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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...
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...
Pre-K photo from 1949 sparks memories of a D.C. childhood
While scrolling through Facebook one day, Eunice was struck by a sudden memory. "I had a visceral reaction and thought, 'Oh my God!'" She...
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50th Anniversary
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
American history must-reads of 2018
These are our most fascinating blog posts of 2018, according to our readers.When FBI agents showed up with a pair of sparkly, red shoesA...
A white collar with a message
Men’s celluloid collar, 1900sAt first glance, this collar from the 1800s might not look like much. A closer inspection shows that this...
Grace under pressure
On December 7, 1941, two days before her 35th birthday, Grace Murray Hopper, an associate professor of mathematics at Vassar College, was...
The literary Luisa Moreno
Curators at the National Museum of American History often rely on scholars in the field to illuminate new areas of collection and research...
What you may not know about the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire
Shirtwaist made by Fisk, Clark & Flagg, about 1910.Shirtwaists, tailored blouses of the 1890s and early 1900s, became especially...
The crop of the 21st century
"Information is your new crop!" proclaimed John Deere's brochure, announcing the company's newly launched GreenStar Precision Farming...
Grape gluts and Mother Clones: Prohibition and American wine
Congress passed the National Prohibition Act in January 1919, and a year later, Americans were barred from making, transporting, selling,...
Mickey Mouse turns 90
It is hard to believe, but Mickey Mouse is celebrating his 90th birthday this year. For an old mouse, he still looks pretty spry! One of...
What does Alexander Hamilton have to do with the lace industry in Ipswich, Massachusetts?
If you were rich and powerful, from the late 1500s on into the late 1700s, you would show off your wealth by adorning your fashionable...
Entrepreneurial embroiderers
Embroidery by the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework is beautiful . . . but that's just the beginning of the story. These...
Adventures in collecting: Kenneth Salisbury's robot hand
A visitor to Kenneth Salisbury's Stanford University office can't miss the evidence of his life-long fascination with hands.Kenneth...
Prohibition was fantastic for American beer, or, cheers to homebrewers
Did that title grab your attention? Great.Happy National Beer Day! When you open your fridge shortly after five o'clock this evening (or...
The case of Luisa Moreno
In my first week as a curator at the National Museum of American History, I made a list of women I wished were present in the museum's...
Sewing for joy: Ann Lowe
"I was 17 years old at the time and the dress made me feel so grown up and beautiful," Pauline "Polly" Carver Duxbury wrote about the dress...
From seams to strikes: Exploring women at work through clothing in our collection
What was life like for women in the workforce over the past 150 years? To help answer that question, I turned to the museum’s...
These tractors show 150 years of farming history
2018 is the Year of the Tractor at the museum. Curator Peter Liebhold explored gems of the museum's tractor collection and what they can...
Bumping into new technologies: Hey, that's not what a light bulb is supposed to look like!
People tend to be creatures of habit. That tendency often shows up when we’re faced with an odd-looking new technology that replaces...
Making money and doing good: The story of an African American power couple from the 1800s
Artists have long been major players in American philanthropy. If that surprises you to learn, you might be further surprised to learn that...
The dueling designs for the modern x-ray tube in World War I
Twenty years before the start of World War I, a new "light" that could pass through a human body revealing its underlying structures caused...
Rich reds, pretty pinks, and velvety violets: Valentin dyes for Valentine's Day
Valentine is a name not just for a saint, but also for a fabric dyer! I gingerly lifted a stiff cardboard case out of its cold, gray...
Creating an 1890s orchard in a museum
America on the Move has been open to the public since 2003 and remains one of the museum's most popular exhibitions, particularly for...
Striking it rich: American gold rushes of the early 19th century
This year marks the 170th anniversary of the California Gold rush! On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill...
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...
T is for Television, H is for Holiday, F is for Festival
[[{"fid":"24879","view_mode":"large","fields":{"format":"large","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Photo of Oscar...
Ordinary objects or incredible inventions?
According to a recent report by Mintel, a marketing research agency, few millennials use bar soap. Don't be alarmed, though. They...
The worker's turkey
Like many homes across America, in my home Thanksgiving meant turkey. Lots of turkeys. Five or six turkeys. The day before Thanksgiving, my...
A seven-year struggle to build New York's subway
William Steinway's diary resides in the National Museum of American History's Archives Center as part of the Steinway and Sons...
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...
Advertising photography is more than a thousand words: Al Rendon remembers a photography session with Selena
Advertising agencies have relied on images to engage consumers since the late 19th century. Images convey both information and emotion in a...
Healthy hogs for a healthy nation
Antibodies are always looking out for us, and this week we're taking a closer look at them. This is the fourth post in our Antibodies Week...
Great napkins of history: Laffer and Zandman's sketches of breakthrough ideas
Every museum curator searches for that incredible iconic object, a fabulous artifact that is both physically interesting and represents a...
Yo Te Sigo Queriendo (I Still Love You): Memories of Selena
From the 1950s to 1970s, U.S. advertising started to shift from mass marketing to recognizing and defining distinct target markets. A...
Adding weight to Julia Child's kitchen
On the 105th anniversary of Julia Child's birth (August 15, 1912), the museum's food history team is thinking anew about Julia's life and...
Coming of age: Young women and the FFA
High school can be a challenging time for teens. Much as they do today, young men and women throughout the 20th century wrestled with...
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