Decorated "tour" or "Pleiku" jackets worn by Vietnam GIs were one of the most visible forms of a soldier's shared experience. Pleiku jackets--named so because they were often produced in Pleiku, Vietnam--were souvenirs made for...
Teton Indians; Teton Indians -- Social life and customs; Indians of North America -- Great Plains; Indians of North America; Indians of North America -- Clothing; Bags; Clothing and dress
Native American bags were often decorated with paint, beadwork, or quillwork with specific tribal designs. These designs sometimes revealed the specific use of the bag, such as a medicine bag or tobacco bag. The craftsperson, usually a woman, made...
Indians of North America; Indians of North America -- Clothing; Clothing and dress; Bags; Indians of North America -- Great Plains; Indians of North America -- Great Plains -- Social life and customs
Native American bags were often decorated with paint, beadwork, or quillwork with specific tribal designs. These designs sometimes revealed the specific use of the bag, such as a medicine bag or tobacco bag. This particular bag may have been...
Versace, Gianni; Clothing and dress; Silk; Butterflies
Gianni Versace was a fashion designer known for his "over the top" designs, unusual use of materials, and extravagant stage costumes. This silk day suit, done in butterfly motif, is circa 1995 couture, the highest level of fashion design...
Indians of North America; Indians of North America -- Northwest Coast of North America; Kwakiutl Indians; Kwakiutl Indians -- Social life and customs; Indian dolls; Dolls; 1950s
Decorated button blankets, like the one this doll is wearing, were first created in the 1800s. Fur trappers and the Hudson's Bay Company traded plain wool blankets with the Kwakiutl peoples of the Northwest, and then each family decorated the...
Cliff-dwellers; Indians of North America -- Southwest, New; Pueblo Indians; Bowls (Tableware); Anasazi
The Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) lived in the present-day Four Corners region, which includes New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. They lived in this area from AD1 and AD1300 and are thought to be the ancestors of the modern Pueblo Indians now...
Bowls (Tableware); Mexico; Mexico -- Religious life and customs; Folklore -- Mexico; Huichol Indians; Huichol Indians -- Religion; Huichol mythology
The Huichol are a group of people that live in the Sierra Madre Mountains of North Central Mexico. For the Huichol, art is a way to communicate with the gods. The Huichol adorn many objects with brightly colored beads arranged in symbolic designs....
Cliff-dwellers; Indians of North America -- Southwest, New; Anasazi; Storage jars; Pueblo Indians
The Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) lived in the present-day Four Corners region, which includes New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. They lived in this area from AD1 and AD1300 and are thought to be the ancestors of the modern Pueblo Indians now...
Cliff-dwellers; Indians of North America -- Southwest, New; Pueblo Indians; Implements, utensils, etc.; Anasazi
The Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) lived in the present-day Four Corners region, which includes New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. They lived in this area from AD1 and AD1300 and are thought to be the ancestors of the modern Pueblo Indians now...
Samplers; 19th Century; Embroidery; Needlework; Society of Friends
This sampler was made by Sarah Ann Lupton of Waterford, Virginia when she was a student at the Weston Quaker school in Pennsylvania in 1819. Samplers were a way for girls to practice and display their needlework skills. Do you see how Sarah used...
Indians of North America; Pueblo Indians; Pueblo Indians -- Social life and customs; Pueblo pottery; Containers; Storage jars
In the beginning of the 20th century, Sara Fina Tafoya was the first Santa Clara Pueblo potter to succeed in marketing traditional utilitarian pottery with decorative non-functional designs. One image she began using was the imprint of a bear paw...
France; France -- Social life and customs; Implements, utensils, etc.; Pies
The pie crimper could be used for cutting pastry, fluting pie edges for decoration, and sealing the piecrust together. The earliest crimpers were made of ivory, horn, wood, brass, iron or bone. Homebound sailors on whaling ships would often carve...
Indians of North America; Nineteenhundreds (Decade); Hair; Hairstyles; Hair-work, Ornamental; Hairdressing
Native American items were often decorated meticulously with paint, beadwork, or quillwork with specific designs. This particular hair ornament was probably made around the early 1900s, and used primarily for decorative purposes. Originally, hair...
Indians of north America; Zuni Indians; Zuni Indians -- Social life and customs; Zuni pottery; Containers; Storage jars; New Mexico; Zuni pottery
Zuni peoples recognized the importance of water in their daily lives. Water and items associated with water became part of their belief system. During the 1800s water jars or containers featured abstract designs of rain, vegetation and animals...
Hundreds of mechanical washing machines were designed in the first half of the 19th century, but they were hand powered. The earliest models rubbed clothes to clean them; later designs featured mechanisms that moved the clothes through the water....
This patchwork panel is made from a collection of premiums that came with cigarettes. Ladies’ magazines featured do-it-yourself designs like this, but men were the ones who purchased tobacco products. The lovely ladies on these “silks” were...
Indians of North America; Zuni Indians; Zuni Indians -- Social life and customs; Zuni pottery; Containers; Storage jars; Zuni pottery
Zuni peoples recognized the importance of water in their daily lives. Water and items associated with water became part of their belief system. During the 1800s water jars or containers featured abstract designs of rain, vegetation and animals...
Kites; Japan; Japan -- Social life and customs; Insects in art; Kites -- Japan
It is believed that the first kites to arrive in Japan were brought by Buddhist missionaries around A. D. 700, during the Twang Dynasty (618-907 AD). Since then, kites have become a very important part of Japanese culture and a beautiful art form....
Taxis (Vehicles); Models and modelmaking; Bicycles; Khatmandu (Nepal); Khatmandu (Nepal) -- Social life and customs; Nepal
Kathmandu, Nepal is one of the most polluted cities in the world. Its streets are overcrowded with gasoline and diesel-run cars, motorcycles and auto-rickshaws, filling the air with pollution. Due to the overcrowding, many people travel by bicycle...
Fortuny, Mariano, 1871-1949; Fashion designers; Clothing and dress
Mariano Fortuny's designs were surprisingly unlike the fashions of the 1910s and 1920s. They were simply constructed and unrestrictive, and made from hand dyed and printed or stenciled silks and velvets. This is a neo-Medieval style dress of two...
