The Wolfsonian-Florida International University (www.wolfsonian.org) is a museum and research center that uses objects to illustrate the persuasive power of art and design, to explore what it means to be modern, and to tell the story of the social, historical, and technological changes that have transformed our world. It encourages people to see the world in new ways and to learn how objects from the past shape the present and influence the future.

The Wolfsonian’s collection comprises more than 120,000 objects from the period of 1885 to 1945—the height of the Industrial Revolution to the end of the Second World War—in a variety of media, including furniture; industrial design objects; works in glass, ceramics and metal; rare books; periodicals; ephemera; works on paper; paintings; textiles; and commemorative medals. While these objects can best be understood in the context in which they were created, they reveal as much about contemporary times as they do about their own. The nations most extensively represented are the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.