Description: In honor of Women’s History Month, we’d like to revisit an important and inspiring exhibition circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in 1961. “The Magnificient Enterprise: Education Opens the Door” was a photographic exhibition based on the 100 years of higher education for women. Sponsored by Vassar College in observance of its
Description: Today is Giant Panda cub Bao Bao’s third birthday, and yesterday her little brother, Bei Bei, turned one. This marks the first time in the forty-four years of panda conservation at the National Zoo that there have been two healthy cubs in residence at the zoo at the same time, but that’s not for lack of trying.
Description: As the Director of Science Service, chemist Edwin Emery Slosson not only edited the submissions of his staff and external contributors but he also dispensed writing tips that remain timely today.
Description: When James Smithson wrote his will on October 23, 1826, he made several bequests to people before adding the contingent clause that created the Smithsonian Institution. One bequest was to a resident of London’s notorious East End.
Description: On October 5, 2021, the Smithsonian announced that Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty will be the new director of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, effective Nov. 6.
Description: The Smithsonian Institution Archives will be celebrating African American History Month throughout February with a series of related posts on THE BIGGER PICTURE. “I have engaged in almost Every Branch of work that is usual and unusual about S.I.”[edan-image:id=siris_sic_5597,size=150,left] These words, written by Solomon G. Brown to Secretary Spencer F. Baird on August 12,
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: Unusual sized and shaped items can be a challenge in archives—here’s how our conservation staff dealt with a particularly tricky accession.