Description: It was, most likely, a foggy day in Oakland in 1882 when Miss Adelia Gates crossed the intersection of 12th and Washington streets and approached the Lemmon Herbarium.At 57, Adelia Gates was an accomplished artist and well-accustomed to new situations. She’d traveled alone to Scandinavia, Mallorca, Italy, and Algeria, and she’d lived in Switzerland while studying watercolor
Description: Vicarious research is one of the great joys of the reference desk at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. From our front-row (well, only-row) seat outside the reading room, we catch tantalizing glimpses of our patrons’ manifold research topics.The reference team fields around 6,000 queries per year. Ask us what people have been researching recently, and you’ll get into some
Description: Curator Helena E. Wright, Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, researches the role of graphic media in expanding visual culture and won a 2017 Secretary's Research Prize. #Groundbreaker
Description: Have a little fun with images from our collections that have been designated as open access. Anyone can now download, transform, share, and reuse millions of images as part of Smithsonian Open Access.