Description: The 19th century was a transformative time for the natural sciences. New discoveries didn't just happen in an armchair. Scientists adventured into unfamiliar territory by land and sea on expeditions, and their new findings fed new theories. Groups like the Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences formalized America's place
Description: Long ago and far away, before gray hairs and creaky knees, before history became my passion, I was an undergraduate physics major. Physics seemed fascinating and beautiful, if difficult. Later, after career paths led into history and science policy, I learned that physics, however elegant, did not reside in a cultural vacuum. Its people and discoveries coexisted with
Description: Waldo L. Schmitt, a curator with the United States National Museum, participated in a 1938 expedition with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to survey the Clipperton, Cocos, and Galapagos Islands.
Description: In 1917, police detectives arrested two suffragists suspected of planning a pro-suffrage demonstration at the United States National Museum.
Description: President John F. Kennedy's doodles were given a new dimension by local Washington, D.C. sculptor Ralph M. Tate and the Anacostia Community Museum.
Description: Although planning began in 1919, the National Portrait Gallery was not created until 1962, and it opened to the public in the historic Patent Office Building in 1968. Known for its iconic collections of portraits of a broad spectrum of Americans, the gallery is also noted for its Hall of Presidents. History of the National Portrait GalleryAdditional Historic Images of the