Description: Handwriting is a personal passion of mine, despite it having become something of a lost art. Today, when most people think of handwriting at all, it is as a greatly individual method of writing recognizable characters, regardless of the writing system, but in the past, when you could make a living as a scribe, there were highly standardized styles.
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: As a teenager, Robert Ridgway was tapped by the Smithsonian’s Assistant Secretary to be an expedition zoologist. In 1881, when the US National Museum opened its doors, he was the curator of Birds. Download and reuse some of bird illustrations today through Smithsonian Open Access.