Description: A twentieth century Renaissance man, Louis R. Purnell lived a remarkable life. His career began in the skies above Italy and Germany, where he flew 88 combat missions as an original member of the Tuskegee Airmen. After the war, while working at the National Museum of Natural History, he traveled the world’s oceans collecting marine specimens, taught himself geology and
Description: Periodically—given the fleeting nature of life and the ubiquity of photographic imagery—it’s seems like someone’s always trying to hatch another ambitious image-based cultural project to prove that, despite our differences, we’re pretty all much the same.
Description: In September 1989 the Smithsonian sponsored a discussion between scientists and journalists about how the media can responsibly report on environmental issues.
Description: Late 2015, the beta version of the Smithsonian’s Learning Lab, a new digital platform providing access to digital resources across the Smithsonian alongside tools for teachers and students, launched. I was delighted to see a related social media update hinting at some of the discoveries to be had with the Learning Lab, one of which showed Saul Steinberg drawings on Smithsonian
Description: [caption id="attachment_4168" align="aligncenter" width="261" caption="Albumen portrait of the Reverend Levi L. Hill, Baptist minister and early daguerreotypist, West Kill, New York and New York City, b. 1816-d. February 9, 1865. Inscription on reverse, “Levi L. Hill, Died February 9, 1865, He is Asleep in Heaven.”"][/caption] Just when we think that we must have at last