250 Objects That Tell the Story of America

Introduced in 1964, the Mustang ignited the “pony car” era, fusing speed, style and affordability. It roared into the national psyche as a symbol of youthful freedom—and America’s love for the open road.

Starting with burger stands in the 1940s, drive-thru windows let customers pick up food right from their cars. Banks, liquor stores and pharmacies followed, reshaping daily transactions around the automobile.

Designed for long-distance riding, it became a touring favorite and a police workhorse. Features like its electric starter, windshield and saddlebags helped make road trips comfortable and practical.

Practical, homemade bedcoverings for generations of Amish families in the U.S., these colorful quilts have become recognized worldwide for their often strikingly modern geometric designs.

A favorite of farmers from the 1920s well into the 1950s, Deere’s first mass-produced tractor helped mechanize American farming. Its green and yellow color scheme was a familiar sight across the heartland.

The Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, and the Girl Scouts two years later used badges to mark competence in skills like camping and first aid. They fostered goal setting and character development.

Many Americans took their minds off the country’s 1970s economic woes by hitting the dance floor—kaleidoscopically lit by a disco ball—to do the Hustle, shake their groove thang or mimic John Travolta.

Many of the 12 million immigrants who landed at Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924 opted to haul their few precious belongings through the entire inspection process rather than check them in the baggage room.

The 1942 poster captured the strength and spirit of the 6 million women who took industrial jobs during World War II. Its bandana-clad riveter flexing her bicep became a lasting feminist icon.

As if in a cruel game of bingo, men aged 18 to 26 watched their fate bounce around a drum as 366 capsules—one for each birthday—were randomly drawn to determine the order of induction for the Vietnam War.

As U.S. banks teetered in 1933, Roosevelt gave his first “fireside chat,” pioneering crisis governance by radio. His 31 plain-spoken broadcasts steadied a fearful nation during depression and world war.

Completed in 1946, the first programmable, general-purpose electronic computer solved complex ballistics calculations in seconds rather than hours, yet the 30-ton behemoth required a team of engineers to run.

Far more than a phone, Apple’s 2007 touchscreen mobile device was a pocket-sized computer with a high-quality camera and web access. It sold 200 million units in five years and reshaped everyday life.

America’s first Black military aviators flew more than 15,000 sorties during WWII, escorting bombers deep into enemy territory. Their jackets became markers of achievement in a segregated nation.

He broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947 as the first Black player in the Major Leagues. His trading cards, like this one from 1955, put civil rights in children's pockets.

This icon of Afrofuturism made funk theatrical and cosmic. One of popular music's most elaborate stage props, George Clinton’s “Mothership” cast space as a realm of Black freedom and possibility.