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EDM in the history museum: Steve Aoki gear travels the world and finds a home at the museum
Music blasts toward the audience as concertgoers dance to Steve Aoki's pounding bass rhythms and bright LED displays. The DJ throws cakes...
You're invited to a Bowl of Rice Party
Wartime often catalyzes developments in philanthropy. In 2017, the museum added the Bowl of Rice party banner, from fundraising efforts to...
6 Jewish American objects for Jewish American Heritage Month
In April 2006, President George W. Bush proclaimed May to be Jewish American Heritage Month. Jewish American objects in our collections...
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You Asked, We Answer
Sparkles under the spotlight: Designing a costume for Kristi Yamaguchi
Picture it: you're sitting with thousands of other audience members in a darkened arena. Suddenly, a spotlight illuminates a small circle...
Servant of God: How a 1960s magazine addressed gay men’s spiritual needs
The cover of the December 1960 issue of “ONE: The Homosexual Viewpoint,” titled “Homosexual, Servant of God,” picturing three kings on...
What can really BIG money teach us about our world?
Long feathers that shimmer in the light. A formidably heavy stone ring. An iron blade taller than most children. A hoard of ancient coins...
Rosie, Wendy, and Government Girls: The women behind the war
Poster, “Soldiers without guns.” Courtesy of Library of Congress (2002719121)In 1943, faced with labor shortages during World War II, U.S....
Don’t write off cursive yet
Words are an essential means of communication, yet how we put them down in writing has been continuously shaped over time by technologies,...
Calvin and Clarence Curtis: Montford Point Marines
Like many young men during World War II, Calvin Curtis and his fraternal twin brother, Clarence, were drafted in 1943. They were juniors in...
Of service and thanks: Collecting after January 6
Like many around the world, I spent the afternoon of January 6, 2021, watching the news and absorbing the chaotic events unfolding at the U...
Does Thanksgiving have room for both thankfulness and mourning?
Is there room in Americans’ Thanksgiving celebrations for both thankfulness and mourning?That challenging question arose as my colleagues...
Gus Arriola and Gordo, agents of Mexican culture
On February 3, 2008, San Francisco Chronicle writer Wyatt Buchanan reflected on the life of Gustavo "Gus" Arriola, creator of the comic...
“Maggie of the Boondocks”: Martha Raye and a lifetime of service to the U.S. Armed Forces
Around 1966, Dr. Carl Bartecchi was serving as an army flight surgeon in the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam. When units in his area engaged...
Refrigerators and women’s empowerment: The “peaceful revolution” of rural electrification
Louisan Mamer, known as the First Lady of the REA, spearheaded the expansion of women’s roles in business and leadership through her work...
Unveiling the Caramelo Deportivo through conservation
In preparation for an exhibition, all objects undergo a thorough assessment of their condition. Conservators determine whether the objects...
Caramelo Deportivo: A card collection that blurred baseball's color line
Caramelo Deportivo baseball card album after treatment by conservation technician Verónica Mercado Oliveras. The album contains cards of...
Two objects bring the history of African American firefighting to light
It’s late winter of 2006 and an ornate silver speaking trumpet is on offer at a prestigious New York City auction house. The engraved...
Just like “planning a dinner”? The feminization of computer programming
In 1967, the magazine Cosmopolitan featured an article about the growing number of job opportunities for women in computer programming. In...
Ten objects that will help you understand Latinx history
The National Museum of American History has over 2 million items in its collections, spanning every topic you could think of. And from...
Conserving pieces of the history of Uncle Tom's Cabin
During my time at the museum’s object conservation lab, I discovered that a set of painted panels in the museum’s collection had quite a...
Suit up! Honoring Latino heritage on the field
Custom uniforms display cultural pride and signal Latino presence and excellence in baseball, America’s pastime. The colorful jerseys and...
Meet Anna Dickinson: Trailblazing orator and political firebrand
On a Saturday evening in January 1864, abolitionist Anna Dickinson stood inside the Hall of Representatives looking out into the U.S. House...
Clifford Berryman and the Teddy Roosevelt African Expedition
“The East African Express is Arriving” pen and ink drawing by Clifford Kennedy Berryman, dated August 25, 1909 (GA.12195)This pen and ink...
Historic helium sample surfaces at Smithsonian
This glass tube, part of the museum’s collection, once contained a sample of helium. Its paper label reads, “HELIUM / SIR W. RAMSAY, K.C.B...
