Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="254" caption=""Kermit the Frog" is unpacked from his shipping crate at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The Convention Center was the first stop of the "America's Smithsonian" exhibition national tour celebrating the Smithsonian's 150th anniversary, 1996, by Hugh Talman, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession
Description: In August 1996, the Smithsonian marked its 150th anniversary with a huge birthday celebration on the National Mall. For its sesquicentennial, a term which this author constantly forgets no matter how many times she looks it up, the Institution threw itself a two-day birthday party, sprinkled with special exhibit tents, concerts, nineteen birthday cakes, a special website, and
Description: One of the things we do here at the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) is keep track of original records about donors and the objects they have given to the Smithsonian—and so we have donor and accession records dating back to our earliest years. Because of this, it’s common to receive a reference request beginning something like, “My great-great grandmother donated a