Description: Vicarious research is one of the great joys of the reference desk at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. From our front-row (well, only-row) seat outside the reading room, we catch tantalizing glimpses of our patrons’ manifold research topics.The reference team fields thousands of questions per year.
Description: Everyone loves a parade – especially one followed by a banquet. When scientists and politicians met in Washington, D.C., on November 23, 1936, to celebrate the centennial of the U.S. patent system, they listened first to a conventional program of speeches. Then, in the afternoon, Science Service director Watson Davis arranged something different: a “Research Parade” featuring
Description: For historians of science, the name “Sarton” resonates like a deep-throated bell. Isis, the international journal that chemist and mathematician George Sarton (1884-1956) founded in Belgium in 1913, is now the premier publication of the History of Science Society. The field he envisioned is flourishing as well as continually responding to changes in science and its social