Throughout the 1800s, homegrown American scientists and inventors were a source of pride for the fledgling republic, which was rapidly surpassing Great Britain and the rest of Europe as a hotbed of industrial activity. The period also coincided with the peak of the Romantic Period in art, music,

Our Democracy: A National Youth Summit civic education series Over the course of the 2022–2023 school year, we'll release classroom resources that address the driving question, "How do the stories we tell about our past shape our democracy?" Each case study uses museum objects and artifacts,

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!

“The trouble began soon after well-known social reformer Emily Bissell had finished her remarks at the meeting of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage’s Washington, D.C., branch. As audience members got ready to leave that March 1912 evening, supporters of woman suffrage stationed

Speaking before hundreds of thousands of people can be nerve-racking. But you'd never guess that watching Naomi Wadler. At age 11, she rose to national prominence as a leader in the 2018 March for Our Lives to end gun violence. She remembers becoming politically aware at age 5 when George Zimmerman

“In 2020, the Fifteenth Amendment—the first voting rights amendment added to the U.S. Constitution—celebrates its 150th anniversary. You’ve likely heard, perhaps on the news or in the classroom, that the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave or granted African American men the ri

“On a night in late April of 2015, I was travelling down I-95 with my museum colleagues Mike and Ryan. We were tired but still elated from the once-in-a-lifetime experience of touring ESPN studios in Bristol, Connecticut. The purpose of our visit was to collect an incredible object for the museumâ

“Our political and legal systems are inextricably intertwined with and fueled by structural racism. This legacy predates the country’s founding, through the genocide of Indigenous populations and the kidnapping and selling of millions of Africans into slavery. Preeminent public health scholar an

“In March 2020, the Urban Art Mapping research team, a small group of faculty and students from the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota, was busy conducting interviews with community members of Midway, a bustling, diverse neighborhood. Located in the middle of a six-mile stretch betw

“Minnesota doesn’t typically come to mind when you think about slavery and the Civil War. It’s also not a place that’s figured into the national imagination when it comes to Black activism, either—at least, not until recently. However, as part of the series on “Black Life in Two Pandemic