Credit: Hugh Talman, Smithsonian Institution

Two local museums will soon display two very different pieces of American history.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s 2013 inaugural ball dress will be on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History beginning January 14 for one year. The red Jason Wu gown will be part of the First Ladies Collection, which is celebrating its 50 year anniversary.

The original First Ladies exhibition opened Feb. 1, 1914, and was the first display at the Smithsonian to prominently feature women. The exhibition itself has changed in size, location, style and focus several times during the past 100 years, and the museum, which opened in 1964 as the Museum of History and Technology, has been its home for 50 years.

FLOTUS’s first inaugural gown was donated to the museum in 2010.

If dresses from presidential history aren’t your speed, President Lincoln’s Cottage will display the briefcase that held his handwritten notes during the Civil War from now until June 2014. From a release:

While living at the Cottage with his family during the summers of 1862, 1863, and 1864, President Lincoln carried papers in the briefcase on his daily commute to the White House. A photo album made for Tad Lincoln by the 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers, a company stationed at the Cottage during the Civil War to guard the Lincoln family, will also be on view in the exhibit.