"This black t-shirt, which says “Silence = Death” with a pink triangle, symbolizes the struggle against AIDS.
Museum Artifacts

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
2/19/2009
This elaborate mask, made around 1980, is painted in red and black, the colors of the city of Ponce. Masks like this are typically worn by young men from the neighborhood, who don the costume of a vejigante, a character who roams the streets during Carnival, playfully scaring children an

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
3/12/2012
Sixteen-year-old Judy Garland wore these sequined shoes as Dorothy Gale in the 1939 film classic The Wizard of Oz. In the original book by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy's magic slippers are silver; for the Technicolor movie, they were changed to ruby red to show up more vividly against the yell

Grade Range:
5-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
11/30/2010
This artifact is one of three known surviving components of a suite of four, and possibly five, colors carried by the Second Regiment of Continental Light Dragoons during the Revolutionary War. Although no definitive order has survived specifying the number of colors to be carried by a regiment o

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
3/12/2009
Kermit, a hand and rod puppet created in 1955 by Jim Henson, belongs to America's beloved puppet troupe, The Muppets. Kermit has served as master of ceremonies, comic, and crusader for tolerance in Henson's many creative endeavors. His most memorable role was as the leading Muppet character on

Grade Range:
5-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
12/28/2010
Model 1842 Harpers Ferry percussion musket had a smoothbore barrel. After the adoption of the .58-caliber minie bullet in 1855, musket barrels were rifled.

Grade Range:
5-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
12/15/2010
Continental army uniform coat worn by Colonel Peter Gansevoort Jr. of the 3rd Regiment of the New York Continental Line. He wore this coat during his command of Fort Stanwix, New York, in 1777.

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
8/10/2009
The steam locomotive "John Bull" was built in 1831 and ran for 35 years, pulling trains of passengers and cargo between the two largest cities of the time, Philadelphia and New York. The locomotive propelled trains at 25 to 30 miles per hour...

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
11/20/2009
This medal accompanied Lewis and Clark on their epochal journey West. The medal is hollow, consisting of two thin, embossed silver plates, one for each side of the medal. The two were held together by a silver ring, running around the entire circumference of the piece. The medal was created

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
4/4/2016
This Coca-Cola bottle from 2002 contains brown liquid inside that it sealed with a metal cap. The greenish glass is marked with a painted Coca-Cola logo around the middle, repeated twice. On one side, a barcode is placed next to the image of a Coca-Cola bottle with condensation over it, and under

Grade Range:
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
4/25/2018
From the moment when, in 1963, Julia Child whisked up an omelet on the pilot for her new cooking show, The French Chef, Americans wanted that whisk for their kitchens, just as they came to want any tool or utensil that Julia used. Certainly, egg beaters of all sorts were common in American kitche