As COVID-19 deaths spiked in 2020, Suzanne Firstenberg’s public art installation "In America: How could this happen…"
Museum Artifacts
![](https://historyexplorer.si.edu/sites/default/files/1204.jpg)
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
11/6/2008
On a Sunday morning in December 1941, a chaplain had his most difficult assignment — to say a prayer to sailors aboard a U.S. navy ship actively under low–flying attack by the enemy firing from all directions. He quickly realized the best he could do was walk the ammunition line saying, “Pr
![](https://historyexplorer.si.edu/sites/default/files/Sherman%27s%20Influenza%20Bacterial%20Vaccine.jpg)
Grade Range:
6-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
9/3/2020
During the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 the best medical minds in the country were focused on the problem of discovering the cause of the flu and how to prevent it — and they failed. Sherman’s Vaccine was developed in response to the pandemic. Essentially it was a “stew” of numerous bacteria
![](https://historyexplorer.si.edu/sites/default/files/2425.jpg)
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
9/24/2009
The shofar, one of the earliest known musical instruments, is usually made from a ram's horn. Used in biblical times to signal important events, it is also blown on High Holy Days (10 days in the fall of the year). It is sounded many times during the services of Rosh ha-Shanah (the Jewish New Yea
![](https://historyexplorer.si.edu/sites/default/files/744.jpg)
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
9/3/2008
The short-handled hoe brings back memories of back-breaking labor for generations of Mexican and Mexican American migrant workers who sustained California's booming agricultural economy.
![](https://historyexplorer.si.edu/sites/default/files/4058.jpg)
Grade Range:
5-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
12/29/2010
On May 22, 1863, Ulysses Grant sent brigades from three corps of the army to assault Vicksburg. While the assault showed some success, a long bitter struggle ensued and the Confederates quickly restored their original lines of defense. Realizing that the city could not be taken by assault, Grant
![](https://historyexplorer.si.edu/sites/default/files/Silence%20Death%20t-shirt.jpg)
Grade Range:
8-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
9/2/2020
"This black t-shirt, which says “Silence = Death” with a pink triangle, symbolizes the struggle against AIDS. Six activists – Avram Finklestein, Brian Howard, Oliver Johnston, Charles Kreloff, Chris Lione, and Jorge Soccaras – founded the “Silence = Death” project in New York City in 198
![](https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=SIA-95-5526&max=150&image.jpg)
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
5/8/2009
Virginia Lee Mead wore this salmon-pink silk satin dress when she was a young woman living in New York City's Chinatown, where her father, Lee B. Lok, a first-generation immigrant, ran a general store. The full-length dress is a traditional style that younger second-generation Chinese women wore
![](https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=NMAH-79-8546&max=150&image.jpg)
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
3/9/2009
This silver teapot was made by Samuel Casey of Little Rest (later Kingston, R.I.), about 1750, for Abigail Robinson, probably about the time of her marriage to John Wanton of Newport, R.I., in 1752. Shaped like an inverted pear, the teapot has silver feet and a wooden finial. The wooden handle is
![](https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=NMAH-JN2014-4008&max=150&image.jpg)
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
4/7/2016
In 1851 Isaac Merritt Singer formed the I.M. Singer & Company (later the Singer Sewing Machine Company) after inventing his own sewing machine to remedy a flaw he noticed with traditional models.
This Singer 24 chain stitch sewing machine was manufactured in 1910, and used in t
![](https://historyexplorer.si.edu/sites/default/files/Skateboard%20helmet%20Judi%20Oyama.jpg)
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
12/30/2020
This Santa Cruz helmet was worn by downhill skateboarder Judi Oyama while racing during the late 1970's and into the 1980s. Oyama began skating as a teen and was sponsored by Santa Cruz Skateboards in the mid-seventies. She skated both vert and street but her passion was slalom and downhill racing w