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Digital Exhibitions

Explore our digital exhibitions and immerse yourself in stories of discovery, challenge, and change.

Encounter the science of synthetic stretch textiles and the hidden histories behind decay. Meet the mechanochemists who pioneered the “science of crush,” play around with midcentury chemistry sets, or get to know “real” alchemists and learn the truth behind the myths. Our digital exhibitions will take you into the archives, across our collections, and through history.

Our Animals and the Making of Human Vaccines digital exhibition is featured on Google Arts & Culture’s “A Brief History of Vaccination” project, a high-visibility, global initiative that explores “centuries of life-saving science” through “discoveries, eradication, and ongoing research.”

Discover more on Google Arts & Culture >>

Our Digital Exhibitions

Ad for L’Insectoline

In the mid-20th century tensions between humans and mosquitoes reached fever pitch.

People wearing half-chest binders

Redefining Nude

Many everyday items are described as “flesh” and “nude” in color. Whose skin color do they represent?

Europium (III) Hydroxide [Eu(OH)₃] under UV Light

Critical Metals: The Chemistry of Light

Turn on the illuminating history and science of rare earth metals.

Ad for colored stockings 1955

Nylon: From Labs to Legs

Discover the world’s first fully synthetic fiber and how it paved the way for countless other artificial materials.

Illustration of tapping serum from a horse in a pharmacy

Animals and the Making of Human Vaccines

Get to know the role of animals and their cells in the development of lifesaving vaccines.

C.C. Dennis using mortar and pestle at Dearborn laboratory

Mechanochemistry: The Science of Crush

Explore the science of crushing, an ancient technique for transforming materials that remains central to our lives today.

Second Skin exhibit

Second Skin: The Science of Stretch

Learn all about stretch fabrics and how these second skins changed the way we move through the world.

Encyclopédie by Denis Diderot.

Things Fall Apart

Explore the life and afterlife of things—and why we fight to preserve them.

The Alchemist and His Wife, ca. 1928, by Jacques Hammerer, after 17th-century original by David Ryckaert III.

Experience an era stranger than fiction and more curious than myth.

The BGL Chemical Set

Science at Play

Discover the history of chemistry sets and how these miniature laboratories for children contained much more than their parts.

Beckan EASE analog computer

Instruments of Change

Check out the stories behind some of the most impactful and important scientific instruments of the 20th century.