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Maria Mitchell used this telescope, now at the American History Museum, when she taught at Vassar. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

Standing in the entrance to the first floor west wing of the National Museum of American History, a large telescope towers over visitors. It’s angled toward the ceiling, drawing the eye up to imagine the sky above. Saturday marks an auspicious day for the artifact. It is the 191st birthday of astronomer Maria Mitchell, a woman who not only broke the proverbial glass ceiling of her time but managed to gaze deep into the heavens, using this telescope and made significant contributions to the science.

Made by New Yorker Henry Fitz, it was the third largest in the U.S. in the late 1800s. With a 12-3/8 inch diameter lens and equatorial mount, which aligned it with Earth’s poles, the astronomical instrument is impressive.

In 1818, women weren’t expected to be scientists, much less astronomers. Maria Mitchell, born on August 1 of that year, challenged that preconception, becoming an astronomy professor at Vassar Female College where she used Fitz’s telescope.

Mitchell grew up in Nantucket and was greatly influenced by her father, William Mitchell, who was a teacher and encouraged her use of his telescope. For 20 years, she worked as a librarian, while watching the stars at night.

In October 1847, Mitchell established the orbit of a new comet, a discovery that skyrocketed her standing in the scientific community, and she won a medal from the King of Denmark for her efforts. The next year, she became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and became known as America’s first professional female astronomer.

Mitchell accepted a teaching position at Vassar Female College when it opened in 1865. She was an astronomy professor and director of the observatory, which housed the Fitz telescope that had been purchased by the college’s founder, Matthew Vassar.

As a teacher Mitchell encouraged her students to use science to break free from traditional female roles. She once said: “When (women) come to truth through their investigations … the truth which they get will be theirs, and their minds will work on and on unfettered.”

Now, 191 years after her birth, visitors to the American History Museum can see the larger-than-life telescope that Mitchell used during her time at Vassar. As a landmark object, the telescope guides visitors to the science and innovation wing of the museum, where they can learn about everything from the stars to backyard bomb shelters.

In today’s world, multi-tasking is almost fundamental to living a functional life.  But sometimes it seems that the list of tasks is so overwhelming it causes more stress, rather than a sense of accomplishment.  With Simplify Your Life Week (August 1-7) right around the corner, we took a look at the collections at the National Museum of American History to see what inventions have helped to create a simpler life.

The Sewing Machine: Invented in 1846, Elias Howe, Jr., patented the first sewing machine and ever since, hands have suffered fewer needle pricks.  Howe’s machine faded out the mechanical process of sewing and reduced the amount of time it took to create clothing.  Following his lead, Isaac M. Singer created the first domestic sewing machine in 1854, paving the way for the ready-made clothing industry.  With this invention it was now possible to run to the store and grab whatever clothing necessity was needed, rather than taking the time to stitch a garment by hand. So, despite what many members of the opposite-sex might argue with, thank you Isaac Singer for inspiring that stress-reliever known as shopping. (If only he had invented some way to reduce credit card bills too).

Even these little guys enjoy living a simple life Courtesy of Flickr user Gloomy Little Cloud

The Blackberry: While it may be overwhelming to be connected to the world 24/7, it’s nice to have those daily reminders and list of contacts right at your fingertips.  The blackberry simplifies life by combining every form of communication into one, as well as, providing a place to write tasks or check a calender when planning for future events.  Even functioning as a grocery shopping list, versus carrying around hundreds of sticky-notes, the Blackberry is the perfect, modern-day organizational tool. But do remember to set the ‘crack’-berry aside every once in a while and take some alone time to unwind.

The Measuring Cup: Trying to figure out how many ounces are in a cup or how many cups are in a quart? Perhaps not the most grandiose of inventions, it certainly makes life simple for all the non-mathematicians who just want to cook. Most famously remembered at the Smithsonian as a staple item in Julia Child’s kitchen, the measuring cup was invented by Fannie Farmer.  Before her invention, many recipes would list the quantity of ingredients as “some,” “a bit,” “a pinch” or “a little.” Farmer simplified the process of cooking and made recipes precise and repeatable by becoming the first to create a standardized set of measuring devices.  The measuring cup can be viewed in Julia Child’s Kitchen, in the Science and Innovation wing of the NMAH.

