Description: As we digitize the Archives’ collections to make them available online, I am constantly being exposed to handwriting from the past two centuries. As a result, I have a deeper appreciatiation of how many different things influence the way a person’s writing appears on the page, things beyond the quality of their penmanship. Writing on the deck of a ship, on horseback or on
Description: [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="181" caption="Edmonia Lewis, National Portrait Gallery"][/caption] In Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia (2000), Nancy Martha West describes how the company—marketing the first box cameras in the 1890s—aggressively targeted female consumers, hoping they’d “see photography not only as a necessary component of domestic life but as an integral
Description: Having grown up in a major U.S. city with a family that considered spending a week in a grass hut camping, I committed to giving my daughter more exposure to the great outdoors with all the wonderful state and national parks near Washington D.C. However, lack of sleep and rehydrated food was not what I had in mind.Throughout history, Smithsonian researchers have conducted
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="313" caption="Georgia O'Keefe at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (HMSG) with Rene Magritte's sculpture "Delusions of Grandeur," 11 November 1977, by Richard Farrar, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 371 Box 2 Folder December 1977, Negative Number: 92-1789."][/caption] It is always fascinating