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

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
11/17/2008
These skates were worn by Phil Verchota (number 27), a member of the underdog 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team that astounded the world by capturing the Gold Medal at Lake Placid, New York. While it was the win against the Finns that cinched the Gold, the defeat of the Soviet team in the semifinals

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
12/17/2010
Physical Description
White cotton with gunner's mate patch on left sleeve.
Specific History
This jumper or shirt would have been worn by an enlisted seaman.

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
9/17/2009
The Spaniards who invaded Mexico brought to North America a well-developed equestrian tradition. Over the centuries, horses, saddles, and other riding paraphernalia were altered by the landscape and the lifestyles of both Spanish and indigenous riders. Accompanied by mariachi music, la charrería

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
12/31/2009
In the early days of electronic computers, memory was not as efficient or inexpensive as it is today. To save memory space, programs stored as few digits as possible for dates. In COBOL, for instance, January 1, 1999, was stored as 010199. As Year 2000, or Y2K for short, approached, it became app

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
4/7/2016
In 1851 Isaac Merritt Singer formed the I.M. Singer & Company (later the Singer Sewing Machine Company) after inventing his own sewing machine to remedy a flaw he noticed with traditional models.
This Singer 24 chain stitch sewing machine was manufactured in 1910, and used in t

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
9/3/2020
In 1906 Ng Shee Lee packed her clothes and belongings in this trunk and left China for America. It was a difficult trip. She slept next to the noisy engine room; arriving tired and sick in San Francisco she was met by the devastating 1906 earthquake. Ng Shee then made her way alone by train across C

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
11/17/2008
The Blackberry is a handheld wireless Personal Data Assistant (PDA) and communication device. It has a thumb keyboard and a wheel for navigation, as opposed to using a stylus like its competitors. This unit was owned by a law firm partner who arrived at the World Trade Center on September 11, 200

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
11/5/2008
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

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
4/15/2009
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

Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
8/7/2008
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