Description: Geologist Dr. Ursula Marvin studied Moon rocks from the Apollo missions and meteorites in Antarctica. Throughout her career with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Marvin championed women in science. She delivered lectures about her own experiences as a woman in geology and participated in programing to help advance women's careers. She was likely inspired to support
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_5844,size=200,left]The Megatherium Club, named after a giant extinct sloth that once roamed South America, consisted of an eccentric group of young naturalists aiming to build the Smithsonian’s collection. The club was formed in 1857 under zoologist William Stimpson, who held the club’s first meeting in his cottage before the members were asked to set
Description: The Court of Chancery was the high-level English law court where the battle between Elizabeth Macie and Henrietta Maria Walker was resolved. Chancery was also such a legendary money-pit of bureaucratic red tape that Charles Dickens lampooned the court in his novel Bleak House, depicting centuries-long, fortune-destroying lawsuits that only mildly exaggerated the delays and
Description: If you are a regular reader, or someone who works for a museum, library, or archive, you intimately understand the difficulty in managing big collections. If you’re not in this world, you do understand how hard it is to manage family photographs, a collection of email love letters, or the folder tucked in the bottom of your closet with old college papers. When you multiply
Description: This post is the third in a series this month that honor the anniversary of the famous Scopes Trial held in Tennessee from July 10–21, 1925. We're highlighting a set of rare and newly digitized photographs from the Smithsonian Institution Archives collections, of witnesses at the trial, which have been added to the Smithsonian Flickr Commons. On Wednesday afternoon, July 15,