Description: [edan-image:id=siris_arc_287602,size=250,left]As a child in England in the 1930s, Oliver Sacks enjoyed playing with his Uncle Abe’s spinthariscope. It was, he would later recall, “a beautifully simple instrument, consisting of a fluorescent screen and a magnifying eyepiece, and inside, an infinitesimal speck of radium.We take a look at the spinthariscope at the Smithsonian.
Description: [view:sia_slideshow==71908]By the late 1960s, curators at the National Museum of History and Technology (NMHT), now the National Museum of American History, were focusing on how to present aspects of the American experience to visitors of the museum in different ways. Instead of using "sterile techniques which have too frequently given visitors the false impression that all
Description: Dr. Leonard Carmichael led the Smithsonian Institution through many changes during his tenure as the seventh Secretary of the Smithsonian. He presided over new museums and facility openings, special acquisitions, and exciting exhibitions. Because Carmichael was hired from outside of the Smithsonian, he brought a new perspective, his academic background, and skills to thrust
Description: Eliza Scidmore was a lifelong photographer, writer, and world traveler. In addition to facilitating a gift of cherry blossom trees from Japan to the U.S. capital, Scidmore donated her time, photographs, and some artifacts to the Smithsonian’s collections. She also accessed the world through colonial channels that she reinforced with her writings.
Description: When curators at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History looked at seven radiometers in storage, they learned the instruments had been at the Smithsonian for nearly one hundred fifty years.