Description: Everyone loves a parade – especially one followed by a banquet. When scientists and politicians met in Washington, D.C., on November 23, 1936, to celebrate the centennial of the U.S. patent system, they listened first to a conventional program of speeches. Then, in the afternoon, Science Service director Watson Davis arranged something different: a “Research Parade” featuring
Description: Recently, I read some interesting news about the National Public Radio blog, “The Picture Show,” that explores photographic images and issues.
Description: 100 years ago in August of 1914, the Panama Canal opened to commercial shipping. Smithsonian scientists knew the canal would create major environmental changes and have spent the last 100 years documenting them.
Description: Research on shark attacks began at the National Museum of Natural History in 1958 when the Shark Research Panel was formed to track attacks and develop shark repellents.
Description: As a postdoctoral fellow at the National Museum of American History, I’ve spent months in the Smithsonian Institution Archives researching a book tentatively titled, Not Naturally a Grass Country: Environment, Plant Genetics, and the Quest for Agricultural Modernization in the Humid World. It’s largely a story about global attempts to replace one form of agriculture—the
Description: Though small in stature, Elvira Clain-Stefanelli was a force to be reckoned with at the Smithsonian, where she earned the role of the first executive director of the National Museum of American History’s National Numismatic Collection.
Description: When did women begin to manage Smithsonian museums? Meet Grace Dunham Guest who was a key staff member in opening the Freer Gallery of Art in 1923.
Description: As the architect Victor Lundy turns 90, we look back at the redwood shade structures he designed in the mid-1960s for the terrace of the new Museum of History and Technology (today the National Museum of American History).