Description: Memoranda have been with us for decades. While their purpose remains the same, their form and appearance have changed over the years. This short video gives a brief overview of how memoranda found in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution Archives evolved over time.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="378" caption="Cruriraja cadenati, 6 Oct 1959, Division of Fishes, National Museum of Natural History, USNM 196443. "][/caption] The Department of Vertebrate Zoology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, just launched nearly 2 million records on the Smithsonian Collections Search Center related to their vertebrate
Description: Happy Birthday to Happy Birthday! On Sometime around this date in 1893 sisters Patty and Mildred J. Hill, who were both elementary school teachers in Louisville, Kentucky, first published “Happy Birthday to You”—one of the most iconic and popular songs in the English Language. Apparently, this makes June 27th “Happy Birthday Day,” so let sounds of that popular ditty roll
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: The age-old adage “in like a lion and out like a lamb” refers to the wildly varying weather in the month of March. Certainly, this March has been no different, with snow and nasty storms pelting the northeast, and all of us dreaming of cherry blossom season after a long winter. While we all wait it out, check out some lions and lambs, both subdued and fierce, from across the
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="370" caption="Honeywell, El Segundo, Calif., from the Los Angeles Documentary Project 1980 Susan Ressler, 1949, Gelatin silver print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts through the Photography Museum of Los Angeles, 1990.38.93."][/caption] This is just a head's up to let our
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="427" caption="After three years at the National Portrait Gallery, (l-r) William Trossen, Terry Conable, Lina Best and David Price are moving the Gilbert Stuart portraits of George and Martha Washington for shipment to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where they will be displayed under an alternating exhibition plan worked out in 1980
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="334" caption="Paul Rhymer, Exhibits Specialist in Taxidermy at Exhibits Central, shows off the radio-controlled badger he created for Brian Miller, a post-doctoral fellow working at the National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center (CRC) in Front Royal, VA, The "robo-badger" had been found as road-kill and mailed to Rhymer frozen,
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="The Board of Regents meeting, January 15, 1954. In attendance at the meeting was Chief Justice Earl Warren, Senator Leverett Saltonstall, Representative Clarence Cannon, Representative Leroy Johnson, Representative John M. Vorys, Dr. Vannevar Bush, Mr. Robert V. Fleming, Dr. Jerome C. Hunsaker, Justice Owen J. Roberts,
Description: A daily photo highlight from Smithsonian collections. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430" caption="Balloon show project director Roger Pineau holds the end of a liner as exhibits specialists Ben Snouffer (partially hidden) and Bob Klinger make the final adjustments for the suspension of a 32 & 1/2 - foot World War II Japanese attack balloon in the Arts and