Exchange: American History Abridged

Part of: Teaching United States History through Art (22 resources )

Teaching United States History through Art

This learning collection features selected objects, images, prints, paintings, and photographs from the University of Michigan Museum of Art’s collection designed to support educators in the history and social studies classroom. The “American History Abridged” provides highlighted objects and images from United States history, while the other collections feature specialized objects based on specific historical periods. When possible, the distinct historical learning collections include artwork created only during that era rather than works created later the depict earlier events. Some collections also contain contemporary works of art from artists like Kara Walker or Glenn Ligon that incorporate historical themes, subjects, and methodology in their work.

Copyright

Creative Commons by-nc

Created by

Lucy Kathryn Smith

Last Updated

July 12, 2018 12:35 p.m.

22 Items in this Learning Collection

American History Abridged

Resource with 41 media

Religious Encounters in the New World

Resource with 30 media

Indigenous North America Arts

Beige bowl, wider at the top, with a rim formed in a braided pattern.

Resource with 104 media

Manifest Destiny and the American West

Resource with 76 media

U.S. Civil War

Resource with 42 media

Politics, and Social Reform in the US, 1901-1950

Resource with 234 media

World War I Posters from the U.S.

Text: New Consecration is the Duty of the Living so that Our Dead Shall Not Have Died in Vain - (center) "To such a task (Victory over German Autocracy and all it represents) we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to shed her blood and her treasure for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other." - Woodrow Wilson - (left panel heading) Al Soldier's Farewell - Written on the Even of his Departure … - (right panel heading) A Mother's Comfort - Words of Plato Console Now Whose Son Fell in Battle … - (bottom) "You ask me when peace will come. We went into this war for a great and worthy object. Peace will come when that object has been attained. Before God I hope it may not come until that time." - Abraham Lincoln In Darkest Days of Civil War - Issued by

Resource with 178 media

World War I and Society

Resource with 222 media

Art of the Works Progress Administration WPA

Resource with 175 media

Artists of the Harlem Renaissance

Resource with 14 media

U.S. Wars

Resource with 67 media

Jacob Lawrence, Hiroshima Series

Resource with 10 media

U.S. Radicalism

Resource with 66 media

Political Protest in the U.S.

Two women holding signs at a protest march. They are talking together on the side of a street.

Resource with 22 media

U.S. Civil Rights Movement

Resource with 38 media

U.S. Vietnam War

Resource with 11 media

Borders of Identity in North America

Photographed from atop a high ridge, this photograph depicts a view looking down into a winding desert canyon.

Resource with 87 media

Race, Gender, Class, and American Identity

This is a line drawing done in colors of red, orange, blue, yellow, brown and green, on white paper. In the top center portion of the sheet are the words, "A LIE". Below this are forms that resemble an egg, a slice of bacon, a piece of bread with a pat of yellow butter. Below these forms are some round shapes, labeled "flakes", a bowl and a carton of milk, labeled "milk".

Resource with 343 media

Understanding Race

This image is a circular format black and white photograph depicting four young African American girls wearing floral dresses lounging on a blanket in the grass. Three girls sit or prop themselves up and look at the camera, the fourth girl lays down, with her eyes closed. The glass in the frame has a domed surface, creating a fish-eye effect.

At the center of the painting, two animals meet: a horse and a bull. Painted in a variety of colors, the two animals are abstracted in a Cubist style. The painting is signed (u.r.) in black paint "Bearden".

This print is a contour drawing of several rows of figures: in the foreground are three squating figures facing away from the viewer; in the background are several squatting figures facing the viewer, and in between are standing figures. The squatting figures sit before the goods they are selling and the standing figures are purchasing from them.

At the center of the scene, there are three figures carrying instruments. Below and above, three building-tops are depicted. The central figures are painted in shades of blacks and browns, while the buildings are painted in shades of yellow, orange, beige, black and blue. The background is beige and yellow, and painted on found board and mounted on wooden planks.

This work shows a black and white photograph of a crowd of people outdoors, with trees in the background. On the left is a uniformed policeman holding a dog on a leash in one hand and a club in the other. In the center area there is a man, with his back to the viewer, who is being attacked by two dogs. One, controlled by another policeman, is ripping his clothing and the other, with teeth bared, is attacking his right hand. In the crowd there are men watching the attack and looking at the policemen.

Two abstracted, bust-length figures, one male and one female, look directly at the viewer with large smiles. The background is tan, and filled with swirling lines and scribbles. The face and eyes of each figure are outlined in thick green, the mouths in thick yellow. The “whites” of the eyes are red, while the pupils are circles of pale purple. Purple paint drips down from the eyes of the male figure, while the paint on the female figure drips upward.

This small spherical pot with wide mouth is decorated in black-on-black style. Around the upper half is a feather design, which looks like individual feathers hanging down from the mouth forming a ring around the circumference.

This print has rows of stencilled black text in all capital letters on white background. In pencil, the print is signed and dated (l.r.) "Glenn Lignon '92" and numbered (l.l.) "27/45".

A horizontal lighbox enclosed by a wide, black molded frame in which Kara Walker's signature silhouettes are encased in linen and lit from behind. Silhouettes represent four figures: a man and child at viewer's left, two women at right.

