Description: Born in 1829 to free black parents along the border between Maryland and the District of Columbia, Solomon Galleon Brown would become, at age 23, the first black employee of the Smithsonian. Starting out as a laborer in the Exchange Office, he ultimately became the personal assistant of Spencer Baird, the second secretary of the Smithsonian. By the time of his 1904 retirement,
Description: Spencer F. Baird and George Brown Goode used their diverse, and sometimes quirky, contacts from the U.S. Fish Commission to fill exhibit cabinets in the U.S. National Museum.
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_12311,size=230,right]These records are amongst the most frequently used collections, and the most historically important records, in the Archives. US National Museum (USNM) incumbents included: Spencer F. Baird, 1850–1881G. Brown Goode, 1881–1896, including the years 1881–1887 when he served as Assistant Director of the Museum without the title of