“A sudden tragedy thrust Rebecca Lukens into the family business and into history, making her the nation’s first woman industrialist and the only woman to run and eventually own an iron mill in the United States during the 1800s. In 1825, at the age of 31 and expecting her sixth child, Rebecca L

The Museum’s Textile Collection contains over four thousand patent models. The collection includes many examples of carding machines, spinning machines, knitting machines, rope making machines, looms, baskets, carpets, fabrics, and sewing machines. Even the simple clothespin is well represented

In this episode of the History Explorer podcast, we go behind the "seams" to explore the many layers of the Museum’s latest acquisition—Elphaba’s dress from the Broadway Musical Wicked, which gave a new spin on L. Frank Baum’s well known book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

This cloth banner celebrates the electoral victory of Thomas Jefferson over John Adams in the presidential election of 1800. The banner is believed to be one of the earliest surviving textiles carrying partisan imagery, created at the dawn of the first American party system in which power passed

In this post, readers will learn how fashion interacted with and reflected the Woman’s Suffrage movement of the early 1900s.  At the turn of the century, the tide of political change went hand-in-hand with the liberation of women’s bodies from corsets and close-fitting outfits.  An