History of Math Instruction Retold Through New Smithsonian Exhibit

By David J. Hoff

While American children once learned to add by reading a poster of animals and birds, they do it now by playing games on computers.

Each step in between—whether it be a box of blocks or exercises written on a blackboard—is documented in a new display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

"Almost everybody in this country has taken a math class," Peggy Kidwell, the curator of the exhibit, said Feb. 8, the day it opened next to Archie Bunker's chair and around the corner from Julia Child's kitchen, which is under renovation at the popular Washington tourist stop. "I wanted them to get a sense that the stuff they had [in math...