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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Using objects with English language learners
I work at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. But I spent last year teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in...
Sole meuniere, made with a recipe created by Julia Child, served at a table with flowers and salad
Recipe of the Week: Julia Child’s Sole Meuniére
Today’s post is the seventh in a series of weekly Julia Child recipes. This week, new media project manager Dana Allen-Greil shares...
Crisis & Opportunity: A History
If you’ve got an interest in education, you’ve probably heard of high school administrator Karl Fisch’s Shift Happens presentation or the...
Mushrooms, sauteed in butter, sit on top of pasta
Recipe of the Week: Julia Child’s sautéed mushrooms in butter
Today’s post is the sixth in a series of weekly Julia Child recipes. This week, project management assistant Laura McClure shimmies...
My tweenage historical bookshelf
On a recent visit to my mother’s house, I took a quick look through my childhood bookshelf. As a person who works with “material culture”...
The Kennedys’ visit to American history
During the memorial service for Senator Edward Kennedy last month, several speakers mentioned his love of American history and his son, Ted...
Turkey Orloff, made using a recipe created by Julia Child, sits on a plate at a dinner table place setting, next to a Julia Child & Company cookbook
Recipe of the Week: Julia Child’s Turkey Orloff
Today’s post is the fifth in a series of weekly Julia Child recipes. This week, deputy registrar Tom Bower shares his experience with...
Collecting bracero history
In 2005 the museum started a multi-institution collecting initiative to document and preserve the experiences of braceros, Mexican...
Inventor Sherman Poppen, snurfing his way into history
I grew up in Colorado. Just about every time I mention that fact to someone, I get asked, “Do you ski?” And for years I would launch into...
A bowl of vinagrette, created with a recipe made by Julia Child, sits next to a bowl of salad and a Julia Child cookbook
Recipe of the Week: Julia Child's Vinaigrette
Today’s post is the fourth in a series of weekly Julia Child recipes. This week, renovation program director Patrick Ladden shares his...
What it's like to be a part of "Team Julia"
    Interns Kristen Chasse and Jillian Brems spent the summer as part of “Team Julia,” a group of people responsible for the...
Inventions of the rich and famous
August was National Inventors’ Month and the Lemelson Center celebrated with a number of high-profile events to highlight that...
A Philadelphia puzzle
I have always liked jigsaw puzzles. When I was five, I spent one weekend putting together every puzzle in my house and then proceeded to...
This will NOT protect you from swine flu
I did not get my flu shot last fall. The threat of, or at least the media attention about, “avian flu” had abated, and I missed the...
Recipe of the Week: You had me at Coq au Vin...
Today’s post is the third in a series of weekly Julia Child recipes. This week, education technologist Carrie Kotcho shares her experience...
Doing history
Imagine yourself at the head of an empty classroom. Your carefully prepared lesson lies on your desk next to activity sheets for each...
21 hours in the movie business
It’s safe to say that I had no idea what I was getting into. My boss was unable to attend the meetings about the proposed “Teen Orientation...
Joy over grief
Several weeks ago a brown box full of photographs arrived at “The Smithsonian.” Being that “The Smithsonian” is actually made up of ...
Ellington in Ethiopia, Armstrong in Kenya
I recently had the pleasure of traveling to Ethiopia—a trip sponsored by the State Department—to lecture on American jazz and culture....
A bowl of mashed potatoes
Recipe of the Week: Julia Child's mashed potatoes
Today’s post is the second in a series of weekly Julia Child recipes. This week, project manager Nanci Edwards shares her experience of...
Treasures rediscovered
One of the joys of a curator’s job is finding things and telling their stories. We recently found two partial sets of Dutch Sugar Color...
How to build an 8-foot-tall light bulb out of LEGO bricks
While Saturday mornings typically find me sleeping in or going for a run, the morning of August 1st was different. I arrived at the museum...
