Description: The Smithsonian’s scientists and naturalists were, and still are, constantly on the move. When they weren’t in the field, they were in the museum studying collected specimens, writing papers, and getting ready for the next series of trips. Dr. Waldo LaSalle Schmitt (1887-1977) was no exception.Logistics is a special skill, an essential one when traveling on scientific
Description: In celebration of Archives Month, join us Monday, October 27th, 10am to 4pm ET, where four of our archivists specializing in audio/visual material, photos, and digital records (or electronic records) will be on the Smithsonian's Facebook page to answer questions about your own archival collections. Questions from our readers in the past have ranged from storing letter and
Description: This post is the third in a series this month that honor the anniversary of the famous Scopes Trial held in Tennessee from July 10–21, 1925. We're highlighting a set of rare and newly digitized photographs from the Smithsonian Institution Archives collections, of witnesses at the trial, which have been added to the Smithsonian Flickr Commons. On Wednesday afternoon, July 15,
Description: Revamping our online postcard exhibit poses the challenge of dating unused postcards. Here’s how I have hunted down clues to solve the mystery!
Description: It can be so frustrating to put great effort into something, and then to have your work and achievements called into question. I can't begin to imagine how frustrated Samuel Pierpont Langley was in 1903. By that time, he had spent over forty years studying astrophysics and aerodynamics. His work on astronomically-derived time measurement in the late 1860's is the heart of the
Description: For the month of March, the Smithsonian Institution Archives will be posting about interesting women from our collections in honor of Women’s History Month. Over the past two years, I have had the privilege of watching the Smithsonian Institution Archives’ Video History Collection interviews while they were digitized. One of my favorites is Black Aviators (RU 9545) because of
Description: As the architect Victor Lundy turns 90, we look back at the redwood shade structures he designed in the mid-1960s for the terrace of the new Museum of History and Technology (today the National Museum of American History).
Description: Long ago and far away, before gray hairs and creaky knees, before history became my passion, I was an undergraduate physics major. Physics seemed fascinating and beautiful, if difficult. Later, after career paths led into history and science policy, I learned that physics, however elegant, did not reside in a cultural vacuum. Its people and discoveries coexisted with