Faris and Yamna Naff Family Arab-American Collection

Some 40 objects and 30 photographs and documents in this recent acquisition illustrate the Arab-American experience. Immigration from the 1880s to 1948 is covered in three areas: early immigrants and their occupations (92% of early settlers were peddlers); home life, including Arab-American women's new-found freedoms; and assimilation. Many of the early immigrants, from Lebanon and Syria, were Christian rather than Muslim.