of them surrounded by areas of seed-stitching characteristic of embroidery done at Abby Wright's school in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The top third of the border is embroidered with a garland of roses and buds. The rest of the border is painted with a vine bearing sweet peas, bleeding hearts, lilies, carnations, and other flowers. The entire ground of the border is painted (watercolor) in a cream color. The picture is embroidered on a white silk ground, and the stitches used are satin, seed, straight, outline, French knot, and couching.
- The subject of this embroidery is a story from the Bible found in Genesis 37 and 42. Joseph had a dream that he and his brothers were binding sheaves of grain out in the field. Suddenly his sheaf rose and stood upright, while his brothers’ sheaves gathered around his and bowed down to it. His brothers were very angry with him and sold him to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. Joseph’s dream did come true when later in life he became governor of Egypt. A famine occurred in Canaan and his father Jacob had heard that they had grain in Egypt and sent his brothers to Egypt to buy food. When they got to Egypt they bowed down to Joseph, not realizing he was their brother.
- This embroidery was not done in South Hadley at Abby Wright’s school, but in Claremont, New Hampshire, with the teacher Sophia Goodrich. Sophia was a half sister to Abby Wright and attended Abby’s school in South Hadley, Massachusetts in 1804. In November 1809, she returned to take over the school.
- Lucy Dexter was born on February 4, 1796, to David and Parnel Strobridge Dexter in Claremont, New Hampshire. Lucy died unmarried on February 17, 1821. (See Almira Dexter’s embroidery.) For more information about this embroidery see Piecework, March/April 2007, “Three American Schoolgirl Silk Embroideries from the Smithsonian” by Sheryl De Jong.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1809
- sister of maker
- Dexter, Almira
- maker
- Dexter, Lucy
- ID Number
- TE.T261195.01
- catalog number
- T261195.01
- accession number
- 261195
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Prescription Label, Lowen Apotheke von G. Lohmann
- Description (Brief)
- The Bristol-Myers Squibb Collection has over two hundred early prescription labels from dozens of apothecaries across Germany and Austria. Early labels were plain and without adornment. Later embellishments included decorative borders, images of animals such as stags, lions, or elephants associated with the name of the apothecary.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1991.0664.1145
- catalog number
- 1991.0664.1145
- accession number
- 1991.0664
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Prescription Label, Lowen Apotheke
- Description (Brief)
- The Bristol-Myers Squibb Collection has over two hundred early prescription labels from dozens of apothecaries across Germany and Austria. Early labels were plain and without adornment. Later embellishments included decorative borders, images of animals such as stags, lions, or elephants associated with the name of the apothecary.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1991.0664.1102
- catalog number
- 1991.0664.1102
- accession number
- 1991.0664
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Saint Nicholas
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 19th Century
- ID Number
- CL.025819.156
- accession number
- 25819
- catalog number
- 025819.156
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Fight Poverty NOT the Poor
- Description
- A poster calling attention to the poverty crisis.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 2017-2018
- Associated Date
- 2018-06-23
- ID Number
- 2018.0186.16
- accession number
- 2018.0186
- catalog number
- 2018.0186.15
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Circumcision
- Description (Brief)
- Engraved wood block. Possibly from a 15th-century Dutch work used for reading Gospels during Mass. One of a group of 38 blocks now dispersed among public and private collections. See John Buchanan-Brown, "A Forged Series of Woodcuts?", The Library, 29:2 (June 1974), pp. 165-196.
- Proof made in Museum ca1963 is GA*21735B
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca1500?
- ID Number
- GA.21735A
- catalog number
- 21735A
- accession number
- 257804
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Poster, Pete Buttigieg, 2020
- Description
- Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. This handmade poster was displayed in the area set aside for Buttigieg caucusers at Edmunds Elementary School, a caucus site in Des Moines during the Iowa Caucuses on February 3, 2020. Buttigieg won Iowa. A recount of the caucus ballots gave him a .04% edge in the state delegate count ahead of Bernie Sanders who won the popular vote.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 2019 - 2020
- associated date
- 2020-02-03
- associated
- Democratic Party
- referenced
- Buttigieg, Pete
- ID Number
- 2021.0026.11
- accession number
- 2021.0026
- catalog number
- 2021.0026.11
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Shelter 2
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1992
- 1600 - 1699
- maker, modifier
- Smithsonian Institution Office of Exhibits Central
- ID Number
- 1992.3126.63
- catalog number
- 1992.3126.63
- nonaccession number
- 1992.3126
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Together Against Discrimination
- Description
- A poster advertising the Service Employees International Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- affiliated union
- Service Employees International Union
- referenced
- National Organization for Women
- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
- maker
- Service Employees International Union
- ID Number
- 1987.0522.03
- accession number
- 1987.0522
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Prescription Label, Adler Apotheke von F. W. Weber
- Description (Brief)
- The Bristol-Myers Squibb Collection has over two hundred early prescription labels from dozens of apothecaries across Germany and Austria. Early labels were plain and without adornment. Later embellishments included decorative borders, images of animals such as stags, lions, or elephants associated with the name of the apothecary.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1840
- ID Number
- 1991.0664.1161
- catalog number
- 1991.0664.1161
- accession number
- 1991.0664
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
I love you ... JESUS
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1971
- associated date
- 1971
- ID Number
- CL.306787.65B
- accession number
- 306787
- catalog number
- 306787.65B
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
My Sunday Missal (and Manual)
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1942
- ID Number
- 1998.0311.05
- accession number
- 1998.0311
- catalog number
- 1998.0311.05
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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- Home and Community Life: Religion 700
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