National Institute of Standards and Technology Virtual Museum

Exhibits. Featured exhibit. News. Info desk. Real museum. Photo gallery. The National Institute of Standards and Technology keeps an archive of its online exhibitions in its virtual museum (the Institute has a real museum as well, but you needn't move more than your mouse finger to catch these art shows). Check out an exhibit on The Standardization of Women's Clothing, wherein you'll get a short history of ready-to-wear and learn how NIST (then the National Bureau of Standards) played a role in women's vanity by instating--and then withdrawing--commercial standards for clothing sizes. Also of note, an exhibit on Marie Curie and radium standards, and one on the use of magnetic disks for recording music.