As COVID-19 deaths spiked in 2020, Suzanne Firstenberg’s public art installation "In America: How could this happen…"
Museum Artifacts
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:
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:
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:
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
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
5/1/2018
The term “ballot” is derived from the Italian ballotta, meaning “little ball.” This ballot box was not used in a U.S. election. It was used by members of a Washington, D.C., social club.
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
9/3/2020
The May 1, also known as May Day, celebrates workers’ rights and is often marked by public marches. Constantly being adapted, May Day has seen many evolutions since its start at the Haymarket Square in Chicago in 1886. One demonstration of great significance is the May Day marches of 2006, in whic
