Description: Each week, the Archives features a woman who has been a groundbreaker at the Smithsonian, past or present, in a series titled Wonderful Women Wednesday.
Description: Office of Executive Assistant to the Secretary in the east wing of the Smithsonian Institution, or Castle, April 10, 1912, with John U. Perkins, Harry Woodward Dorsey (chief clerk), and James G. Traylor (appointment clerk), SIA RU000095, SIA_000095_B37_F02_008.
Description: [view in Spanish]Born near Cadiz, Ohio, in the year the Smithsonian was founded, 1846, Holmes's life was intimately tied to the institution from the time he was twenty-five until his retirement in 1932 when he was 86.He began work as an artist drawing specimens for a number of naturalists in the employ of Spencer Fullerton Baird, then Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian