This historical investigation is aligned with the C3 Framework and is from C3teachers.org. This inquiry is focused on the compelling question “Were the suburbs good for America?” and deals with th

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

This online exhibition features approximately 100 objects from the Museum's collections to tell stories from the earliest days of America's colonial history through the 2008 presidential election. Each object is used as the starting point for a larger story about American history. The exhibition

Thomas Edison used this carbon-filament bulb in the first public demonstration of his most famous invention, the first practical electric incandescent lamp, which took place at his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory on New Year's Eve, 1879. As the quintessential American inventor-hero,

In these classroom activities, developed for the exhibition America on the Move, students will use visual, analytical, and interpretive skills to examine primary sources including a historical map and answer questions about them to learn more about the expansion of transportati

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 

Beginning eight days after the first shots of the American Civil War were fired and three days before his wedding, William Steinway’s remarkable diary bears witness to one of the most dynamic periods in American history. This website examines the life of William Steinway and the display of his

In this post, students will learn how packaging—and the unspoken dialogue between consumers and producers—is one way to understand the connection between supermarkets and food consumption habits in the United States. Package colors, materials, and other design elements of food products a