"Is there room in Americans’ Thanksgiving celebrations for both thankfulness and mourning? That challenging question arose as my colleagues and I took a new look at encounters in the 1600s between English Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people in eastern Massachusetts. A showcase exhibition, titled

Following independence, citizens of the new nation sought to forge their own identity and create a unique history. They established holidays such as the Fourth of July and later Thanksgiving Day and chronicled the story of America from the landing at Plymouth Rock through the Founding Fathers and

Holidays on Display examines the art, industry, and history of holiday display across the United States. Focusing on parading culture and department store retail display, primarily between the 1920s and 1960s, when holiday displays were considered commercial endeavors equally rewarding f

Born in New Orleans in 1901, jazz musician Louis Armstrong (d. 1971)was known for his distinctive trumpet-playing and vocal style. He often improvised jazz riffs using his voice rather than his instrument, “scatting” notes and melodies rather than singing actual words. Armstrong transformed t

Discover America’s key symbols and holidays through short videos, mini-activities, and practice questions in this segment of Preparing for the Oath: U.S. History and Civics for Citizenship. The seven questions included in this segment cover topics such as national holidays, the American flag, t

In this episode of the History Explorer podcast series, curator Larry Bird discusses the development of holiday parades, department store window displays, and light shows and examines larger issues in American culture in the late nineteeth through mid-twentieth centuries including 

In this episode of the History Explorer podcast series, curator Rayna Green discusses the history of Thanksgiving, American Indian foodways, and what how and what we eat can teach us about American history.  The teacher guide includes discussion questions and a student worksheet.

Learn different aspects of Día de los Muertos and how it is celebrated and practiced. The Smithsonian Latino Center (SLC) presents a Dia de los Muertos 3D experience in the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum (LVM) illustrating customs and beliefs varying from an

The resources American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving, Harvest Ceremony: Beyond the Thanksgiving Myth from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian examine the deeper meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday for American Indians through the themes

The shofar, one of the earliest known musical instruments, is usually made from a ram's horn. Used in biblical times to signal important events, it is also blown on High Holy Days (10 days in the fall of the year). It is sounded many times during the services of Rosh ha-Shanah (the Jewish New Yea