Show your support for Clinton with a hat that looks like cheese. Photo courtesy of the American History Museum

As the 2012 presidential campaign gains steam with party conventions, round-the-clock television ads and the usual up-tick in party-affiliated rhetoric, it becomes necessary to remind ourselves of the timelessness of such divides. In his 1796 farewell address, George Washington warned against the dangers of political factions: “The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.”

We have yet to heed his advice.

Political history curators Larry Bird and Harry Rubenstein of the National Museum of American History have spent decades collecting the ephemera of our two party system, putting ideologies aside in the spirit of assembling the most valuable mementos for American history students of the future. Attending both conventions every four years, Bird and Rubenstein (known as “Harry and Larry”) preserve materials that best represent the atmosphere of the presidential campaigns, from the red, white and blue confetti that rains down at the end of speeches, to the dapper buttons of the candidates’ devotees.

In celebration of the work that Harry and Larry embark on every year, we’ve assembled a few tokens of presidential campaign memorabilia from the Smithsonian collections.

Avoiding slogans and slander, this poster gives just the facts: who’s running, where they’re from and what they look like. Photo courtesy the American History Museum

Benjamin Harrison, who beat incumbent Grover Cleveland in 1888 to become the 23rd president. Photo courtesy of the American History Museum

Horatio Seymour, the 1868 Democratic nominee, lost to Ulysses S. Grant. Photo courtesy of the American History Museum

Alton Parker, the 1904 Democratic nominee, lost to the popular incumbent Theodore Roosevelt. Photo courtesy of the American History Museum

A campaign button from the 1869 election of Ulysses S. Grant. Photo courtesy of the American History Museum

For Harry and Larry, collecting campaign memorabilia “reflects the larger story of democratic history.” Photo courtesy of the American History Museum

No need to borrow any tunes from rock stars, this time. A songbook for Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign. Photo courtesy of the American History Museum

…And with this song, you will too. Photo courtesy of the American History Museum

The magazine every kid awaited eagerly, Bradley’s Game and Toy Catalogue. 1889-1900.

Are video games making us violent? Is all that screen time playing Angry Birds bad for us? Are we becoming lazy and inferior beings? Concerns about how we spend our leisure time are so 21st century, but an 1889 catalogue of Milton Bradley’s finest toys and games reveals the anxiety is rooted in history. Playing games has had a bum rap for generations and game makers had to fight “a deep-rooted prejudice against all such pastimes.”

Great minds like Thomas Jefferson worried about the harmful effects of such activities. The third president once mused:“Almost all these pursuits of chance [i.e., of human industry] produce something useful to society. But there are some which produce nothing, and endanger the well-being of the individuals engaged in them or of others depending on them. Such are games with cards, dice, billiards, etc. And although the pursuit of them is a matter of natural right, yet society, perceiving the irresistible bent of some of its members to pursue them, and the ruin produced by them to the families depending on these individuals, consider it as a case of insanity, quoad hoc, step in to protect the family and the party himself, as in other cases of insanity, infancy, imbecility, etc., and suppress the pursuit altogether, and the natural right of following it.”

Gateway temptations have long been plentiful.

From the Smithsonian Libraries, a recently digitized collection of catalog materials (which also include medical journals waxing poetic on the location of the human soul), we present an amusing sampling:

Cited as “a pioneer among the moral and instructive amusements which have been welcomed into our homes,” the Checkered Game of Life rewarded honesty and industry but punished gambling.

A cheaper option for home entertainment, carpet bowls prepared children for the “‘survival of the fittest’ in the sports of childhood, just as in any other relations of life.”

But enough with children’s games, how is a lady to entertain? A further search in the collections reveals helpful game playing tips from the Chicago Corset Company, which in 1887 offered women a how-to for throwing the liveliest, most rocking affair of parlor and lawn games, wearing, of course, the company’s latest hot-seller the, “Health Preserving Corset.”

