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| What is it worth?
In a way, all museums are treasure houses, places where valuable things are guarded and preserved. But what makes something a treasure? People invest different kinds of value in artifacts—aesthetic, historical, personal, spiritual. Value is, after all, in the eye of the beholder, and the treasures we Americans have placed in the National Museum of American History reveal a great deal about who we are, as individuals and as a nation. What kinds of treasures has the Smithsonian collected, and why? How has the meaning of treasure changed over time? What makes something worth treasuring? |
Artistic Treasures
- A Fruit Piece, mezzotint by Richard Earlom after Jan van Huysum, 1781
- Duke Ellington manuscript score for "Light," part of Black, Brown and Beige, about 1940
- Ellicott clock, 1769
- Favrile glass vase by Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, New York City, 1893-96
- Quilt made by members of the Presbyterian Church, Maltaville, New York, 1847
- Scrimshaw, 1800s
- Stradivari violoncello, 1701
Collections
Monetary Value
Old and New Treasures
Personal Treasures
Relics
- Bugle from the U.S.S. Maine, 1898
- Cup that held President McKinley's last drink, 1901
- First gold found at Sutter's Mill, California, 1848
- Fragment of Confederate flag cut down by Colonel Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth, 1861
- Piece of Plymouth Rock, 1620
- The
Bunkers' chairs, 1970s
- The Star-Spangled Banner, 1814
- Thomas Jefferson's desk, 1776
- White House timber burned in the fire of 1814
- Woolworth's lunch counter, Greensboro, North Carolina, site of a 1960 civil rights sit-in
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