A full-length portrait of a standing male in a lanscape setting. To the left of the composition stands a pair of birches near the figure; to the right, the landscape opens up to a distant expanse of trees and hills. The man stands facing to the right but looking out of the canvas to the left. He holds a bow and quiver of arrows; a black hat with a feather is on the ground at his feet. He is dressed in tan pants and waistcoat with a green frock coat and black boots.

Collection with 11 items

Rust Belt

Two orange buildings on snow-covered ground on either side of an unplowed road.

Resource with 167 media

Exploring Identity and Identity Politics in American Culture

A blurred bust-length portrait of a man's head; he stares straight ahead, his mouth open.

Resource with 78 media

Regions of the United States

Resource with 38 media

American History Abridged

This collection features selected works designed to help teach the U.S. survey. The majority of selected works are primary sources of a specific historical moment or marker with a few contemporary objects that incorporate historical themes in their subject matter or methodology.

American
View of Charleston, South Carolina
1762
engraving | paper
The Paul Leroy Grigaut Memorial Collection
1969/2.132

View Object Record

Brown bowl with black smudgy markings throughout.

Alice Archer Sewall James
Cooking and Serving Bowl (Food Bowl)
fired earthenware
5 3/8 in (13.65 cm)
Gift of Estelle Titiev, from the collection of Mischa Titiev

View Object Record

A man leaning against a table talking to a woman wearing a white dress.

Danny Lyon
Ralph Allen taking an affidavit from Carolyn Daniels in Terrill County, from "Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement"
gelatin silver print on paper
11 x 14 in. ( 27.94 x 35.56 cm )
Gift of Thomas Wilson '79 and Jill Garling '80

View Object Record

A group of people outside of a church praying because there is no more room inside. The streets are covered with parked cars.

Danny Lyon
The mass meeting in Danville is so crowded that it overflows out into the yard. When word arrives that heavily armed police and an armored vehicle are waiting up the road, the crowd disperses, leaving the SNCC workers to exit last, from "Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement"
gelatin silver print on paper
11 x 14 in. ( 27.94 x 35.56 cm )
Gift of Thomas Wilson '79 and Jill Garling '80

View Object Record

Ansel Adams
Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona
gelatin silver print on paper
15 9/16 in x 19 1/2 in (39.53 cm x 49.53 cm);26 1/4 in x 32 1/4 in (66.68 cm x 81.92 cm);22 1/8 in x 28 1/8 in (56.2 cm x 71.44 cm)
Gift of Harry H. Lunn, Jr.

View Object Record

This is a portrait of two young boys. They stand inside a tipi or tent, wearing large headdresses and beadwork around their shoulders. The interior of the space is filled with patterned blankets and cloths.

Edward S. Curtis
Sons of a Yakima Chief
photogravure on paper
9 in x 12 1/4 in (22.8 cm x 31.2 cm);19 7/16 in x 14 3/8 in (49.3 cm x 36.5 cm);14 3/8 in x 19 7/16 in (36.5 cm x 49.3 cm)
Gift of Stephen M. Taylor

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Victor Higgins
Oka and Walmacho
oil on canvas
27 1/16 in x 30 1/16 in (68.74 cm x 76.36 cm);38 in x 41 in x 1 1/2 in (96.52 cm x 104.14 cm x 3.81 cm)
Gift of Albert M. Todd

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Arthur William Brown
For Your Boy - United War Work Campaign, Y.M.C.A.
color lithograph on paper
29 15/16 x 19 15/16 in. (76 x 50.5 cm)
Gift of Mr. Maurice F. Lyons

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Photograph of a man standing on a sidewalk holding posters of John F. Kennedy.

Joel Meyerowitz
San Francisco
gelatin silver print on paper
11 in x 13 15/16 in (27.94 cm x 35.4 cm);16 in x 20 in (40.64 cm x 50.8 cm)
Gift of Selma & Gerald Lotenberg

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This print is composed of sets of faces in three registers. Along the top, in a black stripe, is a repeated, closely cropped image of a woman's face looking to the left. In the middle left are five repeated images in shades of brown of a woman's face looking right, toward the face of a man in black. Along the bottom are three large images of a woman's face in green, brown and blue.

Elizabeth Catlett
Malcolm X Speaks for Us
linoleum cut on paper
( )
Gift of Elizabeth Catlett

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A group of prisoners, naked, standing in a line next to a line of officers. They are in the hallway between the cells.

Danny Lyon
Building Shakedown, from "Conversations with the Dead"
gelatin silver print on paper
11 x 14 in. ( 27.94 x 35.56 cm )
Gift of Thomas Wilson '79 and Jill Garling '80

View Object Record

This print has rows of stenciled black text in all capital letters on black background. In pencil, the print is signed and dated (l.r.) "Glenn Lignon '92" and numbered (l.l.) "27/45".

Glenn Ligon; Gregory Burnet
Untitled
etching, aquatint, spitbite, sugarlift on Rives BFK paper
25 in x 17 1/4 in (63.5 cm x 43.82 cm);32 3/16 in x 26 3/16 in (81.76 cm x 66.52 cm)
Museum Purchase

View Object Record

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