In its Handbook of Games and Pastimes, women were admonished for wearing the competitor’s corset. By doing so, “she is preparing herself to be a dumpy woman.” The new corset with elastic material promises to maintain “the dainty waist of the poets” without contributing to the “perishing of the muscles that support the frame.”  Unlike men, who simply suffer from slovenly stooping, the text tells us, women lose height “by actual collapse.” Yikes!

Better materials made this corset an improvement and the Chicago Corset Company wanted to make sure society women knew all about it before they went off to play any lawn or parlor games.

Once instructed on the virtues of new corset models, the properly swaddled lady of leisure is free to play lawn tennis, learn to read palms and stage elaborate themed productions, such as: two young lovers trying to become intimate while a sleeping old woman waits nearby; Pocahontas and John Smith courting each other; or a soldier preparing for war. The guide offers step-by-step instructions for each role-playing game and, as a thoughtful reminder, the company advertises its Misses’ Corsets, to help “train your daughters to a healthy and symmetrical body.”

A game and corset for every age!

For the younger set, H.P. Misses’ Corset.

What do you get for an institution that has everything? A three-cent stamp! 1946, Smithsonian Archives

It was just 166 short years ago that President James K. Polk signed into law a bill establishing the Smithsonian Institution. Founded at the bequest of the British mineralogist and chemist James Smithson, the Smithsonian was created for the “increase and diffusion of knowledge” and we’ve been at it ever since. Over the years, the Institution has grown to 19 museums and the National Zoo. Here’s a look at how it got there:

View of the north facade of the Castle, circa 1860. Smithsonian Archives

These two American bison called the Castle’s South Yard home. Circa 1886-1889, Smithsonian Archives

Artist Charles Hoover found artistic inspiration in the Smithsonian’s picturesque setting. Circa 1933-1943, Smithsonian Archives

A crowd gathers to watch the installation of Secretary Adams in 1984. Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Smithsonian Archives

And a view of the Castle as it looks now. Photo by Eric Long, 2012

Sarah Stierch, the Smithsonian Archives' Wikipedian in Residence. Image courtesy of WIkimedia Commons.

Sarah Stierch, the Smithsonian Archives’ new Wikipedian-in-Residence, freely admits there are some drawbacks to crowd-sourcing an encyclopedia.

“When you have the world writing the world’s history, you’re going to have: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, General Custer, John F. Kennedy, maybe Jackie O,” she says.  “And then you’re going to have ‘Seinfeld,’ Justin Bieber, The Hunger Games, and Lady Gaga. The end. That’s the history of the world.”

Since Wikipedia’s birth in 2001, the non-profit website has ballooned to almost 4 million articles in English and has versions in 283 languages. Readers write the articles, correct mistakes, and police the database for “vandalism” (by nominating frivolous or unreliable articles for deletion). But not all Wikipedia articles are created equal.

“Seinfeld episodes are some of the best, well-sourced articles out there,” Stierch says in exasperation. “Don’t get me wrong; it’s a classic American television show, I love it. But then you have a stub [a short, unlinked article] for some of the most important female scientists or artists on Earth? What’s going on here?”

Stierch, in conjunction with the Smithsonian Archives, is working to change that. On March 30, shortly after Stierch started her residency, the Archives hosted “She Blinded Me With Science: Smithsonian Women in Science Edit-a-Thon.” Ten Wikipedians showed up, armed with laptops and ready to tackle the significant dearth of articles on notable female scientists. Smithsonian archivists stood by to help the Wikipedians sort through the Archives’ and Libraries’ resources, both online and offline. Each editor chose a name or two from a list compiled by the archivists and started digging through the records. Many articles had to be started from scratch. Stierch has made it her mission to get more women on Wikipedia, both as editors and as subjects.

“This is the most women I have ever seen at an edit-a-thon,” Stierch declared at the beginning of the four hour session, surveying the seven women in the room.

According to the last Wikimedia Foundation editors survey, only nine percent of Wikipedia editors are women, down from 13 percent in 2010.

“The majority of the editors are white males around 30 years old with higher education, a bachelors or masters degree,” Stierch says. “So, we’ve got a group of smart people, but just like history, it’s being written by middle-aged white guys.”