The Light Bulb: Let’s face it, this list wouldn’t be complete without Thomas Edison’s illuminating invention. Simple tasks would take twice as long if we were still carrying around candles, not to mention the painful burn marks we’d have to endure. Although not the first to create the light bulb (there are several who were in competition at the same time), Edison invented the first practical light bulb in 1879.  The reason Edison survived his competitors is partly due to the materials he used and partly due to to the fact that he developed an entire electric power system that generated and distributed electricity. Definitely a man with a good business plan, Edison paved the way for future inventions that would let us live a simpler life.  See the lightbulb and other electrical innovations, in the Transportation and Technology wing of the NMAH.

What simplifies your life? Tell us in the comments area below?

Paula Johnson installs Julia Child's copper pots to the original mapped peg board wall at the National Museum of American History. Photograph by Hugh Talman/NMAH

Every cook, be it an elite chef or an aspiring foodie, has a favorite pot. Julia Child, the genius of American cookery, had dozens. So many pots and pans, in fact, that her husband Paul designed a pegboard and mapping system so that each pot could be handily replaced after every use.

Today, the National Museum of American History unveiled Julia Child’s original blue-painted pegboard hung with 30 gleaming French copper pots and pans that once resided in the famous chef’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, home. The addition completes the museum’s Julia Child kitchen collection.

The exhibition “Bon Appétit! Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian,” has been popular with visitors since its 2002 installation after Julia and Paul Child donated the kitchen’s entire contents (minus the copper pots, and more about that later), some 1,200 artifacts, including everything in the drawers and cabinets, as well as the drawers and cabinets and appliances too.

So how is that the pots and pans didn’t make it into the original donation? As luck would have it, another museum got there first. Just days before negotiations began, COPIA, the American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts, in Napa, California, asked for and received the pots and pans. Smithsonian curators were of course disappointed but they, after all, got the mother lode—up to and including the kitchen sink.

In 2008, COPIA closed and the Child family estate sent word to the Smithsonian that the pots and pans were available and the rest, as they say, is history.

Julia Child's copper pots and pans as they looked in her kitchen in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Image courtesy of the museum.

The pots were purchased in France between 1948 and 1952, during the time that the family lived in Provence. Several bear the address 18 rue Coquillière. Every self-respecting cook recognizes that as the home of Dehillerin, the Paris kitchen-supply shop that is to cooking gadgetry what the dictionary is to words.

When Child first discovered the shop, she wrote “I was thunderstruck. Dehillerin was the kitchen-equipment store of all time, a restaurant supply-house stuffed with an infinite number of wondrous gadgets, tools, implements and gewgaws—big shiny copper kettles, turbotières, fish and chicken poachers, eccentrically shaped frying pans, tiny wooden spoons and enormous mixing paddles, elephant-sized salad baskets, all shapes and sizes of knives, choppers, molds, platters, whisks, basins, butter spreaders, and mastodon mashers.”

She later struck up a friendship with the owner, Monsieur Dehillerin, and became “one of his steadiest customers.”

According to Nancy Verde Barr, author of My Years with Julia Child, the pegboard organization system was devised by the couple for their small French kitchen. Storage for the family, like anyone else, was an issue. So Paul cut and painted the boards and then for each pot, pan or tool, he took a thick marker and outlined its shape on the board. Julia, it turns out, was a stickler for organization. When she needed something, she didn’t want to have go looking for it.

From their new perch in the museum, after being tenderly cleaned and arranged by white gloved curators, the pots and pans are gloriously polished. And there for the ages they’ll remain. But truth be told, they are screaming for someone to pluck them off the wall and hoist them over a flame, toss in a stick of butter, some shallots, a bit of wine, some vinegar, salt and pepper and fill the museum galleries with the aroma of something delicious cooking in Julia Child’s kitchen.

“It did my heart good to see rows of . . . copper pots at the ready,” Julie wrote in her 2006 bestseller My Life in France, “I could hardly wait to get behind the stove.”

This image taken in 1976 became known as the "Face on Mars."

