Description: In 1925, seven George Washington University students volunteered to stay awake for sixty hours, and drove, danced, sang, and swam in an effort to remain alert.
Description: [caption id="attachment_3281" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Encouraging Curiosity for Man and Animal, Photograph courtesy of Zac Henderson."][/caption] About a year ago, we asked you to reflect on the ways photography has changed your life. We heard from Ellen Hyatt, an English teacher in South Carolina, who uses photographs to inspire her student’s creative writing
Description: Here at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, we take pride in preserving the Institution’s history, including its sizable web presence. While various offices at the Smithsonian create and back up the contents of their websites, the Archives also crawls each website using Heritrix, an open-source tool created by the Internet Archive, to capture content in an archival format.
Description: In mid-19th century America, some believed that world-class discoveries came exclusively from Europe. But early Smithsonian leaders had a sense of urgency to disseminate an authoritative body of knowledge, pursue further discoveries, and provide a deeper understanding to the public at a time when American society was changing.
Description: Wired Science has great coverage of our recent “Field Book Lantern Slides” Flickr Commons set, complete with more information from the Smithsonian’s Thomas Jorstad, who works in the paleontology department at the National Museum of Natural History. Yeek! A Dust Archive (for real!) [via Marguerite Roby, SIA].
Description: A station for the Metro, Washington DC’s subway system, was eliminated from early plans but protest by the Smithsonian ensured it would be built.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="344" caption="Fremont Davis (1915-1977) was a staff photographer for Science Service, Date unknown, by Unidentified photographer, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 90-105 - Science Service, Records, 1920s-1970."][/caption] It's always satisfying to put a big check mark next to a completed task, and this month
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: Masks and endless sanitizing again? What has the Smithsonian done during past pandemics? We’ll look back to the public health emergency in 1918.