Description: It is with sadness that I report that Mitch Toda is stepping down as the blog coordinator. Since 2011, Mitch Toda has been the man behind-the-scenes making sure everything runs smoothly. As a staff archivist, he works daily with the records he takes in from Smithsonian museums and offices such as the new National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Office of
Description: During debates about the Smithsonian’s founding, the idea of using James Smithson’s bequest for a botanic garden was included in several drafts of the bill considered by Congress. In 1850, President Millard Fillmore commissioned America’s preeminent landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing to design plans for the National Mall, including grounds around the Smithsonian Castle,
Description: This post originally appeared on the National Museum of Natural History's blog, Unearthed.Who would think that behind the west wall of NMNH's paleontology hall is a painting of a goddess that created a sensation when installed in 1910? Some of you who visited the museum fifty years ago may remember the captivating Diana of the Tides as she surveyed the hall.Diana was painted