Description: Here at the Smithsonian we love to observe. So of course on August 23, 2011, at 1:51 PM, when a 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook the Washington, DC region and many of us with it, we immediately started to observe what happened and how we could document it. As the Institution's historians, inevitably we needed to know, had this happened before and what were the effects? After
Description: It does not take long for today’s visitors to one of the Smithsonian Institution’s nineteen museums to find themselves engulfed within the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex. The flood of world’s fairs in the late nineteenth century played a central role in placing the Smithsonian en route to that unparalleled distinction. The New Orleans World’s
Description: The Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum looks at the history of rapid change in Washington D.C., the ensuing inequality, and neighborhood activism with A Right to the City. [via Smithsonian Magazine]Check out the newly released 2018 National Design Award winners from the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt. [via Architect Magazine]There may be a developing love story at our
Description: Each week, the Archives features a woman who has been a groundbreaker at the Smithsonian, past or present, in a series titled Wonderful Women Wednesday.
Description: The Smithsonian’s scientists and naturalists were, and still are, constantly on the move. When they weren’t in the field, they were in the museum studying collected specimens, writing papers, and getting ready for the next series of trips. Dr. Waldo LaSalle Schmitt (1887-1977) was no exception.Logistics is a special skill, an essential one when traveling on scientific
Description: In conservation it can be easy to overlook the content of an item and just get on with the treatment. Here is a case where overlooking the content was simply not possible.
Description: The Smithsonian Institution Archives recently acquired the papers of Ursula Marvin, a Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory geologist who has studied meteorites and lunar samples.