During World War II, American women made enormous contributions to the war effort. Yet, much of their "fighting" took place not on the battlefront, but on the home front. Their home front activities offered challenges and opportunities never available before to women -- even everyday tasks took o...

Ona Judge Staines was enslaved and forced to work as Martha Washington's personal servant until she escaped from the President's Mansion in Philadelphia. Much is known of Judge's life in comparison to other people enslaved by the Washingtons as a result of newspaper interviews she gave in 1845 an...

The Night Witches were an all-female fighter group created by Marina Roskova. They launched deadly attacks on German troops is famous night attacks from their Po-2 biplanes.

Caroline Branham was one of George Washington's housemaids at Mount Vernon. Part of Branham's role on the estate was cleaning and maintaining the rooms in the Mansion. She was also the person who first discovered Washington was ill shortly before he passed. In this video, join one of our interpre...

This Student Academy Award® winning short film takes you behind the wheel of 1950's dirt track racing. With a legacy traditionally passed down from father to son, Annie (Lizzie Clarke) builds a destiny all her own.

Pins strewn about her sewing table. Snowflakes under a microscope. A stack of firewood. Pioneering textile artist Ruth Adler Schnee took inspiration from the world around her, both the fantastic and the mundane. She created strikingly modern abstract and often organic forms.

Known for her organi...

This insightful look at Elizabeth Keckley, born into slavery, freed woman, dressmaker to Varina Howell Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis and Mary Todd Lincoln, brings to light a little known part of the Lincoln story and American history

George Washington's step-granddaughter is described in letters and other primary sources as a highly-skilled musician. We have several volumes of Nelly's hand-copied musical exercises, popular songs, and technical notes in the Mount Vernon collection. Dr. Joyce Lindorff studied these documents as...