Description: Born in 1829 to free black parents along the border between Maryland and the District of Columbia, Solomon Galleon Brown would become, at age 23, the first black employee of the Smithsonian. Starting out as a laborer in the Exchange Office, he ultimately became the personal assistant of Spencer Baird, the second secretary of the Smithsonian. By the time of his 1904 retirement,
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: Manjula Kumar was a Project Manager and Project Director in various offices around the Smithsonian, including the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Education and Public Service and the Center for Education and Museum Studies, between 1985 and 2015. She organized multicultural programming and directed the award process for proposals submitted to the Educational Outreach