Description: Dr. Melissa Chiu, Director, Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 2014–present, oversees a staff of 50 and a collection of 12,000 objects. Within the first year of her tenure, Chiu doubled the number of museum board members, and, in 2017, the Hirshhorn Museum met a milestone of one million visitors. #Groundbreaker
Description: Leila Gay Forbes Clark, director of Smithsonian’s library, 1942–1957, was the second woman to direct the library at the Smithsonian. She led early efforts to create a more centralized library system. In 1952, she coauthored The Butterflies of Virginia with her husband, zoologist Austin Hobart Clark. #Groundbreaker
Description: Dr. Anthea M. Hartig, Elizabeth MacMillan Director, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, became the first woman to ever lead the museum in 2019. She oversees more than 250 employees, a budget of $40 million, and 1.8 million objects. #Groundbreaker
Description: Eliza Scidmore was a lifelong photographer, writer, and world traveler. In addition to facilitating a gift of cherry blossom trees from Japan to the U.S. capital, Scidmore donated her time, photographs, and some artifacts to the Smithsonian’s collections. She also accessed the world through colonial channels that she reinforced with her writings.
Description: Ellen Roney Hughes’ supposition in 1999 was “Well, I think it’s still a man’s world at the Smithsonian.” This may hold some validity due to recent discoveries at the Smithsonian.
Description: Happy Birthday to Happy Birthday! On Sometime around this date in 1893 sisters Patty and Mildred J. Hill, who were both elementary school teachers in Louisville, Kentucky, first published “Happy Birthday to You”—one of the most iconic and popular songs in the English Language. Apparently, this makes June 27th “Happy Birthday Day,” so let sounds of that popular ditty roll
Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="234" caption="Mary Henry, October 20, 1882, by Unidentified photographer, Card Photograph, Smithsonian Institution Archives, RU 95, Box 12, Folder 5, Negative Number: 82-3258. "][/caption] As we enter into the holiday season, the Smithsonian Institution Archive’s blog will be exploring memories: what they mean, how to capture them, and
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.