Image: The new exhibition is to open in 2015

Mars, Incorporated has contributed US$5m (EUR4.1m, £3.2m) towards the new American Enterprise exhibition at the National Museum of American History in Washington DC, US.

The 8,000sq ft (743sq m) experience will be housed in the renamed Mars Hall of American Business and will chart the development of the US from the 1750s through to the 2010s.

Among themes to be explored in the exhibition are opportunity, innovation and competition. It is scheduled to open in 2015, following a refurbishment of the West Exhibition Wing.

Objects such as John Deere's plough, Stanley Cohen's recombinant DNA research notebook and Alexander Graham Bell's first telephones will be among those on display.

Meanwhile, the marketplace sections of the exhibition will feature alongside personal stories containing biographies of innovators and entrepreneurs throughout US history.

Smithsonian secretary Wayne Clough said: "It enables us to tell learners of all ages the essential and expansive story of American business."

Mars, Incorporated president Paul Michaels added: "The exhibit will provide examples of how US companies and individuals have fundamentally, and positively, changed the way the world works."

Click here to read more about the new American Enterprise exhibition due to open at the National Museum of American History in 2015.

Image: Smithsonian Institution