Many Voices, One Nation
Grade Range: K-12
Resource Type(s): Reference Materials, Interactives & Media
Date Posted:
7/22/2017
Many Voices, One Nation takes visitors on a chronological and thematic journey that maps the cultural geography of the unique and complex stories that animate the Latin emblem on the country’s Great Seal and the national ideal: E pluribus unum, Out of many, one.
Through almost 200 museum artifacts and about 100 loan objects, this exhibition shows how the many voices of the American people have contributed to and continue to shape the nation and its communities, from its earliest beginnings to the present. Through objects such as a painted elk hide from the Southwest, circa 1693, a Norwegian bowl brought by 19th-century immigrants, a gold miner’s trunk, symbols of union and liberty such as Uncle Sam and Columbia, and a baseball helmet used by Boston Red Sox player Carl Yastrzemski in the 1970s, the exhibition explores the never-ending process of becoming one nation.
National Standards
United States History Standards (Grades 5-12)
Era 2: Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763)
2: How political, religious, and social institutions emerged in the English colonies
3: How the values and institutions of European economic life took root in the colonies, and how slavery reshaped European and African life in the America
Era 3: Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s)
2: The impact of the American Revolution on politics, economy, and society
3: The institutions and practices of government created during the Revolution and how they were revised between 1787 and 1815 to create the foundation of the American political system based on the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights
Era 4: Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
2: How the industrial revolution, increasing immigration, the rapid expansion of slavery, and the westward movement changed the lives of Americans and led toward regional tensions
3: The extension, restriction, and reorganization of political democracy after 1800
4: The sources and character of cultural, religious, and social reform movements in the antebellum period
Era 6: The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)
2: Massive immigration after 1870 and how new social patterns, conflicts, and ideas of national unity developed amid growing cultural diversity
3: The rise of the American labor movement and how political issues reflected social and economic changes
4: Federal Indian policy and United States foreign policy after the Civil War
Era 8: The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)
2: How the New Deal addressed the Great Depression, transformed American federalism, and initiated the welfare state
3: The causes and course of World War II, the character of the war at home and abroad, and its reshaping of the U.S. role in world affairs