This teacher resource challenges students to think about the Jefferson desk and the Declaration of Independence as objects that are valuable sources of historical information. It includes a preliminary activity intended to introduce students to doing history with objects a

Students will learn about American industrial creativity by looking at industrial drawings, considering their aesthetic value as well as their importance to the design process. Engineers, inventors, and designers produce drawings as part of their creative process. They draw to work

Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564), an early European physician and professor of medicine, wrote an important treatise on the human body, published in 1543. He provided detailed illustrations that demonstrated muscle structure and other features of human anatomy, based on his work dissecting cadavers

This website, from the Library of Congress, is a collection of approximately 400 items or 2,000 digital files relating to inaugurations from George Washington's in 1789 to George W. Bush's inauguration of 2001. It includes diaries and letters of presidents and of those who witnessed inaugurations

Abraham Lincoln's interest in canal building, river commerce, and internal improvements not only drew him to the Whig and later Republican Party, but also led him to try his hand at designing a device for raising boats off sand bars. Undertaken while he was a 40-year-old lawyer in Illinois, Linco

Students will learn how the loyalty of Japanese Americans was tested during World War II. Based on answers to mandatory loyalty questionnaires, many Japanese Americans were sent to separate camps, repatriated, expatriated or given the opportunity to be drafted into the military. This section of

In this post, readers will learn about an historical moment from a personal point of view.  William Steinway recounts the terrors of the 1863 New York City Draft riots and why he feared for his family during those dangerous days.  Written by Curator Emerita Cynthia Adams Hoover and volu