To celebrate Women’s History Month, here are two examples of 20th-century women who applied their education and expertise in geology and paleontology outside traditional university career paths.

Series of photographs of Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute buildings and research facilities at Barro Colorado, Naos, and Galeta islands, Panama, 1960s.

For Women's History Month, we're participating in the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s Her Natural History campaign to highlight women in natural history in our collections. Learn about how you can join in on all of the fun this month!

Information volunteers answer telephone calls in the Great Hall of the Smithsonian Institution Building, or Castle, December 6, 1978, by Richard Hofmeister. The specially trained corp of vounteers handled approximately 250,000 telephone calls a year from the public. 

Fish specimens in jars at the Smithsonian Oceanographic Sorting Center (SOSC), whose environmental analyses of biological specimens assisted the international oceanographic effort for scientists throughout the world, June 6, 1979, by Richard Hofmeister.

The intense efforts that started the Field Book Project and have kept it in high gear are slowing down to a sustainable pace. After almost ten years, grant funding for the Field Book Project has drawn to a close, but there is still plenty more to look forward to that will benefit researchers for years to come.

As the Director of Science Service, chemist Edwin Emery Slosson not only edited the submissions of his staff and external contributors but he also dispensed writing tips that remain timely today.

National Portrait Gallery press conference prior to opening, with the Lansdowne portrait of George Washington in view, October 1, 1968.

Nothing brings a couple together like scientific research, right? Celebrate Valentine’s Day by exploring a love so deep, new species were named about it.

Robert E. Sheldon, also known as “The Band Man,” museum specialist in the Division of Musical Instruments at National Museum of History and Technology, now known as National Museum of American History, works on a composition for the french horn, May 9, 1979, by Richard Brosnahan.