Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="A Penmanship sign was located in Boerum Hill and was painted in 1997. It was a faux billboard created by Jerry Johnson of Orange Outdoor Advertising, Photo by Bosc d'Anjou, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0 Generic."][/caption] A week or so ago, I was looking through documents scanned by the Smithsonian Institution
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_13754,size=400,center]When people think of a Smithsonian exhibit, they probably don’t think of one filled with documents from an archives! A piece of paper doesn’t grab your attention from across the room, as the Fénykövi elephant or Chuck Berry’s car do. But on closer inspection, handwritten scraps have fascinating stories to tell. They can be
Description: Investigating digital files from the 1980s turns up software that let people play matchmaker–for endangered species. Let’s see where this leads.
Description: Explore our interns’ new techniques for preservation of maps at NMNH: a map transportation tool, a rehousing plan, and training for volunteers.
Description: Planning a museum or gallery exhibition takes a lot of work as seen through exhibition records that contain images, layouts, object labels, memos, and other important materials.
Description: A clause in the last will and testament of English scientist James Smithson eventually led to his estate being left to the United States "to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” There was much debate as to what constituted such an establishment, but many of the proposals
Description: [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Ralph Waldo Emerson, between 1860 and 1870, by J. W. Black & Co., Photographic print on carte-de-visite mount, Abbott Handerson Thayer and Thayer family papers, 1851-1999 bulk 1881-1950, Archives of American Art, Digital ID: 5677. "][/caption] From the beginning, photography upset conventional ideas about the relationship