Museum Artifacts

Once a new national government had been established under a new Constitution, attention naturally turned to ways of proclaiming national identity. A new, national coinage was one way of doing so, especially if it featured patriotic new images, rather than the endless sequence of crowned monarchs

Aladdin Industries profited from the success of The Jetsons television cartoon series in the fall of 1963 by introducing a domed lunch box featuring that space-traveling suburban family and their robotic maid. American notions of family life in the 1960s traveled effortlessly outward to

The March on Washington, August 28, 1963, was the largest civil rights demonstration the nation had ever witnessed. One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 250,000 Americans of all races gathered to petition the government to pass meaningful civil rights legislation and enforce exi

Pancho Villa is one of the most recognizable leaders of the Mexico Revolution. This civil war, which lasted from 1910-1921, was fought to curb U.S. corporate interests and to redistribute agricultural lands, especially for indigenous communities. It was a social revolution that reasserted popular

Spinning wheels are believed to have originated in India between 500 and 1000 A.D. By the 13th century, they were seen in Europe, and were a standard piece of equipment for those making fiber into yarn. By the 17th century they were commonly found in homes in the colonies of North America.

This wooden grain fork was used during the late 19th century. Wide tined pitch forks like this were used to pitch hay, grains, straw, and other agricultural products. Before the mechanization of harvesting by combines, reaping, threshing, and winnowing were done by hand with simple tools like thi

Since the 1950s, demand has soared in the United States for cookbooks featuring diverse ethnic cuisines. Reflecting a heightened interest in foods and flavors from various cultures, the explosion of ethnic cookbooks—and ethnic restaurants and markets—serves to educate the general public while

First introduced in 2001, the Development, Relief, Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, would address the growing number of undocumented youth in the United States that were unable to continue with their higher education and job prospects. It would also provide a gradual legalization pathway. Howe

Introduced in mid-1976, the Little Professor is a non-printing electronic calculator modified to present simple arithmetic problems. A correct answer prompts another problem on the eight-digit display. An error delivers the message, "EEE." The colorful keyboard shows a professor with whiskers and gl

This is a set of eight "dropping sticks" used to teach acoustics. It was made in Paris by the famous scientific instrument maker Rudolph Koenig, sometime between 1858 and 1902. This particular set was used in the introductory physics class of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. These s