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: [caption id="attachment_11498" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="Out of The Depths, or, the Triumph of the Cross by Nellie Arnold Plummer. AHC 2003.0025.1, in its custom clamshell box after full conservation (inset: before treatment condition), Courtesy Nora Lockshin and Anacostia Community Museum."][/caption] The Smithsonian Institution Archives will be
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_arc_391599,size=250,left] “[T]he paleontologist is a queer character,” Robert Kennicott notes in his letter “Folks at Home”. “Indeed he [Meek] is very excellent and Honorable gentleman with fine feelings and extremely modest though he is now one of our best Paleontologists.”Meek was born on December 10, 1817 in Madison, Indiana, along with a brother and
Description: Vicarious research is one of the great joys of the reference desk at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. From our front-row (well, only-row) seat outside the reading room, we catch tantalizing glimpses of our patrons’ manifold research topics.The reference team fields thousands of questions per year.