Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_8206,size=350,right]Born around 1815, James Thomas Gant was one of twelve children born to free parents on a plantation a few miles northeast of the Washington DC-line.1 As a free black man who lived through nearly the entire nineteenth century, he would see the Civil War, the destruction of slavery, the rise and fall of an all-too-brief period of
Description: Because World War I was sure to go down in history, the curator of the History Division, Theodore T. Belote, began collecting artifacts documenting the war even before it was over. As the war wound down and soldiers started returning home, Belote and his superiors at the US National Museum worked with the War Department and contacts in the Army and the Navy to document the
Description: Headed to DC soon? Leave your thoughts at the National Museum of American History’s TalkBack Board, and then whether you’re in the capital or elsewhere, tune into the NMAH’s Twitter feed for #TalkBackTuesdays, where they’ll feature the best questions and comments from the board. The Museum of Photographic Arts has just joined Flickr Commons, and their photos include some