Description: You have probably heard of Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen. Even Comet, Cupid, Donder and Blitzen. And I know you have heard of Rudolph. But do you recall the Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s most famous reindeers of all? “Operation Reindeer” was the most publicized event of 1958. Fourteen reindeer and one caribou made their way, sans the open sleigh, to Washington, D.C., for
Description: Some of you may recall the symbol of the United States Forest Service fire prevention program, Smokey Bear. Perhaps I am dating myself, however I distinctly recall posters and television commercials between Saturday morning cartoons depicting the almost human looking bear wearing his park ranger hat and blue jeans, with shovel in one hand and stern finger pointed with the
Description: C. Malcolm Watkins (1911-2001), curator of cultural history at the National Museum of American History, was a pioneer of material culture studies and historic archeology.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="405" caption="Lucille St. Hoyme (1924-2001), J. Lawrence Angel (1915-1986), and Thomas Dale Stewart (1901-1997), 1967, by Smithsonian Institution Office of Public Affairs, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Lucille St. Hoyme (1924-2001), J. Lawrence Angel (1915-1986), and Thomas Dale Stewart (1901-1997), 1967, by Smithsonian Institution
Description: When Dr. Ted Reed became director of the National Zoological Park in 1959, he committed himself to carrying out the zoo’s complete set of mandates that included research, education, and conservation of endangered species. All these came together in a new non-public facility, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, founded in 1975 in Front Royal, Virginia.
Description: Each week, the Archives features a woman who has been a groundbreaker at the Smithsonian, past or present, in a series titled Wonderful Women Wednesday.
Description: Lucy Hunter Baird did not shy away from her father’s towering legacy in American science, she embraced it. As the only child of Spencer Fullerton Baird, second Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Lucy Baird developed a passion for her father’s discipline of ornithology (the study of birds) and strove to chronicle his extraordinary life in a biography. Although she was