SUBJECT:

People crossing countries and continents to make new lives bring their own technologies and ideas. The meeting of different cultures has yielded innovation and surprising results in countries as different as Britain, India and Japan. Japanese responses to such British machines as looms and cars are to be found in the Museum's collections, as are such British responses to Japanese culture as Sony television sets made in Wales. Also represented are the products of immigrants to Britain, ranging from the first printed circuits to textiles made in Bradford. People crossing continents and oceans in the nineteenth century had journeys made easier by new technology of the railroad and steamship. Thirty million people left Europe between 1860 and 1910 in search of a better life in America. The railroad also made possible the shorter journeys of the daily commuters who crossed from suburbia into cities. These journeys were multiplied, if not accelerated, by the growing use of the automobile.