Description: As a remarkable auction of artifacts of a bygone aristocratic world takes place, we look at a surprising connection between Mary, Duchess of Roxburghe and the Smithsonian’s founding benefactor, James Smithson
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_arc_395101,size=300,left]When Harvard Medical School distributed these photographs of John Clavon Norman, Jr., M.D. (1930-2014) to news services in the 1960s, Dr. Norman was at an exciting stage of his career. The young physician had already made quite a journey, but there would be even more paths to blaze. He had been born in West Virginia to parents who
Description: Ron Vasile teaches AP U.S. History, U.S. History and Anthropology at Lockport Township High School in Lockport, Illinois.We bring to you the story of a dedicated naturalist turned museum pioneer.
Description: [view:sia_slideshow==71908]By the late 1960s, curators at the National Museum of History and Technology (NMHT), now the National Museum of American History, were focusing on how to present aspects of the American experience to visitors of the museum in different ways. Instead of using "sterile techniques which have too frequently given visitors the false impression that all
Description: Exactly 165 years ago today, legislation establishing the Smithsonian Institution was passed by the US Congress and signed into law by President James K. Polk. From today’s perspective, it seems like a “no-brainer” to accept a generous bequest from a little-known Englishman named James Smithson and create an institution in his name. But from the perspective of that era, the