Fire extinction -- Equipment and supplies; Pails; 19th century
Fire! Quickly, everyone grab the bucket from your home and form a line! Before the use of fire hydrants and engines, communities relied on the help of neighbors to fight fires. When built entirely of wood, towns were at great risk for fire. This...
A serf was a laborer who leased and worked land owned by a wealthy land owner in return for the serf’s protection. The land owner could be nobility, the Church or the monarch. Serfdom, the legal and economic status of peasants, became the...
Eliza Whiting received this Queen Anne-style wooden doll from London around 1790. Passed down with her history from generation to generation, each owner recorded bits of information on how the doll figured in her own life, from party invitations...
Metal signs called “fire marks” were attached to buildings by the insurance company that covered them. Each company had a different symbol and originally the fire mark was a way for privately run fire departments to identify which buildings...
This is an early desktop electronic calculator made by the Friden company in 1965. It was very expensive and seems clunky by today’s standards, but was sleek, advanced technology for the time. The owner’s manual promised that using the...
What to do on a cold or rainy day? Chemistry sets like this one from the 1940s provided countless experiments for kids to learn about atoms and molecules as well as the natural world. Toy laboratories like this one, as well as other educational...
Papua New Guinea; Papua New Guinea - social life and customs; Marriage customs and rights; Shells; Dowry; Brides
Among many of the indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinea, items from their environment, like shells and ivory from boar's tusks, were valuable. Traded from group to group, resources from the coasts could be obtained by people living further inland....
Akan (African people); Akan (African people) -- Social life and customs; Ghana; Ghana -- Social life and customs; Stools; Furniture
Personal stools are very important among the Akan peoples of Ghana. Among the Asante (a sub-group of the Akan), there is a very special bond between a person and his/her stool. An Asante proverb states, "There are no secrets between a man and...
This is a model of a Mongolian home called a yurt or ger. It is said that Mongolians do not appreciate the term yurt as much as ger, because yurt is the term used by Western invaders. Many Mongols are nomadic people, thus ger make wonderful homes...
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; Soldiers -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Soldiers; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Equipment and supplies; Military...
During the U.S. Civil War the normal cap issued by the Federal Government was called a forage cap. The kepi was a fancier version of that. These were usually purchased by the soldier using his own money. Some uniquely uniformed units wore the kepi...
