Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430" caption="Lunch has been set out on a hill at 2000 feet on Cerro Campana, Panama, Sitting on the hill from L to R are: Harold Trapido, Shirley Gage (smoking a cigarette), Graham Bell Fairchild, Watson M. Perrygo, and Marshall Hertig (with a cigarette in his mouth), 1951, Alexander Wetmore, Photographic print, Smithsonian
Description: Travel with us to the Galapagos and the Marshall Islands as we launch some warm-weather scientific field books, diaries, and correspondence. While it’s not very wintery in Washington D.C., we’re hoping this will offer an escape to those entering the long remaining months of snow, sleet, and ice. And if you’re avoiding the cold, what a better way to spend your time than helping
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: Meet the newest (and adorable) member of our National Zoo's family. She sparked an epic cute battle on Twitter! [via WTOP]Maybe not so adorable, a prehistoric "badger otter." [via Smithsonian Magazine]The National Museum of American History's political curators were busy last weekend collecting artifacts from the Inauguration and Women's March. [via Voice of America]Speaking
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="296" caption="This image from Mercury mission number four taken on Sept. 13, 1961 is just one of the many images that was written on by engineers. Credit: NASA/JSC/Arizona State University."][/caption] On May 16th, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the vicinity of Cape Canaveral to watch the Endeavor, the NASA space shuttle,
Description: It was July 1880 in Washington, DC and Smithsonian Secretary, Spencer Baird, had fled the city with his family for cool ocean breezes and to study the fishing grounds off the New England coast at Woods Hole on Cape Cod. For those left behind minding the Smithsonian Castle, it was probably hot, humid, and hellish in town and they were in need of relief. Luckily, the proprietors
Description: [caption id="attachment_2474" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Silicon Eye, from the inner core.... the 5 Megapixel CCD sensor that electronically captures the image, by Flickr user jurvetson."][/caption] The Nobel Prize jury recently announced three winners in physics, who’ve been dubbed "the masters of light" for their innovations in the ways photographic images are
Description: Intern Marie Desrochers details her experience with co-intern Sarah Casto, stabilizing and rehousing the Macbeth Gallery Scrapbook collection at Archives of American Art.
Description: Browsing the Archives' collections leads to very interesting finds. Upon learning about the Smithsonian Institution’s first Secretary Joseph Henry, 1846-1878, I had the opportunity to read a letter written fourteen days from the start of the Civil War. In the letter, which is addressed to his brother-in-law, Stephen, he expresses uncertainty and dread of the unfolding events.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="424" caption="U.S. National Museum, May 3, 1917, seen from the National Mall, by Unknown photographer, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 45, Box 79, Folder: 10, Neg. SIA2009-2203."][/caption] As part of my work as the historian for the history of the Smithsonian, I’ve been working for the past year on