Though it has been 25 years since a new daily “Peanuts” comic strip was drawn, it remains a force in popular culture, and the museum holds a great variety of artifacts showing the work of its creator, Charles M. Schulz, and revealing how the strip and its characters have won a prominent place in entertainment history. Schulz announced his retirement in December 1999 after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer. His last newly drawn daily, Monday through Saturday, strip appeared on January 3, 2000, and, in a shocking coincidence, his final full-color Sunday strip ran on February 13 of that year, just one day after he died.

Among the National Museum of American History’s trove of “Peanuts”-related paraphernalia are a pen, pencil, brush and artist’s board used by Schulz. An original hand-drawn comic strip, a camera-ready strip and cels from animated TV productions reflect Schulz’s creative work, and the museum also holds everyday items bearing the likenesses of “Peanuts” characters, such as mugs, lunchboxes, musical banks, thermoses, yo-yos and a 1973 Mother’s Day plate.

While “Peanuts” ended, in a sense, in 2000, it has since found new audiences through continued syndication in thousands of newspapers and productions in other media. Today, Peanuts Worldwide, which owns the “Peanuts” characters, has millions of followers across its social platforms, where “Peanuts” comic strips, graphics and clips are regularly shared. At the same time, the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California, welcomes guests to explore the artist’s life and work.

Charlie Brown, who Schulz said was modeled on himself, “was dealing with an existential crisis,” says Jentsch. He believes that Charlie Brown’s confrontation with his failures and the way he dealt with them “really resonated with not only kids, but obviously adults, because it’s a universal condition.”

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I have loved Peanuts since I was little and always will. The amount of books I have borders on ridiculous, many of them the books I’d borrow from the library or Bookmobile when I was at St. Casimers. In fact, the kids just got me the new commemorative 75th anniversary book set.

Fun fact: I recently read that, though we’re accustomed to seeing Charlie Brown in a yellow shirt, Schulz always pictured it as red. It became yellow because that’s how they colored it for the Christmas special.