Made in a San Diego sign shop, this metal menu board formed one side of a speaker box at a Jack in the Box drive thru restaurant. Drivers approached the menu, made their selections, and proceeded to the speaker box to place their orders. This menu is from the early 1960s and features an 18-cent h

A Lewis Hine silver print from about 1906–1918, this image of a young boy working at a loom in a cotton mill in Rhode Island is one in a series of photographs made by Hine for the National Child Labor Committee. The photographs document child labor throughout America in the early 20th century. As

“Over seventy years ago, in 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African American athlete to play in the World Series, having famously broken the color barrier in Major League Baseball earlier in the year. In another breakthrough, Leopoldo “Polín” Martinez, a Mexican American ballplayer, pl

Spark!Lab is a hands -on invention studio in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Spark!Lab activities communicate that invention is a process, rather than a single “Aha!” moment; provide visitors with opportunities to explore the invention process and their own inventiveness;

A box of soap baby that was sold as a campaign tool for Former President William McKinley during the 1896 United States presidential election. An identical box of soap baby was created for the opposing Democrat candidate, William Jennings Bryan. These were produced by the soap manufacturer and not t

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!

In this music activity, students will learn how to listen to and appreciate authentic jazz recordings by listening to fifteen recordings by jazz greats and reading brief introductions that discuss the relevance of the songs as well as how to listen to them.

During the early 1930s, the United States and the rest of the industrialized world experienced an economic depression. In 1934, the United States continued its movement toward removing its currency from the gold standard. It even became illegal to possess gold coins or gold-based currency until C

American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity. These materials, from the coll

General Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North culminated in the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single-day battle in American history.