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The Arts and Industries Building

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of the Arts and Industries Building

Visitors outside the Arts and Industries Building in 1900 Negative number: 5787
Visitors outside the United States National Museum, now the Arts and Industries Building, ca. 1900.

Arts and Industries Building decorated for the Garfield Inaugural Hall, March 4, 1881 Negative number: 66045
The interior of the new United States National Museum building, now the Arts and Industries Building, decorated for President James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur's Inaugural Ball, March 4, 1881. This was the first event held in the building. Electric lights were strung along the ceiling and the statue of America in the rotunda held an electric lamp in her hand. Buntings and flags decorated the walls and a wooden floor was laid for the event.

Instillation of the Comparative Anatomy Hall in the Arts and Industries Building Negative number: 11254
Installation of the Comparative Anatomy Hall in the United States National Museum, now the Arts and Industries Building, ca. 1881. Here, workers are using a pulley system to raise the skeleton of a fossil whale to the the ceiling.

Comparative Anatomy Exhibit in the Arts and Industries Building, 1880's Negative number: 4318
Comparative Anatomy Exhibit in the 1880's in the Southeast Range of the Arts and Industries Building.

Natural History Exhibit in the Arts and Industries Building, 1880's Negative number: 2796
Natural History Exhibit in the South Hall of the United States National Museum, now the Arts and Industries Building, in the 1880's.

The library in the Arts and Industries Building in 1900 Negative number: 3666
The library in the United States National Museum Building, now the Jewett Room in the Arts and Industries Building, Northwest Pavillion, with John Murdock, Librarian of the Smithsonian Institution, at his desk. Murdock was Librarian from 1 April 1887 to 15 May 1892.

Prehistoric Archeology Exhibit in the Arts and Industries Building, 1885 Negative number: 2526
Prehistoric Archeology Exhibit in the Southeast Range of the United States National Museum, now the Arts and Industries Building, ca. 1885. A female attendant is seated in the hall. In the background the dinosaur skeletons of the paleontology exhibit are visible.

Lecture in the Lecture Hall of the Arts and Industries Building Negative number: 4036
A lecture being held in the Lecture Hall in the Northwest Range of the Arts and Industries Building, ca. 1890's.

Installing Totem Poles in the Arts and Industries Building Negative number: 5792
Three totem poles are being installed in the Northwest Range of the United States National Museum, now the Arts and Industries Building, by several laborers with curators looking on, ca. 1890's.

Native American Pottery on exhibit in the Arts and Industries building around 1890. Negative number: 3697
Native American Pottery on exhibit in the United States National Museum, now the Arts and Industries Building, in the 1890's.

The Boat Hall in the Arts and Industries Building, 1890 Negative number: 2964
The Boat Hall in the Northeast Range of the United States National Museum, now the Arts and Industries Building. The Boat Hall occupied the Northeast Range from 1881, when the building opened, through the late 1960's.

Laborers constructing galleries of the Arts and Industries Building, 1898 Negative number: 11478
Construction of the galleries (balconies), in the United States National Museum, now the Arts and Industries Building, in 1898. The galleries were constructed in the building between 1898 and 1906.

Rocket Row Negative number: A4574
Rocket Row along the west side of the Arts and Industries Building, ca. early 1970's, before the construction of the National Air and Space Museum.

Information on copyright and location of original photograph.


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