Anacostia Community Museum Search

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Women's Plateau Clogs

2 pp

These colorful clogs lift the wearer as if standing on a six-inch-high plateau. Contrasting double stitching joins leather panels in rich red (heel and tongue), cream (toecap), goldenrod (upper and square-toed sole), and light avocado (vamp), akin to the connected, chromatic blocks of a Mondrian painting. As explorations of gender expression expanded in the late 1960s, platform shoes gained popula

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Wood Box with Parquet Lid

Including Lid: 6 × 3 1/2 × 2 3/4 in. (15.2 × 8.9 × 7 cm)

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Wood Carving of Birds in Flight

2 pp

9 5/8 × 12 × 7/8 in. (24.4 × 30.5 × 2.2 cm)

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Wood Carving of Whales and Fish

6 3/4 × 28 × 3/4 in. (17.1 × 71.1 × 1.9 cm)

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Wood Carving of a Horse

2 pp

9 1/4 × 12 × 3/8 in. (23.5 × 30.5 × 1 cm)

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Wood Carving of a Tall Ship

2 pp

16 5/16 × 18 1/8 × 1 3/8 in. (41.5 × 46 × 3.5 cm)

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Wood Carving of the Great Seal of the United States

2 pp

In this wood carving, artist and veteran Ira Blount pays tribute to the Great Seal of the United States. Like the national symbol, this features an eagle wielding a shield with thirteen stripes representing the original thirteen states. The bird holds an olive branch in its right talon and arrows in its left one, indicating peace and war respectively. Unlike the official seal, the eagle looks to t

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Wooden marionette in ballerina tutu

3 pp

Buckner continued to use skills honed at M Street throughout his life as an artist and educator. After graduating, he attended Minor Normal School, which trained teachers for the city’s Black public schools, and later earned degrees at Howard and Columbia universities. He served for forty-seven years as an educator, primarily in District schools, though also at Howard, before retiring as principal

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Wooden marionette in grey shirt and shorts

3 pp

This nine-string marionette made of paper-mâché and wood wears a smile along with a grey tunic and shorts. The puppet’s creator, William N. Buckner, Jr. (1888-1984), attended M Street High School, an esteemed school for African Americans in Washington, DC’s segregated public system, from 1903 to 1907. At the time, two pivotal educators outlined contrasting pathways to freedom for African Americans

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Wooden marionette wearing a green velvet suit and bow tie

3 pp

William N. Buckner, Jr. (1888-1984) made this formally dressed marionette using woodworking skills honed at M Street High School, a preeminent school for African Americans in Washington, DC’s segregated public schools. The twelve-string wooden marionette wears a white shirt under his dark green velvet suit, accented by a blue-and-white plaid bow tie and brown shoes. Initially, he might have worn a

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Wooden marionette wearing dress and tiara

3 pp

While the marionette’s identity is unknown, she recalls another mentor, M Street Principal Anna J. Cooper, one of the first African American women to earn a four-year college degree and the first to earn a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne. The marionettes were on display at the Anacostia Community Museum’s exhibition honoring Dr. Cooper from February 1981 through September 1982.

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Wooden marionette without clothes

3 pp

To make this marionette, William N. Buckner, Jr. (1888-1984) used skills honed at M Street High School, an African American public school with a national reputation for educational excellence in Washington, DC’s then-segregated system. The quality of both art and carpentry instruction at M Street is evident in the finely-crafted marionette, which is almost two feet tall. A wooden hand-controller c

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