Thirty-three years ago this week, in one of the first images sent back from Mars, people thought they detected the likeness of a human face rising from the dust of the red planet. The photo was captured by Viking 1, the first spacecraft to successfully travel to and land on Mars.

The image inspired tabloid headlines like “Monkey Face on Mars” and books like Richard Hoagland’s The Monuments of Mars, in which Hoagland claimed, based on the photos, to have seen “an entire city laid out — on Mars! — with the precision of a Master Architect. I had indeed discovered some kind of artificially constructed Martian ‘complex.’”

Once the public saw the “Face on Mars,” as it came to be called, people became interested in the neighboring planet and possible life there. The trouble, says Smithsonian geologist John Grant of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, is that people assumed it was a sign of advanced alien life.

“In fact, there was a little bit of a misconception about what kind of life scientists were trying to discover on Mars, which was relatively simple life versus complicated life forms that were carving big faces in rocks,” Grant explains.

When scientists first viewed the image, they were confident it was an eroded rock formation, probably a mesa. High resolution photos taken in 1998 and 2001 have confirmed that the “Face on Mars” is a trick of the eye, seen when light hits the mesa at a certain angle. Different parts of the planet’s surface are more resistant to erosion than others and don’t erode as quickly, leaving some areas higher and others lower. This process forms a relief that then creates the shadow, making it look like a face at certain times.

The Viking Lander (proof test article) is on view at the National Air and Space Museum. Photo by Dane Penland, courtesy of Smithsonian Institution.

Grant likes to compare it to the Old Man in the Mountain in New Hampshire (which fell down in 2003). “No one ever thought that the Old Man in the Mountain was something carved by people or aliens or anything else. Yet they could look at it and say: ‘Oh yeah, I see how the sun is shining on that and shadows are cast and it looks like a man’s head,’” he says.

“The same thing can happen on Mars and produce something that, just by sheer coincidence and the way erosion has occurred, creates something that looks like a face,” Grant adds.

The spacecraft Viking 1, that captured the iconic image,  was launched on Aug. 20, 1975, followed one month later by Viking 2. While orbiting Mars, a camera onboard Viking I began scanning potential landing sights, beaming the images back to Earth. In the early morning of July 20, 1976, the Viking 1 lander separated from the orbiter and successfully descended to the surface at about 10,000 miles per hour. Viking 2 followed on Sept. 3, 1976.

The two Viking spacecraft collected information about Martian atmosphere, meteorology and soil composition, and captured more than 50,000 images during their time in orbit and on the surface.

A test version of the Viking Lander now resides in the Milestones of Flight Gallery at the National Air and Space Museum.

Jackie Kennedy wore this dress to the first state dinner in 1961. Image courtesy of the National Museum of American History

“Every now and again there is a first lady that just captures the public’s imagination,” says Lisa Kathleen Graddy, curator of the first ladies exhibition at the National Museum of American History.

“Jackie Kennedy was one of them.” Today marks what would have been Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ 80th birthday.

Stopping by the museum to see the first ladies’ gowns and other artifacts has become a much-loved tradition among the museum’s frequent visitors. The collection on view contains a handful of Jackie’s belongings, including the classic one-shouldered, yellow gown that she wore to the administration’s first state dinner in 1961. Also on display are her three-strand costume pearls, acquired by the museum in 2005.

For many who venture to the exhibit, the visit is less about the items behind the glass and more about the women who once wore them, Graddy said. The American public has always had a certain awe and respect for the life of the first lady.

Not on view, but in the museum’s collection are two other Kennedy gowns, designed by OIeg Cassini, Kennedy’s in-house designer, as well as the Bergdorf Goodman gown she wore to the 1961 inaugural ball. The delicate nature of the materials in the first ladies’ dresses requires that the museum rotate its collections to  assure their preservation for future generations.

Also a crowd pleaser: an interesting collection of Christmas cards that Jackie Kennedy designed to help raise funds for the construction of Washington, D.C.’s  John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

“The amazing fortitude, grace and dignity that Jackie showed during those times when she led the country in mourning for the President—people have very strong memories of that. I think seeing material that was Mrs. Kennedy’s in some way, makes them connect to that,” Graddy said.

