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, 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
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts
Date Posted:
1/2/2022
The blue dress worn by Constance Wu in the film "Crazy Rich Asians." The film was the first Hollywood film to star a mostly East Asian cast since 1993's "The Joy Luck Club." The Marchesa dress is a Grecian-style dress with light blue tulle.
Learn more about the artifact!
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
12/16/2010
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
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
7/1/2008
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
Grade Range:
K-12
Resource Type(s):
Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
2/11/2009
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
