Description: During planning of the future National Museum of American History, Webb and Knapp attempted to move it off the Mall into Southwest Washington.
Description: As National Museum of African American History and Culture opens, let’s look at the first efforts to establish a National African American Museum.
Description: In celebration of Preservation Week, we’ll take a look at a recently created custom housing for a fragile fabric-covered box found within Accession 18-009.
Description: Barbeque. Doughboy. Free trade. Pumple-nose. Smugglers. Cortan. Crockadore. Chopsticks. William Dampier, the 17th century explorer turned privateer/pirate, is credited with introducing these words, and more than 1,000 others, into the English vernacular. He was the first explorer to circumnavigate the globe three times, and created the first detailed record of Australian Flora
Description: At the Archives we get to see hundreds and hundreds (technically ~3 million if we wanted) images and photographs. We sometimes lose focus (ahh, get it) of all the amazing people behind the lens.National Photograph Month at the Archives
Description: In conservation it can be easy to overlook the content of an item and just get on with the treatment. Here is a case where overlooking the content was simply not possible.
Description: First hand account of Mary Henry, daughter of Joseph Henry, about what Washington DC was like during the holidays in the time of the Civil War.
Description: The Smithsonian Institution Archives Reference Team handles an average of around 6,000 queries per year, and if you us what people have been researching at the Archives recently, you'll get some pretty interesting responses. Although not comprehensive, here's a snapshot of the diverse range of information encompassed by the history of the world's largest museum complex!