North/Central America
Christmas Poem, Pima Indian School
The poem and photographic collage is the work of students at the Pima Indian School boarding school near Phoenix, Arizona, and is part of an album probably owned by the school matron. The school was one of some 150 institutions for Indian wards of the U.S. Government.
Barbie Turns 21
Barbie—who is today the most famous doll in the world—was based on Lilli, a sexy and sassy German doll first produced in 1955.
Schoolchildren at Minidoka Incarceration Camp
Minidoka incarceration camp, near Twin Falls in southern Idaho, was one of 10 incarceration camps run by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) that held citizens and non-citizens of Japanese descent during World War II.
Thanksgiving Newspaper Article
Thanksgiving was not uniformly celebrated until major efforts to nationalize it were undertaken late in the nineteenth century.
Creeping Baby Doll Patent
Strongly influencing the invention of Robert J. Clay's mechanized "Creeping Baby Doll" in 1871, were changing notions of childhood that fostered children's development.
Writing a Letter to Santa
Whether known as Saint Nicholas, Sinterklaas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Babbo Natale, Christkind, Père Noël, Santa Claus ("Santa") or by many other names, this legendary gift-giver in European folklore and hagiography is well known around the world.
Carrying Native-American Babies
This watercolor (fig. 1) of a mother carrying her baby was painted c. 1585 by John White who explored the mid-Atlantic region with other Englishmen including Thomas Hariot.
Operation Babylift
These photographs were taken on April 5, 1975 on one of the Pan Am passenger planes that airlifted Vietnamese orphans and Amerasian children of American servicemen and Vietnamese women for Operation Babylift.
Little Eva, The Flower of the South
Published around 1853, Little Eva, The Flower of the South is an anonymously written children's story based on Eva, the enormously popular character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).
Italian Mother and Baby
"Italian Mother and Baby" appeared in Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York (1890). This image captures the misery of urban poverty as well as the tenacity of life. It is infused with unmistakable sentimentalism and symbolism.