Description: We all have the opportunity to support the Smithsonian—come see how the Libraries and Archives Adopt-a-Book program offers a chance to do so.
Description: It’s Preservation Week - see what conservation staff at the Smithsonian Institution Archives are doing to contribute to preservation-mindedness.
Description: The Archives was recently gifted an 1860 letter from Spencer F. Baird, second Secretary of the Smithsonian, to George N. Lawrence, fellow naturalist. The donor requested that, along with a digital version, a transcription be provided, which I undertook alongside a simple treatment. The letter was in overall excellent condition: the thin paper exhibited only a pair of small
Description: Readers of The Bigger Picture will be familiar with the Hungerford Deed, a 1787 property contract dividing a lucrative land inheritance between the mother and aunt of the Smithsonian’s founding donor, James Smithson. Over the last three years I have been able to take a deep dive into the content of the Deed and strengthen our understanding of Smithson’s choice to leave his
Description: When a television channel asks to film our collections, we want to show them at their best. Read how we accommodate media requests while keeping our collections safe.
Description: A look at the relationship between Smithsonian Secretary Samuel P. Langley and the Wright Brothers during the sometimes contentious race to achieve flight.
Description: Handwriting is a personal passion of mine, despite it having become something of a lost art. Today, when most people think of handwriting at all, it is as a greatly individual method of writing recognizable characters, regardless of the writing system, but in the past, when you could make a living as a scribe, there were highly standardized styles.
Description: The Hungerford Deed split an inherited estate between two sisters—but what do we know about those properties? We’ve dug deep into one of them here.
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