Seeing America was created by Smarthistory with 17 leading museum collections and examines the long history of the United States, from before European settlers to the modern era.
Finding meaning in abstraction
Does abstract art mean something? How can a viewer approach such a work of art?
Thinking about cultures
This jug is one of the earliest known alkaline-glazed stoneware face vessels made by enslaved people or their descendants in the Edgefield District of South Carolina.
Diego Rivera, Man Controller of the Universe
What will technology bring us? A more egalitarian society, a world where everyone can be educated? Or will it bring greater inequality? We still debate these issues...
Cotton, oil, and the economics of history
Sail, steam, cotton, and oil — the engines of the American economy.
Lilly Martin Spencer, The Home of the Red, White, and Blue
How women contributed to the repairing a country that had been torn apart.
The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition
The critics at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago noted: "American art has made something of itself."
The pueblo modernism of Ma Pe Wi
A modernism emerges from tourism, boarding schools & indigenous traditions
Before Penn Station, Bellows & old NYC
The awesome beauty of a large hole in the earth, dug to bring railroads to Manhattan.
Explore the diverse history of the United States through its art. Seeing America is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Alice L. Walton Foundation.
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