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American Enterprise

May 2015 (tentative) - Permanent (working title)

Museum: American History Museum

Location: 1st Floor, West Wing

This exhibition explores a key area of the American experience—the history of business and innovation from the mid-1700s to the present. It traces the development of the United States from a small dependent agricultural nation to one of the world's largest economies through the following 4 chronological eras: the Merchant Era (1770s – 1850s), the Corporate Era (1860s – 1930s), the Consumer Era (1940s – 1970s), and the Global Era (1980s – 2010s). Highlights include:

• John Deere’s plow
• Eli Whitney’s cotton gin
• Barbara McClintock’s microscope
• Stanley Cohen’s recombinant DNA research notebook
• Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephones
• Alfred Bloomingdale’s personal credit cards
• a New York Stock Exchange booth from 1929
• an early Monopoly board game
• one of Michael Dell’s early computers

Online Exhibition