Becoming US is a new educational resource for high school teachers and students to learn immigration and migration history in a more accurate and inclusive way. The people of North America came from many cultures and spoke different languages long before the founding of the Uni

In honor of America's entry into "The War to End All Wars" in 1917, World War I: Lessons and Legacies explores the war and its lasting impact and far-reaching influence on American life. From the Great Migration to the 1918 flu pandemic and from the unionizat

In honor of America's entry into "The War to End All Wars" in 1917, World War I: Lessons and Legacies explores the war and its lasting impact and far-reaching influence on American life. From the Great Migration to the 1918 flu pandemic and from the unionizat

During WWII almost 120,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted from the West Coast regions that were deemed military exclusion zones, moved cities and states away, and controlled under severe restrictions. We can better understand the lives, experiences, and stories of these people by studying objec

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,

How can educators of all disciplines prepare students to be active and informed participants in a democracy? Join us to explore this question through the lens of six Smithsonian collections! Discover how museum objects can help learners explore the challenges and opportunities of living in a democra

The Smithsonian Transcription Center, the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access, and Smithsonian Enterprises collaborated with five secondary teachers from the greater Washington, D.C., metro area to create

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!

For decades, teachers drilled American school children using flash cards that gave simple arithmetic problems. The advent of inexpensive electronic calculators in the 1970s made it possible to do much routine arithmetic automatically. To teach school children the meaning of basic operations, new dev