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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Showcasing young historians
At the museum, we aim to bring history alive for visitors every day. This Wednesday the museum will host 19 finalists from the Kenneth E....
What so proudly we hail’d
This morning I had the pleasure of touring the museum with the grand prize winner of our national anthem singing contest, Jordan Shelton,...
What the American flag means to you
A child. A truck. A quilt. A gravestone. These are all answers to the questions posed by the Share Your Story project: “What does the...
Hey Detroit, where's the innovation?
Something in the news today caught me off guard. What I read was breaking news from the Associated Press (June 10, 2009): “Fiat Closes Deal...
Protecting our museums
The flags outside of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) are flying at half mast today and its doors are closed. Tragedy befell the...
28 new American citizens
This Sunday, June 14, the museum will host a naturalization ceremony in celebration of Flag Day. Twenty eight children will be sworn in as...
Making connections to the past
On April 29th, my colleague, Michelle Delaney and I were pleased to open the exhibition, I Do Solemnly Swear: Photographs of the 2009...
Alice Waters is coming!
The word zipped through the Museum’s foodie and gardening subcultures: Alice Waters is coming! She’ll be signing her latest book, The...
Inspired by environmentalist Lester Brown
Going green is the thing to do these days. The buzzwords include ”sustainability,” “eco-friendly,” and “carbon footprint.” For many, it may...
Rollin', rollin', rollin'...
On a typical day here at the museum, it would be hard to describe our “average” visitor. The people flowing through our doors are from all...
Celebrating 2,020 years of service
You may wonder how a museum that has only been open since 1964 can possibly be celebrating 2,020 years of anything. But when it...
Remember the Merchant Marines
One of the benefits of working in the National Museum of American History is sometimes you run into your own history. The first time I...
How many people does it take to clean a canton?
The voicemail message from the Daily Programs Coordinator sounded a little stressed: “How can we clean the canton?” Very carefully, I...
Security guard by day, actor by "Night (at the Museum)"
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I’m really excited to see the new movie Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian. I love my...
Of Nobel Prizes and erector sets
In accepting his appointment as Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu became the first Nobel science laureate to serve in a cabinet position. His...
Unlocking a photography mystery
This year I’ll celebrate twenty years working at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, curating the history of photography...
Springtime at the museum
Spring in Washington, D.C., is famous for its bountiful Japanese cherry blossoms; but one thing you may not know is that in the springtime...
Asking and listening
I am relatively new to the museum field, having recently made a career change. I work in the new media program, which is also a new field...
We the people
When I was in high school, I competed in what I describe to others as the “Constitutional Law Debate team” in East Brunswick, N.J. The...
Video games, Ralph Baer, and my first accession
Imagine that it’s your first day on the job and your new boss brings you into a storage area. It’s filled with boxes of papers and strange...
The importance of small things
In a museum chock-full of 3 million objects, it’s usually the showy ones that get the most attention—the ruby slippers, the Star-...
Printing history and the Intertype linotype machine
During my years as collections manager in the Graphic Arts Collection I’ve dusted many a linotype machine, but have never had the...
Inspired by brownies
I look forward to coming to work on Thursdays. One of my responsibilities is to change the featured object that appears on the homepage of...
Why should we care about Lincoln?
I learned a lot about World War II from my father, who served in the Philippines. Being from the Motor City and often driving past the...
Eco-cities on the horizon
One of my favorite things in the museum’s Science in American Life exhibition is the “Ecology Now” poster commemorating the...
Contributing—or not—to the collections
“Do you have Rebecca’s arrival hanbok?” Noriko Sanefuji stood in my office doorway and smiled. Do I remember what my daughter was wearing...
Laughing at ourselves
When I was a teenager, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” was one of the few TV shows my family could agree to watch together. Perhaps...
Making the mission possible
A loyal blog reader recently suggested that we record all of our Meet Our Museum programs for podcasting. It’s a...
Ask me!
I am fundamentally a shy person. As a child, I would hide from my tiny, adorable, very friendly grandmother because the three people in my...
25 random things about me
If you’re on Facebook, chances are you were one of the 5 million+ people who shared their oddball habits and remarkable personal...
Don't let the screaming fool you...
When you approach the museum’s Stars and Stripes Cafe, you may hear blood-curdling screams. It’s not the food—really! The museum recently...
Ora Snyder, chocolatier
Chocolate dipped
I had the chocolate symposium (held a few weeks ago at the museum) and Women’s History Month on my mind when I came across...
Collecting and recollecting Three Mile Island
March 28th is the 30th anniversary of America’s worst accident at a civilian nuclear power plant: the melting of half the fuel in one of...
Transparency
In a memo released by the White House on January 21, President Obama charged government agencies to open up their virtual doors...
42 babies
Forty-two. That’s the number of babies my mother delivered during her short career as a medical doctor during the 1950s. It was a time when...
When history comes to life
Like many of you, I love the idea of inanimate objects having a secret life. The people leave, the lights go out, the door closes and then...
What on earth is a Stanhope?
One of my first tasks as a new intern in the photographic history department was to research and write about Stanhopes—what they are, where...
The future of digital history
This is an exciting time to be a museum Web practitioner. Since its inception, the Web has been a great way for us and other museums to...
Going green...with manure?
During these seemingly endless, frigid days it is easy to pass by the Victory Garden outside of the museum’s Stars &...
This land is your land
Like millions of people who watched or listened to We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial on January...
Inside of Abraham Lincoln's watches reveals both its inner workings and engravings, including ""April 13, 1861 Fort Sumpter was attacked by the rebels on the above date J Dillon April 13, 1861 Washington" and "thank God we have a government Jonth Dillon."
A secret message inside Lincoln's watch?
A hush fell over the room as the watchmaker halted his work. A partially-dismantled pocket watch that once belonged to President Abraham...
Portraying women in science and technology
Were we to judge by images alone, invention has been a man’s world, and only a man’s world. The title of one of the iconic paintings of...
Picturing the Civil War
Last month was exciting for the Photographic History Collection. I participated in the Smithsonian’s first online education...
Women and environmentalism
As we celebrate Women’s History Month this March, let’s not forget to honor the contributions that women have made to improving the...
Have you met our museum?
“Tell me what YOU did at the Museum today!”  Every evening, my husband and I exchange information about our activities at our...
Soul food
How do you make a 600-seat cafe feel like home? You put Dolores Pierre on the floor as an “attendant” and she immediately transforms the...
Your burning questions answered: First Ladies' dresses
If you’ve been to the new exhibition First Ladies at the Smithsonian, you may have found yourself asking: Where are all the other...
O say can you sing?
Do you sing in the shower? I do. And I can tell you that I don’t sound anything like Jennifer Hudson at the Superbowl. But maybe you do. Or...

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