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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...
Blog Posts in "America Participates"
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50th Anniversary
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 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...
Special Olympics at 50
"Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of Special Olympics, recited this oath at...
The 10 most-read posts of 2017
2017 was another incredible year on the museum’s blog. More than a few of our most-read posts focused on how the museum continues to grow...
I Pledge Allegiance
Since October 1892, countless schoolchildren across the nation have begun their school day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as a daily...
Primary sources provide perspectives on the 50th anniversary of the March on the Pentagon
A note to our readers: This blog post contains imagery that some may find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.Between 50,000 and 150,...
Innovative solutions to baseball problems: Latina/o style
After hitting a double, the runner goes for glory and tries to stretch the hit into a triple. A throw, a slide, a cloud of dust, and...
Rethinking "busing" in Boston
On September 9, 1974, over 4,000 white demonstrators rallied at Boston Common to protest the start of court-ordered school desegregation in...
Making waves: Beauty salons and the black freedom struggle
Born in 1896 in the tiny Appalachian hamlet of Monterey, Virginia, Marjorie Stewart grew up in extreme poverty. Of her 12 brothers and...
Populism and the World of Oz
Update: Thanks to you, our Kickstarter campaign to "Keep Them Ruby" was a success and we have the support we need to conserve and display...
VHS killed "The Wizard of Oz" for me
Update: Thanks to you, our Kickstarter campaign to "Keep Them Ruby" was a success and we have the support we need to conserve and...
Freedom's tally: An African American business in the Jim Crow South
At 15 years old, Harold Cotton tucked his shoe shine box under his arm and walked to Jefferson Square in downtown Greensboro, North...
You can help conserve Dorothy's Ruby Slippers
Update: Thanks to you, our Kickstarter campaign to "Keep Them Ruby" was a success and we have the support we need to conserve and display...
Collecting, preserving, and sharing our history: The Latinos and Baseball: In the Barrios and Big Leagues Project
On February 20, 2016, former Smithsonian fellow Mark Ocegueda, currently a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of California,...
Help the museum dig into mining history!
Update: The project to transcribe our 1897 mining journal is now complete! Over 50 digital volunteers from 15 different countries...
Curators collect history as it happens at the 2016 national political conventions
Scrolling through social media or watching on TV, you can't miss the pageantry accompanying national political conventions. The bright...
Every picture is a winner
We had a remarkable response to our contest to help the museum select photos for its display celebrating the opening of the National Museum...
Part 2: Pick which photos of celebrations in African American life should go on our walls
We're thrilled that our new neighbor, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, will open its doors in September....
Pick which photos of celebrations in African American life should go on our walls
We're thrilled that our new neighbor, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, will open its doors in September....
May Day: America's traditional, radical, complicated holiday, Part 2
This post is part two in a series. Part one traced how the holiday of May Day was revived in the United States by wealthy reformers who...
May Day: America's traditional, radical, complicated holiday, Part 1
May Day is a holiday that many Americans have celebrated, but relatively few can explain. Depending on your age, you might associate May 1...
Inventing for the public good
New posters around the museum remind us as we come to work each morning that our theme this year is "America Participates." This...
Participating in America means constantly striving for a more perfect union
America Participates is the museum's 2016 theme: But what does "participation" actually look like? We interviewed David Allison, director...
5 things I learned about farming from a 1970s board game
Earlier this month, we sat down with curator Peter Liebhold, chair of the museum's Division of Work and Industry, to take a look at a...
The bonds of benevolence and focused charitable organizations
How do you come to truly know someone? How do you know if they are who they claim to be?These questions were at the heart of a major shift...
Parties for plastic: How women used Tupperware to participate in business
For Women's History Month, we're taking a look at some of the ways that American women have made their place in the marketplace by...
A society for everything: Remaking America's charitable landscape during the Second Great Awakening
For many, "the Second Great Awakening" is one of those historical terms from a dusty textbook that sounds vaguely familiar, but the details...
They marched with torches: Getting out the vote, 1840–1900
During the 19th century, politics were central to social life, to the point where affiliation with a political party included actual ...
Kids pitched in to defeat disease and advance medical research
Giving blood, getting a flu shot, raising money for a cure—plenty of Americans participate every day to help secure the health...
Standing up against disease together—or not
Eliminating or lowering rates of communicable disease often requires that we participate together in the battle against infectious disease...
From carousels to buses, Glen Echo Amusement Park and the training of an activist
Freedom School Scholar Harry Clarke reflects on the story of Glen Echo Amusement Park as part of his preparation to host the National Youth...
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