A tufted deer is weighed at the National Zoo Research Center. Photo by Lisa Ware, courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

A rare tufted deer was born at the National Zoo’s Conservation and Research Center in Virginia on July 16. The deer was the fourth species to give birth in one week, joining the clouded leopards, Przewalski horses and red pandas in welcoming new members to the Zoo family.

Tufted deer, called that for the tuft of hair on their forehead, are native to the forests of southern China. They are usually found within giant panda reserves. The animal is difficult to trace in the wild because of its elusive habits—it travels alone, or with a single mate, in the late evening or at dusk. But wildlife experts say that some 100,000 are killed annually by local hunters. The IUCN lists the species as near threatened; and even captive animals are rare with fewer than 110 living in U.S. zoos.

This is the 11th tufted deer baby to be born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo since 1994, when the first arrived. Unlike North American white-tailed deer, tufted deer only grow to be about 1.5 feet tall, about the height of a medium-sized dog.

The keepers say that, as in the wild, the mother will raise her fawn alone, although the father usually stays with the pregnant mother until she gives birth. This tufted deer family will not be on public display.

Today marks the anniversary of Bugs Bunny’s first starring role in “A Wild Hare.” An early version of the ”wascally wabbit” had appeared in 1938’s ”Porky’s Hare Hunt,” but it wasn’t until this 1940 short film that his character was fully designed and delivered the immortal line “What’s up, Doc?” to his nemesis Elmer Fudd.

Since then this long-eared actor hasn’t looked back, sharing the screen with Michael Jordan and co-starring in the Oscar-winning film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? In 2002, he topped TV Guide’s list of greatest cartoon characters.

Bugs Bunny’s contributions to entertainment and pop culture haven’t been overlooked by the Smithsonian Institution. In the National Museum of American History’s “Thanks for the Memories” exhibition, animation cells of Bugs and other Looney Tunes are displayed right around the corner from the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in the 1939 film “Wizard of Oz.” All of the cells were donated by Mel Blanc, the actor who gave Bugs his Brooklyn/Bronx voice.

So, if you’re on the mall today, be sure to stop by the American History Museum and pay homage to Bugs.

Leopard by Jessie A. Walker. Come hear storyteller Diane Macklin tell the tale of how this animal got its spots. Image courtesy of the American Art Museum.

Monday, July 27: Nothing special going on today, kids. You can check out the roster of regularly-scheduled programming at the Smithsonian here.

Tuesday, July 28: Artful Animals and Storied Stamps

Come by the National Postal Museum where you can explore Africa and learn about the art of stamp design. Afterwards, be sure to check out the exhibit Delivering Hope: FDR and the Stamps of the Great Depression. Free. For persons aged 5-15. Postal Museum, 10:30 AM. This event repeats today at 1:30 PM

Wednesday, July 29: Animal Folktales

Storyteller, actress and educator Diane Macklin will tell you the tale “How Many Spots Does a Leopard Have” and offer guidance on how to write your own stories, in addition to other activities. For persons ages 6 and up. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Free. African Art Museum, 10:30-11:30 AM.

Thursday, July 30: Look Out! It’s D’s Magic Show!

Magician “Mr. Dave” Thomen with his lovely assistant Donatello (a too-cute-for-words white rabbit) have a host of show-stopping tricks up his sleeve, so come on out to the Ripley Center for a performance filled with humor, song and wonderment. Tickets are required. Rates are: $6, adults; $5, children (ages 2-16); $4, Resident Members. Call 202-633-8700 to make your reservations today. Ripley Center, 10:15 AM. Repeats today at 11:30 AM and on Friday at 10:15 AM and 11:30 AM.

Friday, July 31: Forensic Friday

Join Smithsonian forensic anthropologists as they study new cases from America’s historic past. Take advantage of this opportunity to ask the forensic anthropologists questions and observe first-hand the basic methods used for documenting human remains recovered from archaeological investigations. Relates to the exhibit Written in Bone, which was recently covered in Smithsonian. Free. Natural History Museum, 1:00 PM

For more information on events and exhibitions at the Smithsonian museums, check our companion website, goSmithsonian.com, the official visitor’s guide to the Smithsonian.