Description: Link Love: a weekly post with links to interesting videos and stories about archival issues, technology and culture, and Washington D.C. and American history.
Description: Link Love: a weekly post with links to interesting videos and stories about archival issues, technology and culture, and Washington D.C. and American history.
Description: In their efforts to document the history of computing at the Smithsonian, volunteers are interviewing former staff to preserve their stories and experiences. Ching-hsien Wang was a force that helped libraries and archives make their collections accessible online and here are some early excerpts from our interview with her.
Description: Dr. Margaret S. Collins became a renowned expert in multiple areas of termite zoololgy during her almost 50-year career as a scientist and professor.
Description: There is a remarkable figure in the Smithsonian’s history that doesn’t get much of the spotlight; Thomas W. Smillie. He served as the Smithsonian’s first official photographer from 1870 until his death in 1917, and additionally became the Smithsonian’s first photography curator in 1896. Smillie amassed a collection of photographic equipment starting with the purchase of the
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="303" caption="Photographer holding large folding camera, by unidentified photographer, c. 1935, National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center, Archives Center."][/caption] Recently photography has said goodbye to two industry icons. Polaroid stopped production of its instant film, and Kodak announced that it is
Description: [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="181" caption="Edmonia Lewis, National Portrait Gallery"][/caption] In Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia (2000), Nancy Martha West describes how the company—marketing the first box cameras in the 1890s—aggressively targeted female consumers, hoping they’d “see photography not only as a necessary component of domestic life but as an integral
Description: Link Love: a weekly post with links to interesting videos and stories about archival issues, technology and culture, and Washington D.C. and American history.
Description: Exactly 165 years ago today, legislation establishing the Smithsonian Institution was passed by the US Congress and signed into law by President James K. Polk. From today’s perspective, it seems like a “no-brainer” to accept a generous bequest from a little-known Englishman named James Smithson and create an institution in his name. But from the perspective of that era, the