Description: I’ve been inspired by the snowflakes Wilson A. Bentley photographed through a microscope in the late 1800's ever since I first saw them in the Archives. Bentley donated 500 of his photographs to the Smithsonian in 1903 (you can read more about them in a post by Archives colleague, Courtney Esposito). The images capture nature at its most creative, mathematical, and elegant.
Description: Details of a Smithsonian anthropometric measurement sheet made by physical anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička for escape artist Harry Houdini in 1926.
Description: When did women begin to manage Smithsonian museums? Meet Grace Dunham Guest who was a key staff member in opening the Freer Gallery of Art in 1923.
Description: It is too hard to know everything that lives inside an archival collection. Join us in opening up some of our miscellaneous folders and discover what is inside!
Description: As a postdoctoral fellow at the National Museum of American History, I’ve spent months in the Smithsonian Institution Archives researching a book tentatively titled, Not Naturally a Grass Country: Environment, Plant Genetics, and the Quest for Agricultural Modernization in the Humid World. It’s largely a story about global attempts to replace one form of agriculture—the
Description: [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="219" caption="Unidentified Washington, DC Church, 1919, by Martin A. Gruber, Black-and-white photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Martin A. Gruber Photograph Collection, 1919-1924, RU007355."][/caption] Recently the Smithsonian Institution Archives posted some images from the Martin A. Gruber Photograph Collection,
Description: Traditionally, when families gather for end-of-the-year holiday events, reminiscences are shared, new photos and videos get made, and/or old snapshots, home movies, and memories resurface. And while most family narratives are revisited in intimate settings, around kitchen tables or in living rooms, a handful may reach broader audiences, through one set of circumstances or