Description: …in which a member of the Archives staff turns her passion for sloths into a mission to research their history at the Smithsonian Institution.
Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="214" caption="Neighborhood Map (Hopkins, 1887), Hand-colored neighborhood map, Office of the Surveyor Map Collection, Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs."][/caption] Looks a lot cooler than it sounds: the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs will post more than a century’s worth of beautiful maps to Flickr [via Effie
Description: Eliza Scidmore was a lifelong photographer, writer, and world traveler. In addition to facilitating a gift of cherry blossom trees from Japan to the U.S. capital, Scidmore donated her time, photographs, and some artifacts to the Smithsonian’s collections. She also accessed the world through colonial channels that she reinforced with her writings.