When looking closer at the presence of marine specimens at American anti-slavery fairs, it becomes clear that these objects were more than items of natural curiosity. 

It was a relentless circle of brutal exploitation in which the salt raked by Mary Prince and other enslaved people was sold to northern fishermen who sold it back southward in the form of salted fish with which to feed the enslaved who raked the salt.

I was shocked to find that British newspapers in early August 1863 described the Portrait being “entirely destroyed” by fire on a railway train.

Centering material culture when researching those with scant documentary evidence of their lives can help fill in the gaps of their experience.

Again and again, the filmstrip shows its viewers images of women in states of distress.

For those in later years, the bell’s value lay not in its powerful sound, but in its visual representation.

Even before the miniaturization of mokuks as souvenir items, these folded birchbark baskets served as trade items that also facilitated diplomacy between Native and colonial nations.

Understanding puzzles as agents of disorder runs counter to a common interpretation that associates puzzles with the quest for and ultimate affirmation of order.

Commemoration, commerce, and complex social connections combined to dictate the paths and diversions of this obscure object and others.

What happens when we place furniture into a context of lively and fraught interaction?

“The life of a citizen,” they reminded the all-male jury, “lies in the hands of woman.” The result made prosecuting sexual assaults among acquaintances all but impossible.  

The Quaker spiritual journey, often invisible due to its silent, humble and individual nature, is illustrated in this map.

By making pirate stories dramatic and exciting, Ellms transformed pirates from news objects and historical actors to distinctly literary characters.

Confederates’ quest for bones thus connects to a bizarre history of the use, and misuse, of human remains. Bones from the Bull Run battlefield were taken as acts of domination and displayed as trophies of war. However macabre, human remains became part of the deeply variegated material culture of war.