Description: When curators at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History looked at seven radiometers in storage, they learned the instruments had been at the Smithsonian for nearly one hundred fifty years.
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: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="147" caption="Walt Whitman, 1875, by Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Chalk on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Robert Tyler Davis Memorial Fund, 1980.73."][/caption] Fascinating interview with poet Robert Roper, who dug into the National Archives to examine the moving letters poet Walt Whitman wrote to family