Museum Artifacts

Many immigrants sought to preserve their cultural heritage while at the same time embracing their new identity as Americans. Manfred Anson did so in designing this Hanukkah lamp to mark the centennial of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. Anson, who escaped Nazi Germany as a teenager, later reunited wit

A skateboarding pioneer, Cindy Whitehead turned pro at seventeen, skating both pool and half-pipe and becoming one of the top-ranked vert skaters while competing against the boys. But Whitehead had no choice but to wear boys’ shorts when competing; there were no skate products for girls in the 197

Physical Description Light khaki jacket with blue facings with epaulettes and gold-colored buttons. Wool felt hat with cotton braids and gilt threads. Specific History Jacket and hat worn by Colonel Leonard Wood in Cuba. While serving as an assistant su

The family fallout shelter represents the public policy assumptions of the atomic age, namely, that with enough preparation, the American family and with it the nation's social and political fabric would survive a nuclear attack. This free-standing, double-hulled steel shelter was installed benea

The process of manufacturing such baskets is called "sewing," but it is actually a process of binding and coiling long strands of grass. In the wetlands, two kinds of grasses are used; "sweetgrass," and more recently, black rush, also known as "bullrush." Strips of oak wood, or palmetto fronds ar

By the 1700s, samplers depicting alphabets and numerals were worked by young women to learn the basic needlework skills needed to operate the family household.  The earliest dated sampler in the museum's collection was made in 1735 by Lydia Dickman of Boston, Massachusetts.   

Many of the surgical sets used during the American Civil War were made to the specifications of the Union Army. This Civil War surgical set was made by George Tiemann & Company of New York City. Tiemann, who emigrated to America from Germany in 1826, was considered one of the finest surgical

This is a patent model of a sewing machine invented by John Bachelder of Boston, Mass., who was issued Patent No. 6439 on May 8, 1849. In his patent specification he claims "As my invention or improvement in the sewing machine is the combination, with the endless cloth-holder, of the curved bar o

Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the annexation of Texas, the land claims of many Mexican families were not respected, either by the new English-speaking settlers or by the U.S. government. Dispossession from family- and community-owned lands dealt a severe economic blow to the livel

Before 1954, so-called portable radio receivers used vacuum tubes to receive and amplify signals. The large batteries needed to power most tubes made radios large and heavy. Receivers built with subminiature tubes existed but were expensive. The invention of transistors in 1947 allowed engineers