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The Sound of Digitization
Before (top) and after (bottom) conservationof a page from Dorsey’s “Comparative Dakota,Ponca (and Omaha), Osage, Quapaw, Kansa,Winnebago, Iowa, Mandan, Hidatsa, andCrow vocabulary 1877” (MS...
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Love, the Smithsonian Collections Blog
Happy Valentine's Day, dear readers! We're celebrating today with a love-themed treasury of images from our collections here at the Smithsonian. Your editors were surprised to learn that love can be...
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‘If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again’ – Opening the Museum of...
Frank A. Taylor, 1962, photographer unknown, SIA, SIA2010-0495.When the Museum of History and Technology, now the National Museum of American History, was opened to the public in January of 1964, its...
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Every Dog Has its Sleigh
This weekend the XXII Olympic Winter Games will come to a close after much sliding, skating, skiing and snowboarding over snow and ice. Though there have been a few event staples since the 1924 Winter...
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Cracking the Gullah Code
If you’re a regular reader of the Collections Search Center blog then you know the Lorenzo Dow Turner papers have been the topic of several posts. If not, here’s a refresher: Dr. Turner, the first...
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That's A-Maze-ing: Mazes and Labyriths
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a maze as “a structure designed as a puzzle, consisting of a complicated network of winding and interconnecting paths or passages.” While that sounds daunting as a...
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Oscars in the Archives
Ah, the Oscars. I love them. The host's opening musical montage, the crisp tuxes and clouds of chiffon on the red carpet, the long-winded thank you speeches (OK, maybe not that part so much). In honor...
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Poised and Posed
American Art's photograph archives are not exclusive to images of artwork and gallery views. A quick keyword search will find images of artist studios as well as portraits of the artists themselves....
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Celebrity Endorsements: Commerce, Credibility, and Cataloguing
One of the mixed joys of being the SIRIS cataloguing coordinator/editor for the NMAH Archives Center is the “opportunity” to correct and enhance old records, many of them entered by interns and...
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Collections Connections: Past and Future
"A museum has to renew its collection to be alive, but that does not mean we give on important old works." - David RockefellerI have surely come to understand this concept during my internship with the...
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Amateur Naturalists in the Netherlands Documenting Coastal Biology in "Het...
Changing cover designs for Het Zeepaard from 1947-1990In 1941, as World War II raged across the European continent, a group of devoted young researchers started a new journal on the coastal biology of...
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Comparing Observations: Vernon and Florence Merriam Bailey
One of the benefits of the Field Book Project’s efforts to catalog Smithsonian field books has been to enable researchers to reconnect field book content to related natural history documentation (e.g....
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Singing the Past: Gullah Heritage & the Georgia Sea Island Singers
There are endless things to say--or sing--about the ways in which music unites us. Throughout history, people have raised their voices in choruses of faith, of protest, of hope and joy. One power of...
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Spring Quilts
Though the weather here in D.C. may disagree, according to the calendar springtime is here! For some, that may mean cleaning out your closets, boxing up your sweaters and folding up your winter...
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A Century of Cherry Blossom Watches
Cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin, circa 1920s. J. Horace McFarland, photographer. (AAG# DC001)Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, J. Horace McFarland Collection The first day of...
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April is National Poetry Month
Miami-Dade Public Library bookmobile, ca. 1976 / Lowell Nesbitt, photographer. Lowell Nesbitt papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.Did you know that the month of April is dedicated...
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WARPATH!
Louis E. Neuman & Co. cigar box label, ca. 1890? Tobacco Trade and Industry Series,Warshaw Collection of Business American, Archives Center, National Museum of American History Among the many...
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Mountains: Climbing to the Top
Mountains are a distinctive geographic feature that ripple throughout Asia. They can be seen as backdrops to cities and at the center of epic adventures.Kurdistan, Iraq: Kuh-e Owraman Mountain Range,...
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Solomon G. Brown's Poetry
Did you know Solomon G. Brown—the first African American employee of the Smithsonian Institution—was also a talented poet? The legacy of Solomon Brown is not generally known beyond the Smithsonian or...
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Who’s on First?
Plays. Musicians. Jugglers. Comedians. Entertainment has existed in every culture going back to the traveling bards and troubadours of old. These photographs give us a little peak into what...
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