Archives Puzzles: Family Time at the Smithsonian Castle

Each Monday, sit back, relax, and ease into the work week with puzzles created from images in our collections that have been designated as open access. Anyone can now download, transform, share, and reuse these images as part of Smithsonian Open Access, launched in 2020.

August is Family Fun Month, so we’re featuring Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry’s family, who lived in the Smithsonian Institution Building, known as the Castle. Henry and his wife, Harriet Alexander (1808–1882) had four children:  William A. Henry (1832–1862), Mary Henry (1834–1903), Helen Henry (1836–1912), and Caroline Henry (1839–1920). Together, the Henry family lived in a suite of eight rooms, constructed on the second floor of the East Wing, until Joseph Henry’s death in 1878.

Curious about what day-to-day life was like for the family? In her diaries, Mary Henry wrote about the scientists and scholars who visited the Castle, the fire that threatened to destroy it in 1865, and details about the Civil War.

The Original 



The Puzzle