This panel from the AIDS Memorial Quilt honors activist Roger Lyon, who died of AIDS in 1984.
Museum Artifacts

Grade Range:
5-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
12/23/2010
US Army private's uniform from approximately 1840.

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
7/21/2008
In the spring of 1803, Meriwether Lewis began to purchase scientific and mathematical instruments for a pending expedition into the northwestern region of North America. Among the items he purchased from Philadelphia instrument maker Thomas Whitney were three pocket compasses and this silver

Grade Range:
4-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
6/11/2014
This teapot was made in England about 1766-1770, possibly by the Cockpit Hill Factory, Derby, England. Inscribed on one side of the teapot is “No Stamp Act” and on the other is “America, Liberty Restored,” both within flowerheads and stylized scrolling leaftips in black. The cover is pain

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
9/20/2009
From doo-wop and country blues, to polka and hip-hop, Tejano music is made by borderland musicians forced to understand the value of cultural exchange. Performing a fusion of cumbia, pop, and contemporary Tejano music, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (1971-1995) was a young star whose rise and hard-won

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
11/6/2008
During World War I, machine guns were heavy, crew-served weapons. Their operation required several soldiers. Even so-called light machine guns could not easily be handled by single soldiers. To meet the need for an individual rapid-fire weapon, several inventors devised submachine guns. Light eno

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
3/28/2016
Motorola produced the DynaTAC cell phone in 1984 after more than a decade of work in cellular research and technology. The Motorola DynaTAC (an abbreviation of Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) was the first commercially available portable handheld cell phone. The phone was a 9-inches tall, w

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
4/16/2018
The reprint of Fortune Magazine’s “Issei, Nisei, Kibei”, which reviewed the war relocation program, reached a wide swathe of the United States and confronted Americans with the severe social issues taking place on the home front. Awareness of the prejudicial treatment of these specific citi

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
9/3/2020
This cane belonged to Toussaint L’Ouverture, a military and political leader in the Haitian Revolution. The revolution began as a slave revolt in the French colony of Saint-Domingue in 1791 and ended with emancipation and the founding of the free nation of Haiti in 1804. Nearly half a million ensl

Grade Range:
6-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
12/30/2020
A box of soap baby that was sold as a campaign tool for Former President William McKinley during the 1896 United States presidential election. An identical box of soap baby was created for the opposing Democrat candidate, William Jennings Bryan. These were produced by the soap manufacturer and not t

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
3/5/2009
Remington put its writing machines on the market in 1874 at a price of $125. The new Type Writer owed some of its identity to the sewing machines that Remington had recently added to its product line. The writing machine came mounted on a sewing machine stand, with a treadle to operate the carria