Description: Starting tomorrow through next week, we will be digging into the life of entomologist Harrison Gray Dyar (1866-1929). Dyar was honorary custodian of the Smithsonian's United States National Museum's collection of Lepidoptera (butterflies, moths, etc.) for more than thirty years. As a scientist, Dyar was noted for his work concerning mosquito-borne diseases. He also developed a
Description: One of the challenges of being a reference archivist is focusing on the inquiries received, while suppressing the bits of information you come across that may be of personal interest (the corner of my desk is occupied by an ever increasing list of topics I aspire to research further on my own time). Recently, however, a colleague who is familiar with my interest in rare and
Description: The Smithsonian Institution Archives recently digitized over 300 images of Washington, D.C. from the 1920s. Read more about the collection here, and check out the photographs, which are now available on Smithsonian Collections Search Center as well as on the Flickr Commons. Intern Amanda Kaufman writes about the collection, which she helped digitize this summer, below. How
Description: Did you know that before the Smithsonian existed, there were two other institutions created for the promotion of science and diffusion of knowledge? Exploring the fate of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Marey Wheel Photographs of Unidentified Model, with Eadweard Muybridge Notations, by Thomas Eakins, 1884, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden."][/caption] Please be aware that some of the photographs included in links within this post may contain graphic and emotionally disturbing material. Which are more powerful,
Description: Late in July, LENS, a New York Times blog that focuses on images and issues photographic, posted an interesting story by James Estrin. Magnum Photos, the legendary co-operative photo agency founded after World War II by photographers including Robert Capa and Henri Cartier Bresson, announced that to boost the visibility (and paid use) of the hundreds of thousands of images it
Description: At SPI, we were sad to learn that Jessie Cohen died earlier this week. Jessie was one of the photographic mainstays at the Smithsonian; she started working at the Smithsonian National Zoo in 1979, photographing animals, their living quarters, and behind-the-scenes events for exhibition, education, and marketing purposes. In addition, Jessie also managed the Zoo’s exhibition
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Thornewood Estate in Takoma, Washington, by Asahel Curtis, August 1933, Smithsonian Archives of American Gardens."][/caption] Just the other day we received a comment on one of our photos in the new Flickr Commons set of lantern slides from the Archives of American Gardens. A visitor was interested to know whether or not