Photographs from the Science Service collections preserve behind-the-scenes glimpses of the newsgathering process for science reporters.

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.

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.

The remarkable career of cardiac surgeon and researcher John Clavon Norman, Jr., M.D. (1930-2014) began in West Virginia with the examples set by his parents.

In 1935, Beloit College in Wisconsin began allowing female students to join the annual summer archeological expeditions.

The 1943 and 1944 letters of science journalist Emma Reh contain vivid descriptions of the flowers and local life she observed while living in Paraguay.

Prince Albert I of Monaco’s April 1921 Washington visit to receive an award for his work in oceanography, has connections to Smithsonian research today.

A 1931 photograph of three Nobel laureate physicists illustrates why we tend to remember the informal photos of scientists more than the stiff and formal ones.

Spectacular natural events, like eclipses, have long been the bread-and-butter of science journalism. Science Service, too, succumbed to the lure of combining colorful, firsthand descriptions with technical explanations. 

May 11 is the anniversary of establishment of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). That 1976 legislation further ratified the influence of scientists on national policy, positioning them to provide ready advice to the President.