He? She? Or just plain Cher Ami? Solving a century-old pigeon mystery
This summer marks the centennial of a bird—possibly the most famous pigeon in history—going on display at the Smithsonian. A representative...
Radium and the Gift from the Women of America
One hundred years ago Marie Curie stood among the rose bushes, the press, and a crowd of White House guests, holding a golden key. The key...
Why Girlhood?
"Girlhood (It’s complicated)" opened to the public on October 9, 2020.Three years ago our museum convened a diverse group of scholars and...
Rebecca Lukens: A woman of iron
A sudden tragedy thrust Rebecca Lukens into the family business and into history, making her the nation’s first woman industrialist and the...
The cold morning of the day after
On January 6, my wife and I watched the live news broadcasts in disbelief at the scenes unfolding on television, as a violent mob stormed...
How one girl helped build a Latinx civil rights movement
As a little girl, Jessica Govea had become accustomed to rising early and making her way to the fields with her family. During the cotton...
Isabella Aiukli Cornell makes prom political
For many high school students in the United States, prom is considered one of the most highly anticipated events of the school year....
Rea Ann Silva: The woman behind Beautyblender
While the iconic egg-shaped Beautyblender sponge is wildly popular and used by makeup professionals and everyday people from all...
Fighting for country, equal rights, and veterans: Carlos Martinez’s life of service
When he reflected later in life on why, as a young man, he chose to enlist during wartime, Carlos Martinez said that avoiding service was...
The tales emergency currency can tell
After the end of World War I, Germany was in economic crisis and was unable to provide enough currency for its citizens. In response,...
Theodore Roosevelt, Hunter-Naturalist
Within a gallery stands a rifle once presented to Theodore Roosevelt. It is perhaps an odd gift, considering that it was given to him with...
Essential and expendable: The rise of agricultural labor and the United Farm Workers
Until the successes of the United Farm Workers (UFW) in the 1960s, agriculture was one of the last industries to hold out on unionization...
The artistry behind a baseball bat
Custom Baret bat, Woodbridge, Virginia, 2018Gift of Juan Baret Bate Baret personalizado, Woodbridge, Virginia, 2018Donación de Juan...
The monument that created Columbus
In October 1792, the United States of America was still a new country, not even a decade old, fresh from a complete government overhaul...
Five things to listen for during a presidential debate
Presidential debates first became part of the campaign landscape when John Kennedy and Richard Nixon sat across from each other in 1960. It...
"They called me 'race traitor'": Joan Trumpauer Mulholland's lifetime of resistance
Last year I began working as a stage manager for Join the Student Sit-Ins, an interactive theater program at the museum set in 1960. The...
The echoes of war: Curatorial legacies of World War II
A mere 75 years ago aboard the battleship Missouri, representatives of the Japanese Emperor, his government, and the Imperial General...
Reflecting on Black Life In Two Pandemics
The writers of the Black Life in Two Pandemics series have examined the deep roots of racial violence in the Midwest and the connections...
COVID-19, police violence, and the historical thread that binds them: Structural racism as a public health issue
IntroductionOur political and legal systems are inextricably intertwined with and fueled by structural racism. This legacy predates the...
Art and Uprising: The George Floyd and Anti-Racist Street Art Database
In March 2020, the Urban Art Mapping research team, a small group of faculty and students from the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul,...
"Where Two Waters Come Together": The Confluence of Black and Indigenous History at Bdote
Minnesota doesn’t typically come to mind when you think about slavery and the Civil War. It’s also not a place that’s figured into the...
A Watched Pot Never Boils
With the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing civil unrest, historians, educators, and the general public once again fixated on the “long...
Many Tulsa Massacres: How the Myth of a Liberal North Erases a Long History of White Violence
"Destruction by fire of Pennsylvania Hall, the new building of the Abolition Society, on the night of the 17th May," courtesy of Library of...
Black Life in Two Pandemics: Histories of Violence
George Floyd’s Memorial Day 2020 killing by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin shook the nation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the...
Racism is a public health crisis
Racism has been a public health emergency in America for over 400 years. We can call it a crisis or disaster or something else entirely....
When Dumbo came to D.C.
How do you get an elephant into a museum? If you’re the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the technical answer is “through...
25 years later: the legacy of the El Monte sweatshop raid
During the cool pre-dawn hours of August 2, 1995, a large multiagency task force led by the California Department of Industrial Relations...
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