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When Watchmen were Klansmen
Note: While history shouldn’t require a spoiler alert, this blog does contain some minor ones regarding the HBO series Watchmen.“You know...
How picturing the Boston Massacre matters
Maybe this painting looks familiar. A long row of red-coated soldiers. A cloud of gun smoke engulfing the street. Falling bodies.Detail of...
The most radical thing about Stonewall wasn’t the uprising
The Stonewall uprising began June 28, 1969, in response to a police raid at The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York, and has since...

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The story behind the photograph: Gay Dads Kissing, 1983
For Michael and Robert, the quick peck before a walk around the lake with Michael’s son was an ordinary moment. For J. Ross Baughman, it...
Chef Lena Richard and others filming a television segment
Chef Lena Richard: Culinary Icon and Activist
Lena Richard was an African American chef who built a culinary empire in New Orleans during the Jim Crow era. She reshaped public...
Why a social activist opposed woman suffrage
The trouble began soon after well-known social reformer Emily Bissell had finished her remarks at the meeting of the National Association...
Mary Walker
Mary Walker, the "Original New Woman"
Mary Edwards Walker defied convention in just about everything she did. Walker was uncompromising in her beliefs about herself and the...
Science and political protest: A Q&A with Dr. Florence Haseltine
In March 1995, Ladies Home Journal named Dr. Florence Haseltine one of the ten most important women in medicine. Haseltine, currently...
Pennies and nickels add up to success: Maggie Lena Walker
Maggie Lena Walker was one of the most important Black businesswomen in the nation, and today too few people have heard of her.Maggie Lena...
An illustration of Civil War-era African American troops in the U.S. military posing with the U.S. flag in the background
In 1868, black suffrage was on the ballot
Every election season in the United States revolves around a set of issues—health care, foreign affairs, the economy. In 1868, at the...
How butterfly wings helped a new collecting initiative take flight
The museum has created a new collecting initiative focused on how undocumented activists are leading fights for political representation....
A line of people wait outside the Baltimore branch of the NAACP in 1843
Does an amendment give you the right to vote?
In 2020, the Fifteenth Amendment—the first voting rights amendment added to the U.S. Constitution—celebrates its 150th anniversary. You’ve...
Thinking about impeachment like a historian
This week, the third impeachment trial of a sitting U.S. president begins. As we prepare to bear witness to this historic moment, we...
Happy days are here again banner.
100 years later, do we think Prohibition was good for the nation?
January 17, 1920, was an important day in American history. Why? Because on that day the grand social experiment called Prohibition was...
Our most-read blog posts of 2019
2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, the 75th anniversary of D-Day, and the 150th anniversary of completion of the...
A winning design: Prang’s Christmas card contests of the 1880s
Have you ever wondered how companies pick their holiday card designs? How do they know what will sell? During the 1880s, Boston...
The little Jeep that could
What weighs a quarter ton, has four wheels, was the first of its kind, and was built in Pennsylvania? The Bantam Jeep Prototype of course!...
An etching of a man with a musket.
Kerr Eby and the First World War
“About the prints … I make no comment, save that they were made from the indelible impressions of war. They are not imaginary. I saw them...
A baseball cap.
A soldier remembers Operation Just Cause
When George B. Hughes II shipped out for army basic training in September of 1988, both he and the world were more focused on the looming...
A group of people by what appears to be a hot-air balloon.
What did 1889 sound like?
Q: What’s cylindrical, made of wax, and part of one of history’s great showdowns?A: These records in the museum collection with audio...
The missing man: One family’s story of the Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the United States in World War II. After almost constant...
Codex costume and staff, as worn by Felicia Day in The Guild
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....
Tinted portrait of a man.
The quiet hero from Camden: Francis X. McGraw
In November 2019, Private First Class Francis X. McGraw’s Medal of Honor will go on display in our Price of Freedom exhibition. This is his...
Meet the Muppets
You know Kermit, Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, and the rest of the Sesame Street gang. But you might be surprised to learn their...
Dollars for Donuts in Monrovia, Liberia
If you were to buy a donut and cup of coffee at the Donut Bar in the Royal Grand Hotel in Monrovia, Liberia, you would more than likely pay...
Illustrating Ichabod
Imagine a dark and stormy night. A headless horseman chases a frantic school teacher through the woods. What do you picture? Is it...
From hanging on by a thread, to buying a thread: the rise of the U.S. silk industry
What do the popularity of luxury quilts have to do with the difficulty of feeding bugs? More than you think.Our new exhibition Everyday...
