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National Museum of American History

Portrait of Jessica Govea. Courtesy of the Govea Family. (NMAH)

How One Girl Helped Build a Latinx Civil Rights Movement

Jessica Govea organized and advocated on behalf of farmworkers.

This dress, with a matching necklace and ruby red high heels, was worn by Cornell to her prom in 2018 (NMAH)

How Isabella Aiukli Cornell Made Prom Political

For Isabella Aiukli Cornell, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, a prom dress was the perfect vehicle to express pride for her Native heritage and to signal her support of a growing political movement with which she has been deeply involved.

A quarantine sign used in Connecticut (NMAH)

How Failed Quarantines Led to 20th-Century Measles Outbreaks

In 1904, measles epidemics were spiraling across the state of Connecticut. Measles epidemics could, officials insisted, be arrested if quarantines were simply enforced across the state.

Luisa Moreno stands on a balcony in Mexico City, 1927 (NMAH)

The Case of Luisa Moreno

Luisa Moreno not only organized workers in the fields and canneries, she was also a vocal advocate for Latino/a civil rights, becoming a principal leader of El Congreso de Pueblos de Habla Española (the Spanish-Speaking People’s Congress)

Hopper and a colleague examine a sequence mechanism (NMAH)

Grace Under Pressure

Grace Hopper was an American computer scientist and mathematician and United States Navy rear admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of computer programming.

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