Ask what’s in the American history collection at the Smithsonian Institution, and most people will mention really old stuff like The Star-Spangled Banner or a few chunks of Plymouth Rock or musty, rusty relics of bygone eras—the John Bull Locomotive, the original Teddy Bear, or Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers. And indeed, the National Museum of American History has these things—3.3 million of them, in fact.
