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Getting Warmer: Clues in the Reflections
This post is a follow-up to "Cold Cases and Archival Mysteries," in which we invited you, the readers of this blog, to help us identify a group of photographs from boxes labeled “miscellaneous” in the...
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Voting Power: Woman Suffrage
We’ve got a lot to celebrate this last week of August. Along with commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, this week also marks the 93rd anniversary of the certification of the...
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Unity, Function, Simplicity, Scale: Thomas Dolliver Church
“A garden should have no beginning and no end” - Thomas D. ChurchWhen you explore a garden that is visually stunning, do you ever stop to wonder about the design, about the decisions and thought that...
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Dawn of the Century
"Dawn of the Century" by E. T. Paull, published by E. T. Paull Music Co., 1900.Sheet music from the Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music,Archives Center, National Museum of...
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How a 51 Year Old Field Notebook Triggered an Investigation at the Smithsonian
The travelogOn December 3rd, 1962, a scientist named Doris Mabel Cochran set off from New York on a Pan American jet plane. She was headed into South America to collect frog specimens on an expedition...
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Picture Day Take Two
Entomological Staff, c. 1905, SIA, SIA2011-0103It’s that time of year again when teachers and kids head back to school. Backpacks and lunchboxes are filled and picture day is just around the corner....
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No Time Like the Present: Dorn C. McGrath Jr. Slide Collection
Dorn C. McGrath Jr., image taken by Rob Crandall, 2013In the archival world it is a rare that you get to interview the creator of a collection. Either archival collections are deposited after an...
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Printmaking 101: Lithography
Wooden type (photo: Bettina Smith)Hi, my name is Bettina, and I am a print history geek. A visit to the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany is my idea of a good time. I've been to print history summer...
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True Story: October is American Archives Month!
Ed O'Reilly (center), intern Heidi Talbot (left), and Sallie Bodie (right) hold items from the newly acquired Moses and Frances Asch Collection at the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies...
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Jim Pepper: Jazz and Native American melodies
True story: Native American musicians have been involved in jazz from its earliest days.Mildred Bailey(Coeur d’Alene) was the first “girl singer” to front a jazz big band in the late 1920s and early...
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A Treasury of Smithsonian Shutdowns
Ronald Wilson Reagan / 1981-1989 from the portfolio Hindsight is Always 20/20,R. Luke DuBois, 2008, Smithsonian American Art Museum, negative number 2011.9.38 Closing the Smithsonian during the budget...
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True Story? Glass Lantern Slides
The Smithsonian Collections Blog theme for American Archives Month is True Story--a simple enough assignment until you go looking for one! According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word 'story'...
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Proto-Surrealism and Fantasy in Early Advertising Art
Advertising card for Soapine, manufactured by Kendall Manufacturing Co.From the Soap series, Warshaw Collection of Business AmericanaAmong the sources, progenitors, and inspirations for the Surrealist...
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Heart and Soul!: The Ellis B. Haizlip Papers
This summer I had the pleasure of reorganizing the Ellis B. Haizlip Papers at the Anacostia Community Museum. The papers, accumulated by Haizlip throughout his adult life, tell the true story of...
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The Guardian of Downtown Harrisonburg
I went to college in Harrisonburg, Virginia. One of my regular outings was walking from campus to downtown to visit friends and shop at the great consignment shops. On every trip downtown I'd pass this...
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Archivists & Librarians: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fonds
The author. Image digitally altered to include glasses.True story: I work at the Archives of American Art, but I am not an archivist. I'm a librarian in archivist's clothing (which doesn't actually...
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Restoration of the Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver: From Airplane to Archives Back...
True story: when you are restoring an airplane, you may need to make a trip to the archives. The National Air and Space Museum is working to restore our Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver, currently located in...
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George Peter Alexander Healy (1813–1894), Cosmopolitan Artist
Self-Portrait by George Peter Alexander Healy, not dated, oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (NPG.70.17)The theme for American Archives Month is True...
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Spooked in the Stacks
Child with Jack-o-lantern [photoprint]. From J. Horace McFarland Collection, Archives of American Gardens.True story: archives aren't as creepy in real life as they are in movies. There aren't cobwebs...
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Failed Invention? Go Figure!
Manikin parts, circa 1930sTrue story: not all inventions succeed. We tend to hear about and celebrate the inventions that change and advance the ways in which we live and experience the world. We don’t...
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