Museum Artifacts
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
9/17/2010
This panel from the AIDS Memorial Quilt honors activist Roger Lyon, who died of AIDS in 1984. Shortly before his death, Lyon testified before Congress to appeal for funding to combat the growing epidemic.
One of the greatest challenges in the fight against AIDS was changing public
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
3/10/2015
This bus carried rural children to the Martinsburg, Indiana school in the 1940s. Busing enabled children to attend consolidated schools, which were larger than one-room schools and had better curricula, teachers, and facilities. All-steel school buses like this one were safer than earlier school
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
1/24/2011
Enlisted soldier's uniform. The brown, doughy color of the uniform led to these soldiers being referred to as "doughboys," though the exact derivation of the nickname has been debated.
Grade Range:
9-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
9/21/2010
From 1961 to 1973, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong held hundreds of Americans captive. In North Vietnam alone, more than a dozen prisons were scattered in and around the capital city of Hanoi. American POWs gave them nicknames: Alcatraz, Briarpatch, Dirty Bird, the Hanoi Hilton, the Zoo. Condit
Grade Range:
5-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
12/28/2010
During the Civil War, Libby Prison held over 125,000 men, mostly Union officers. This knife, fork, and plate was issued to prisoner of war Colonel John S. Crocker, 93rd Infantry Regiment, New York Volunteers, by the commandant of Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia, and used by him at Libby and
Grade Range:
5-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
12/28/2010
Built by contract with John Ericsson at Green Point, Long Island, and launched January 30, 1862, the USS Monitor saw its first naval action at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 9, 1862. Despite the CSS Virginia being almost twice its size, with ten guns, the Monitor wit
Grade Range:
9-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
11/22/2011
After the December 7, 1941, bombing of the military base at Pearl Harbor, Americans rallied around the war effort with the patriotic cry, "Remember Pearl Harbor." Thousands of buttons or lapel pins were distributed to remind Americans of the tragic event and to solidify the war efforts.
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
5/3/2012
This apparatus was designed by Catherine Stern, a physicist by training and the founder of a Montessori school in her native Germany. Stern and her husband were of Jewish descent, and emigrated to New York City in 1938 to avoid persecution by the Nazis. There she developed these materials, descri
Grade Range:
5-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
6/10/2009
United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Young head of Liberty, facing right; date below. Reverse: Eagle, facing left; denomination below. The piece was designed by George T. Morgan, and, while no more successful than any of his other designs, stands in marked contrast to them. Because of the y
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
4/4/2016
Part of the appeal of Coca Cola has always been cultural not just taste. In the early 1900s Coca Cola expanded to international markets creating a Foreign Department in 1926. This ad promotes the notion that consuming Coca Cola is sophisticated and modern. Close inspection of this “Shanghai lad
