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: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="171" caption="Elizabeth Sabin Goodwin, c. 1920s–1970s, by Unidentified photographer, Black and white photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession number: SIA2008-1965. "][/caption] If you put it on Flickr, will they come? Well in this case, the answer is, "yes." In March 2009 we posted a number of images of women
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="333" caption="Portrait of Felix Nadar (1820-1910), Photographer and Aeronautical Scientist, Unidentified Photographer, Unidentified Photographer, Smithsonian Institution Libraries"][/caption] In response to our recent Flickr Commons set highlighting women in science, Erin, our colleague from Smithsonian Libraries, did some deeper
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="405" caption="Elizabeth Tashjiaan, American painter, 1912-2007, Smithsonian American Art Museum"][/caption]Looking at this photo of artist Elizabeth Tashjian in our new set of portraits of women artists at the Smithsonian Commons on Flickr, it seemed obvious to me that I was looking at a professionally-trained artist, who in fact, won
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="310" caption="Group of Young Women in Costume During Arrival Reception For Tourists Near Plane at Airport, by Gerald James Holton, 1968, National Museum of Natural History, National Anthropological Archives."][/caption] I came across these photos of tourists on Easter Island on our site and their presence has kind of baffled me.
Description: It's interesting to look back and see what resonated with you, our readers, this past year. Clearly, we along with many of you were fascinated by the solar eclipse of 2017 that was viewable from many parts of the U.S. Three of the top 10 were about solar eclipses. You also were captivated by our efforts to bring more attention to women in science. Three of the posts have to do
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
Description: Mary Agnes Chase is known for her extensive contributions to the study of grasses, but who was Mary Agnes Chase? Why is her private life so shrouded in mystery, and how can we find out more.