Qualla: National Museum of American History

National Museum of American History: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Another Believer, CC BY-SA 3.0. On the night of September 13, 1814, lawyer Francis Scott Key watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a British prisoner-exchange vessel in Baltimore Harbor and waited to see if an American flag would still be flying in the morning. The flag he saw at dawn - 30 by 42 feet, with 15 stars and 15 stripes, hand-sewn by Mary Pickersgill - now hangs in climate-controlled silence at the heart of the National Museum of American History. The Star-Spangled Banner is the museum's central artifact and the focal point of the entire institution. Visitors descend into a darkened chamber kept at low light to protect the wool fibers. The flag is laid almost flat, slightly angled. It is enormous, and weathered, and the only object in the room. Around it, in three floors of galleries, sit 1.7 million other objects that tell the rest of the country's story.

Image: Another Believer | CC BY-SA 3.0

National Museum of American History: The Star-Spangled Banner

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. After Key wrote the poem that would become the national anthem, the flag itself passed through Major George Armistead's family for nearly a century before being donated to the Smithsonian in 1907. Years of poor display - the flag had hung exposed in the old Arts and Industries Bu...

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

National Museum of American History: From Industry to History

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 3.0. The museum was established on July 1, 1957, as the Museum of History and Technology, but the building did not open to the public until January 1964. The collection had grown out of the Smithsonian's earlier consolidations of artifacts removed from the Patent Office and the origin...

Image: Ser Amantio di Nicolao | CC BY-SA 3.0

National Museum of American History: Landmark Objects

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Raul654, CC BY-SA 3.0. Each wing of each floor is anchored by what the curators call a landmark object - an artifact substantial enough in size or symbolic weight to ground an entire exhibition. The John Bull locomotive, built in England in 1831 and operated on the Camden and Amboy Railroad, sits at on...

Image: User:Raul654 | CC BY-SA 3.0

National Museum of American History: Julia Child's Kitchen

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Apiper626, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2001, when chef Julia Child sold the Cambridge, Massachusetts house where she had filmed several of her cooking shows, she donated the entire kitchen to the Smithsonian. Custom counters, pegboard wall, copper pans, the wall-mounted electric range. The kitchen was disassembled,...

Image: Apiper626 | CC BY-SA 4.0

National Museum of American History: Presidents, First Ladies, and Disrupted Exhibits

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sebastian Wallroth, CC BY 3.0. The third floor center holds two of the museum's most heavily trafficked permanent exhibits: The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden and First Ladies of America. The latter displays inaugural gowns from Martha Washington through Jill Biden - silk damask, beadwork, every dress ...

Image: Sebastian Wallroth | CC BY 3.0