A skull.
Old Mud, New Science
There we were, two curators sifting centuries-old barrels of mud through a screen, when something surprising rolled out of the muck: a...
Jimmy Carter: American homebrew hero?
The next time you raise a glass of craft beer, make sure you toast former President Jimmy Carter. No, really. You should be offering your...
Pink marble fragment
The Washington Monument: A view from the museum
The view from the western side of the museum is spectacular. It includes the western end of the National Mall, the World War II Memorial,...
Bouquets in front of a gas station.
American dream turned nightmare
World Trade Center, September 2001, by Christophe AgouThe attacks of September 11, 2001, shocked the nation. Nearly 3,000 people were...
Fur the war effort
“The world infrequently notes the passing of a squirrel," announced an Arizona radio station on August 10, 1949. But when it comes to the...
A place at the park: LGBTQ+ inclusion and skateboarding
When you think about the culture around skateboarding, you might think about the laid-back vibe of acceptance and inclusion that the sport...
A graphic with a red background and a white illustration of the neck of a guitar with a bird resting on it.
Remembering Woodstock
The weekend of August 15 through 18, 1969, approximately 400,000 revelers traveled from near and far to inhabit the rolling fields of Max...
The Shepherd of Utah Beach
D-Day. June 6, 1944.  The words bring to mind images of hundreds of landing craft, machines, and American fighting forces landing on...
A tin foil version of the Stanley Cup
Let’s Go Caps: A curator’s collecting trip into Caps mania
I’m a lifelong resident of the Washington, D.C. area and a hockey fan. So imagine my excitement (and surprise) last year when my team, the...
The impact of the Transcontinental Railroad on Native Americans
The Transcontinental Railroad was completed 150 years ago, in 1869. In 1800s America, some saw the railroad as a symbol of modernity and...
Multiple rainbows flag items
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-...
"10 Free Hours!" Marketing and the World Wide Web in the 1990s
Remember these?Getting free stuff in the mail can be exciting, especially if the stuff that’s free is new and novel. On the other hand, it...
Square banner for boxer John L. Sullivan showing flags and the phrases “Champion of the world…May the best man win”
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...
Woman wearing purple latex gloves presses gently into the inside of one of the Ruby Slippers into a case.
The (display) case of the Ruby Slippers
Many noses are pressed against the case that houses Dorothy's Ruby Slippers each day. The famous shoes from The Wizard of Oz attract a lot...
Lobby cards for the film "Saludos Amigos"
Donald Duck: An American Diplomat?
Every April, people throughout North, Central, and South America celebrate Pan American Day. The roots of Pan American Day go back to 1890...
When the dandelion went to war: An American prisoner of war's story
“We were picking dandelions on the lawn there and we would boil them up,” Henry T. Chamberlain remembered. During the Great Depression,...
A heart shaped content
How Evelyn Lauder took on breast cancer at the cosmetics counter
They had just arrived in a foreign country and the small girl’s mother was sent away.  Ernest and Mimi Hausner fled their home in...
The hidden tractor
The National Museum of American History has a staggering 1.8 million objects in the collections. It isn’t possible for one person to know...
A Scout By Any Other Name
In May 2018, the Boy Scouts of America changed the name of its program for older children to Scouts BSA and opened membership to girls for...
Three political ribbons with red, yellow, and blue colors, all showing illustrations of James Buchanan
The unforgettably forgettable president: A look at Mr. Buchanan
James Buchanan. Do you recognize this name? According to TIME magazine’s “Top 10 Forgettable Presidents,” you probably don’t. Chances are,...
America's Kaiser: How a pigeon served in two World Wars
Souvenirs from battlefields the world over can be found in our Division of Political and Military History. Unique among them is a mounted...
Close-up detail of the end of a fairy's wand. It's the shape of a star, covered in silver/white/gold gems or sparkly stones.
The Ruby Slippers have company; Glinda's wand on loan for temporary display
The museum's pair of Ruby Slippers from The Wizard of Oz returned to display on October 19, 2018, after spending time in the museum's...
Bringing the outdoors in . . . one squirrel at a time
Squirrels seem to be everywhere until you need a few for your Buttermilk Fried Squirrel recipe.On stage at Smithsonian Food History Weekend...
“Hyperlocal, ultraseasonal, uber-healthy, and utterly delicious”: Reviving indigenous food cultures
When Chef Sean Sherman began speaking about his experiences growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, he shattered all-too-...

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