Description: On December 5, 1961, the Smithsonian announced the gift of the Barney House Studio. We have written previously about Alice Pike Barney (1857-1931); artist, actor, playwright, and Washington D.C. socialite at The Bigger Picture. Barney donated her artwork and her D.C. residence which became part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection. In 1999, however, the house
Description: On July 20, 1969, television broadcasters and Smithsonian visitors joined in watching history in the making when astronauts stepped onto the Moon.
Description: On what better day than Election Day to follow up on that tidbit I dropped a couple weeks ago regarding a consultation about then-candidate Barack Obama’s dry-erase boards, a recent acquisition by the National Museum of African American History and Culture? These artifacts, along with archival material and other realia (in archives terms: a man-made three-dimensional object)
Description: Link Love: a weekly post with links to interesting videos and stories about archival issues, technology and culture, and Washington D.C. and American history.
Description: Savage Beauty, the posthumous and retrospective exhibition of women’s fashions designed by Alexander McQueen (1969–2010) at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art closed early in August. The record breaking event—an official attendance count of 661,509 visitors made it the eighth biggest show in the museum’s history—featured approximately one hundred ensembles drawn, primarily,
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Photograph of airmail planes at Elko, Nevada, by unknown photographer, c. 1920, Smithsonian National Postal Museum."][/caption] Just last week, we uploaded some new photos of early US airmail from the National Postal Museum to the “People and the Post” set on the Flickr Commons. I was immediately drawn in by the portraits
Description: Have a little fun with images from our collections that have been designated as open access. Anyone can now download, transform, share, and reuse millions of images as part of Smithsonian Open Access.
Description: This month students head back to school ready for another year of learning. And though the summer crowds may have gone home, staff around the Smithsonian are now preparing for the many field trips headed their way. One of my favorite things about school was the special field trips my class got to take. You would hear the year before about going on this boat or heading to this