National Museum of American History Chef William Bednar
Made from scratch
When you are in the museum’s kitchen on a hectic morning and Chef William asks if you want to taste a rum bun, you say “yes” even if you...
Striking a chord: In memory of Les Paul
Les Paul truly was an American legend. He was an extraordinary musician, inventor, and innovator who greatly influenced popular culture....
A visit from the U.S. Secretary of Education
We were delighted to host a visit earlier this week by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. He selected the Smithsonian Early Enrichment...
A photograph of the recipe for "Reine de Saba," a chocolate cake made by Julia Child
Recipe of the Week: Julia Child's Reine de Saba cake
“Above all, have a good time”To celebrate Julia Child’s wall of copper pots joining the museum’s collections, we’re taking Julia’s...
gun in wooden frame
The strangest object in the Photographic History Collection
Most people wouldn't expect to find a .36 caliber pistol in the nation's Photographic History Collection. Frankly, neither did I. But in...
Museums making headlines
Being a minor-league news junkie, a former student journalist, and a habitual reader of the morning newspaper along with my breakfast...
Electric guitar pilgrimage
Coming into work one Monday morning in November 1996, I strolled by a small exhibit case and noticed that something wasn’t quite right. The...
Something's cookin': Recipe of the Week coming soon
When Julia Child moved back to her home state of California in 2001, she donated the kitchen from her Cambridge, Massachusetts, home to the...
Preserve-your-own
Earl Shaffer’s battered black journal is small. It had to be, to fit in a rucksack with everything a man needed to walk over 2,000 miles...
Got opinions?
Your opinion counts. Because we’re a public institution with a public mission, you (the public) are critical to our success or failure as...
Bringing the Bobcat out of the barn
It started with a dirty barn. Not that they were the Augean stables; the problem was that the machines available to farmers in 1956 were...
From Kiyosato to Kiyo Sato
Kiyosato. At first, that name meant to me the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts in Japan. Its director is Eikoh Hosoe, a renowned...
The future of digital artifacts
At a recent professional conference, I came across the idea of “anticipatory democracy.” The context was a discussion on “Society and...
Winner in a star-spangled dress
In honor of Independence Day, we asked our readers to vote on who was best dressed in red, white, and blue. The contestants were...
Preserving humanity
The oral history program with renowned author and global environmentalist Lester Brown last month was an eloquent reminder that the stories...
Black and white photo of three men sitting beside a white cloth tent in the woods
4th of July 1905
This real photo postcard shows three young men enjoying the holiday weekend. The young man on the left has taken the photograph using a...
Vote for the best dressed in red, white, and blue
Take a look around you on Independence Day and you’ll probably find throngs of patriotic Americans bedecked in the stars and stripes. The...
Intern inspiration
Most of the people in my office began their association with the Smithsonian through internships. Once we got here, we fell in love, and...
Kids bored? Tell ‘em a story...
Given where I work, you might guess that I love history. I also love books. And I love reading to and with my three kids. Given those facts...
Never can say goodbye
When the rumor concerning Michael Jackson’s tragic death became fact, I raced to the Starbuckson the corner of 7th and E, Northwest, in...
The spirit of invention
I’m very excited about the publication of Julie Fenster’s intriguing new book, The Spirit of Invention: The Story of the Thinkers,...
Connecting past and present
Visitors to the museum last Wednesday were in for a treat. In addition to viewing the museum’s usual exhibitions, they were also given the...
A curator's favorite from the Scurlock Studio Collection
It’s been five years since I located this striking World War II era portrait of a young Washington, D.C., couple in the Scurlock Studio...
Victorian-era photographs...of the moon? In 3-D?!
I have long had a great interest in the history of photography and consider myself an expert in that field, so volunteering in the Museum’s...
Knight at the museum
There are many heroes in the highly entertaining box-office hit, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. First we have Larry...
Curating couture
I love clothes. Enough so that souvenir shopping on any vacation is planned around the local thrift stores-the more cavernous and chaotic...

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