Description: It’s December, which of course means the beginning of the holiday season. Festive décor starts to appear in store windows (or, let’s be honest, these days it starts going up in late October . . .). [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="330" caption="East Baltimore Documentary Survey Project, ca. 1975, Elinor Cahn, Gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Description: Apparently black holes are not a one-way vortex we assumed. This image from NASA demonstrates objects projecting out of black holes! [via The Space Academy]The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History will acquire records of The Academy of Washington, D.C., an LGBT organization that produced nationally-recognized drag pageants. [via Washington Blade]You can vote on
Description: Cardboard architectural landmark cathouses; sacrilege or awesome? [via Design Boom] Prince's Paisley Park to become a museum. [via Hyperallergic]The bison is set to become America's national mammal. Learn how the Smithsonian helped save the American bison. [via Washington Post]A new online archive from the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore Uprising 2015 Archive Project,
Description: The Smithsonian African American Association was formed in 1989 and was an assembly of the Institution's employees who have organized to project a united voice, to have an impact upon pan-institutional policies that affect African Americans, and to convey these concerns to the Smithsonian Administration.
Description: A daily photo highlight from Smithsonian collections. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430" caption="Balloon show project director Roger Pineau holds the end of a liner as exhibits specialists Ben Snouffer (partially hidden) and Bob Klinger make the final adjustments for the suspension of a 32 & 1/2 - foot World War II Japanese attack balloon in the Arts and
Description: Join us and other archives around the U.S. to ask questions on Twitter Wednesday, 10/5. #AskAnArchivist [via SAA]A new project looking at the role photography plays in science, with an essay from our own, Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette on the credit due to scientist Rosalind Franklin. [via curator Marvin Heiferman]The International Criminal Court has ruled that destroying
Description: Claudine K. Brown began her long career with Smithsonian as the Director of the African American History Project, 1990–1995, developing a program plan for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Brown also served as Smithsonian’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Arts and Humanities, 1991-1995. She returned to the Smithsonian in 2010 as Assistant
Description: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival will be held from June 30 to July 4 and July 7 to 11, 2011 on the National Mall. Read more about the history of the Folklife Festival here. At the Smithsonian Folklife Festival this year, the Peace Corps is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an Executive Order authorizing the Peace Corps to
Description: Dr. Helene C. Muller-Landau, Lead Scientist, CTFS Global Forest Carbon Initiative, has researched the patterns, causes, and consequences of plant diversity for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute since 2008. As leader of the program, Muller-Landau strives to implement standardized measurements of forest carbon stocks and fluxes across forest research sites.