Costume Collection, National Museum of American History

Women’s dresses are the most requested objects in the Smithsonian’s 30,000-piece Costume Collection, so the institution has made roughly 70 of it best dresses available online. Examples include Revolutionary War era gowns, Victorian one-piece numbers in wool and silk, flapper dresses dripping in glass bugle beads, and a late-1940s wedding dress made from the parachute that saved the life of the bride’s future husband during World War II.