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:
12/29/2010
Service jacket and cap worn by Rear Admiral David G. Farragut while directing the fire of the flagship Hartford during the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. It was during the Battle of Mobile Bay that Farragut uttered the infamous words, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead.”

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
10/27/2008
This spur, worn over a riding boot, was made in Mexico in the mid-1800s. Rubbed against the animal's side, spurs are one of the instruments that riders use to direct horses. The spikes on this spur are set on a small wheel called a rowel, making this a rowel spur. Horses and good riding equipment

Grade Range:
5-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
6/11/2009
This is the fourth object in the Roosevelt/Saint-Gaudens object group.
Someone once observed that a giraffe was a horse designed by a committee. The same might be said of this coin: what had seemed a good idea around a table in the boardroom proved to be a

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
4/4/2016
This employee identification badge belonged to a female worker with employee number 9897 at the MacArthur Brothers Bag Loading Plant in Woodbury, New Jersey, in 1918. The plant was built and operated by the MacArthur Brothers Company. The contracting company, established in 1826, also built Camp

Grade Range:
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
4/25/2018
Made in a San Diego sign shop, this metal menu board formed one side of a speaker box at a Jack in the Box drive thru restaurant. Drivers approached the menu, made their selections, and proceeded to the speaker box to place their orders. This menu is from the early 1960s and features an 18-cent h

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
9/3/2020
A U.S. Border Patrol official reviews a bracero's documents while others wait in line to be processed at the Hidalgo Processing Center, Texas.

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
10/22/2008
Steve Richard Nicosia (b. 1955) played for eight seasons on four different teams, ending his career in 1985. As a rookie, Nicosia used this catcher's mask when he caught during Game Seven of the 1979 World Series. Later in his career, he set a San Francisco Giants record with eight consecutive hi

Grade Range:
5-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
9/1/2010
This crumpled piece of exterior sheathing was recovered from the debris pile of the World Trade Center after the building collapsed following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
4/22/2010
The Environmental Movement
This button depicts the ecology symbol, a small letter “e” inside the larger letter “O,” the letters standing for “environment” and “organism.” Cartoonist Ron Cobb invented the symbol in 1969. The ecology symbol appeared in a g

Grade Range:
5-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
12/17/2010
In 1855 Secretary of War Jefferson Davis was instrumental in the creation of two regiments of cavalry. It was recommended that the cavalry have a distinctive hat; it is sometimes called the Jeff Davis hat. It also was referred to as the Hardee hat, after William Joseph Hardee, an officer of the 2