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In the 1850s, after more than 200 years of self-imposed isolation, Japan opened up to trade dialogues with the United States and western Europe. The first Japanese delegation to the United States arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1860. They delivered a trade agreement, negotiated by Commodore Matthew Perry, which opened select Japanese…
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1859 U.S. passport used by businessman Samuel Mills Waller of Connecticut. The unusual symbol at the top – an eagle with a lyre – was added to the U.S. passport design by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who served from 1817-1825. Adams developed the seal himself, which symbolizes the civilizing effect…
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Martin Van Buren served as the 10th U.S. Secretary of State from 1829-1831. Following his tenure as Secretary, Van Buren was elected Vice President under Jackson (1833-1837) and then was elected President, serving until 1841. His accomplishments as Secretary of State include a settlement with Great Britain to allow trade with the…
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Sheldon Whitehouse, a career Foreign Service Officer, used this Special Passport to travel to his post at the U.S. Legation for Greece and Montenegro. It was issued on June 30, 1914, just as war was about to break out in Europe. Whitehouse used this passport from 1914 to 1918. It is stamped…
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In April 1971, nine players from the U.S. Table Tennis team took a historic trip to China. Their trip was the start of what became known as “ping-pong diplomacy” and helped lay the groundwork for establishing official diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Connie Sweeris was…
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This yellow fire helmet represents an important life-saving partnership between the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD). LACoFD’s Urban Search and Rescue Team serves with distinction as one of two departments in the U.S. trained and authorized to deploy with USAID disaster response teams…
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Rufus King, then American minister to Great Britain, issued this 1798 passport to David Hinckley, a wealthy Boston merchant who traveled frequently to London on business. It is the oldest in the museum’s collection and also one of the more intriguing. Corsairs of the Barbary states had captured David Hinckley in the…
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On the night of President Lincoln’s assassination, John Wilkes Booth’s co-conspirators attempted to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. The co-conspirators’ attempts failed. In the case of Secretary Seward, this was thanks to the actions of George Robinson, a soldier detailed to guard Seward. In 1871 the…
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The Treaties of Amity and Commerce and of Alliance were arguably the single most important diplomatic success of the colonists during the Revolutionary War. Signed in Paris on February 6, 1778, they created an alliance with France that was crucial to American victory in the conflict. Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur…
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This inscribed ping-pong paddle was given to former Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger by Chinese table tennis champion Zhuang Zedong in the fall of 2007. It was Zhuang’s chance encounter with a member of the U.S. table tennis team in 1971 that led to the “ping-pong diplomacy” with China of the…
