Description: [caption id="attachment_8083" align="aligncenter" width="336" caption="The mysterious cabinet of curiosities with assorted film cameras perched on top, 2010, by Michael Barnes, SIA."][/caption] Last fall a piece of furniture showed up in the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) reception area. Aside from a few nicks, it is a large, handsome cabinet with drawers and double
Description: To honor the incredibly wild and wet weather we have lately endured and enjoyed in Washington, DC, I took a quick search through the online Smithsonian collections for waterfalls. I imagine the water is running quite high—in nature, not I hope in the archives—this time of year. Several collections stood out, including the views made by 19th century photographs for expeditions
Description: [caption id="attachment_11359" align="aligncenter" width="368" caption="Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup Design for the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), Courtesy NMAAHC."][/caption] The Smithsonian Institution Archives will be celebrating African American History Month throughout February with a series of related posts on THE BIGGER
Description: [caption id="attachment_396" align="aligncenter" width="414" caption="Save Our Sounds Postcard, Photo Courtesy of National Anthropological Archives"][/caption] For the last few years, I’ve had this postcard up in my office promoting Save Our Sounds, a program by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (CFCH) and the Library of Congress dedicated to restoring,
Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="171" caption="Elizabeth Sabin Goodwin, c. 1920s–1970s, by Unidentified photographer, Black and white photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession number: SIA2008-1965. "][/caption] If you put it on Flickr, will they come? Well in this case, the answer is, "yes." In March 2009 we posted a number of images of women
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Glass lantern slide of Roscrana in Glencoe, Illinois, 1930. The garden includes white tulips, blue forget-me-nots and allee of trees. Unidentified Photographer. Archives of American Gardens, Smithsonian Institution. "][/caption] In the 1960s, during the process of planning a kitchen remodel at its headquarters in New York
Description: An examination of logbooks in the Smithsonian Institution Archives reveals the multiple ways that the Division of Inquiry in the United States Commission of Fish performed scientific work at marine laboratories in the early 20th century to fulfill their expansive mission statement.
Description: One of the goals of THE BIGGER PICTURE blog is to highlight stories about the ways images delivered in an online environment can describe extraordinary events or comment equally powerfully on our everyday life. Our contributors talk about collections at the Smithsonian, about images or archives that are making headlines, or about people that make, care for, and think about
Description: The New York Times just released previously unpublished photos documenting black history. [via New York Times]The wait is nearly over: Opening day of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is September 24th, 2016. [via Washington Post]Just released: A new guide to help artists preserve their studio archives. [via Artists' Studio Archives]A