Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="210" caption="Portrait of a City Marshal by Barr & Wright, 1870-1880, National Museum of American History, Catalog number 77.43.1678."][/caption] Help the Smithsonian ID a Houston city marshal from the 1870s in the picture on the right. The extremely flammable nitrocellulose film used before 1951 led to an estimated 80 percent of silent
Description: African American communities have celebrated Juneteenth for more than 150 years. When did the Smithsonian begin hosting programs to commemorate the nation’s second independence day?
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_14715,size=250,left] By now you have probably heard of Robert Kennicott, either because of his involvement with the Megatherium Club, or because of the article and blog post on his death that was published last year. I, however, tend to associate him with the Western Union Telegraph Expedition, a collecting mission to Alaska that proved to be his last.
Description: On September 6, 1958 President Eisenhower authorized preparation of plans for the construction of what is now the National Air and Space Museum.
Description: Smithsonian Libraries and Archives recently welcomed Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty as our inaugural director. Join us as we get to know the new leader of our organization!
Description: Though a large part of our collections are flat—that is, they are unbound materials as opposed to bound, three-dimensional objects—a significant group of our holdings do live in bindings and book structures (some of my previous blog contributions have dealt with books, but none with as great a degree of intervention). Treating a field book became more complicated—and more
Description: We wish you a Happy National Inventors Day and invite you to check out the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History!