Motorola produced the DynaTAC cell phone in 1984 after more than a decade of work in cellular research and technology. The Motorola DynaTAC (an abbreviation of Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) was the first commercially available portable handheld cell phone. The phone was a 9-inches tall, w

After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s. Subjects included classical, biblical, and historical scenes, as well as mourning pictures.

The National Youth Summit brings middle and high school students together with scholars, teachers, policy experts, and activists in a national conversation about important events in America’s past that have relevance to the nation’s present and future. Mark your calendars for the next

Poster created by the Southern Christian Leadership Council which was meant to build solidarity between Latinx and Black communities in the late 1960s.

“Maybe this painting looks familiar. A long row of red-coated soldiers. A cloud of gun smoke engulfing the street. Falling bodies. But not every depiction of the Boston Massacre puts an African American man at the center. Doing so asks for reflection, and not just because this painting is on a

“They had just arrived in a foreign country and the small girl’s mother was sent away. Ernest and Mimi Hausner fled their home in Vienna in 1938, when little Evelyn was just a toddler. Nazi Germany had annexed Austria, putting the lives of Jews like the Hausners at risk. They made it to England

What would you take if you were suddenly forced to move? In this activity, students will make this decision after reading and responding to a quote by a woman who was forced to move to a Japanese American internment camp during World War II. It is included in an OurStory module entitled Life in a

In this set of classroom activities developed for the exhibition America on the Move, students will use visual, analytical, and interpretive skills to examine primary sources including historical maps to answer questions about farming, transportation, immigration, and racism in

Make your own American eagle pop-up and review symbols with students using this resource, developed by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries for the exhibition Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop, and Turn.

Steve Richard Nicosia (b. 1955) played for eight seasons on four different teams, ending his career in 1985. As a rookie, Nicosia used this catcher's mask when he caught during Game Seven of the 1979 World Series. Later in his career, he set a San Francisco Giants record with eight consecutive hi