Description: We are pleased to announce a new mobile experience produced by the Archives, Castle of Curiosities. The Smithsonian's first building, the Castle, opened its doors in 1855. While the Norman architectural style evoked "learned university," it was bordered by fetid canals and rather isolated from the rest of Washington D.C. Check out an app about iconic stories in the history of
Description: Link Love: a weekly post with links to interesting videos and stories about archival issues, technology and culture, and Washington D.C. and American history.
Description: While teleworking for the last year, the Archives has been busy capturing web content that documents the Smithsonian’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Description: In 1975 The George Eastman House in Rochester, NY opened a small exhibition titled “New Topographics: Photographs Of A Man Altered Landscape,” that changed the way we think about photography and the art of landscape. While it launched a new photographic style and conceptual framework for a traditional artistic genre, it also re-affirmed photography’s powerful ability to
Description: [caption id="attachment_7261" align="alignleft" width="430" caption="Advertisement on Fifth Avenue in New York City, 2010, Photo courtesy of Marvin Heiferman."][/caption] You’ve probably noticed, in recent years, that in order to attract shoppers’ attention retail establishments have been filling both exterior and interior display spaces with big, colorful, and evocative
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,
Description: [caption id="attachment_4168" align="aligncenter" width="261" caption="Albumen portrait of the Reverend Levi L. Hill, Baptist minister and early daguerreotypist, West Kill, New York and New York City, b. 1816-d. February 9, 1865. Inscription on reverse, “Levi L. Hill, Died February 9, 1865, He is Asleep in Heaven.”"][/caption] Just when we think that we must have at last
Description: Twenty-nine years ago yesterday the National Museum of the American Indian Act was signed and the Museum of the American Indian became part of the Smithsonian family.
Description: When did women begin to manage Smithsonian museums? Meet Grace Dunham Guest who was a key staff member in opening the Freer Gallery of Art in 1923.