Description: Vicarious research is one of the great joys of the reference desk at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. From our front-row (well, only-row) seat outside the reading room, we catch tantalizing glimpses of our patrons’ manifold research topics.The reference team fields around 6,000 queries per year. Ask us what people have been researching recently, and you’ll get into some
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: A station for the Metro, Washington DC’s subway system, was eliminated from early plans but protest by the Smithsonian ensured it would be built.
Description: Since The Bigger Picture began in early 2009, I’ve written a number of posts about what might be called camera traps, situations where cameras are installed to collect evidence of one kind of unusual or unwanted behavior or another. Red light cameras are a controversial example; across the country and on an almost daily basis, local municipalities and motorists argue about
Description: [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="219" caption="Unidentified Washington, DC Church, 1919, by Martin A. Gruber, Black-and-white photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Martin A. Gruber Photograph Collection, 1919-1924, RU007355."][/caption] Recently the Smithsonian Institution Archives posted some images from the Martin A. Gruber Photograph Collection,