Before starting the residency with the Archives, Stierch had started coordinating edit-a-thons all over the world for Women’s History Month, both to encourage more women to get involved in Wikipedia and to improve the website’s coverage of women. At the same time, the Archives staff had been writing blog posts on women in the collections and updating their Women in Science Flickr set. When Stierch joined, they put their heads together and came up with the Women in Science Edit-a-Thon.

The Women in Science Edit-a-Thon in progress. Image courtesy of Sarah Stierch's Twitter.

“One of the biggest complaints we get is that women who are involved in science don’t always have a great chance of having their articles saved on Wikipedia, because people don’t think they’re notable enough,” Stierch says. “But if you’re in the Smithsonian Archives, you’re notable. And I’m so happy that the Archives wants to work with us to document that.”

Among the edit-a-thon’s targeted scientists were Mary Agnes Chase, a botanist who funded her own research in South America at the turn of the 20th century because it was considered inappropriate for women to do field work, and Mary J. Rathburn, a Smithsonian zoologist from the same time period who described over a thousand new species and subspecies of crustaceans.

Midway through the edit-a-thon, Stierch tweeted, “We’ve already had numerous articles nominated for deletion. But we’ve saved them.”

This isn’t Stierch’s first stint at the Smithsonian; last year, she was a Wikipedian-in-Residence at the Archives of American Art, which contributed 285 images to Wikimedia Commons, the free image bank of Wikipedia. Now a Museum Studies graduate student at the George Washington University, Stierch sees a lot of overlap between Wikipedia and the Smithsonian’s mission: the increase and diffusion of knowledge. In spite of the need for more demographical diversity, this mission has already connected very different people with many varied interests.

“I have met everyone from people who have their PhDs, who are lawyers, who have books on the New York Times bestseller list, who are jazz musicians, and punk rockers with mohawks,” Stierch says of the Wikipedian community. As Wikipedian-in-Residence, Stierch connects these tech-savvy Wikipedians, who need more resources, with Smithsonian archivists, who are eager to disseminate their vast stores of information to a wider audience (Wikipedia has an estimated readership of 365 million people).

“So many people who aren’t involved in the museum feel distant from the curators and the archivists,” she says, waving toward the Edit-a-Thon “war room.” “Knowing they’re all hanging out in the same room over there makes me very happy.”

Elizabeth Sabin Goodwin was a scientific illustrator for Science Service in the 1920s. Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Each March, the Smithsonian Institution Archives celebrates Women’s History Month by posting historical photographs of female scientists, science journalists and engineers to a Flickr Commons album. Taken from the 191os to 1960s, the portraits capture many women who were pioneers in their fields. But for a number of the photographs, however, there is little in terms of caption information identifying the women.

The women are pictured at their desks with microscopes, botanical illustrations or jarred specimens; standing at chalkboards displaying graphs and equations; and in labs tending to test tubes, beakers and petri dishes. A few are scraping away at archaeological sites.

“There are a lot of firsts,” says supervisory archivist Tammy Peters of the photos that are identified. “First woman to get a PhD in geology, or first woman to get this particular degree.”

The images come from a cache of records from a news organization called Science Service. Founded in 1921, Science Service popularized and disseminated scientific information. (It is now called the Society for Science & the Public.) ”It was kind of at the forefront of putting information about these women out there,” says Peters.

But with so many of the photos lacking identification, the Smithsonian Institution Archives decided it would reach out to the public for help in identifying and researching the scientists. Each March, a handful of largely unidentified portraits are posted to the Archives’ Flickr site.

“I was a little skeptical at first about what we could achieve through crowd-sourcing,” says Peters, “but we had really great success.” According to the archivist, the first real “OMG moment” was sparked by a photograph (above) posted in March 2009. In it, a young woman with a black bob, eyes deadlocked on the camera, sat at a desk, pen in hand. She was identified simply as “E.S. Goodwin.”

Thanks to the detective work of Flickr users, bits and pieces surfaced—first, her wedding announcement and then a high school yearbook photo. The woman was positively identified as Elizabeth Sabin Goodwin, an artist based in Washington, D.C. who had attended the Corcoran School of Art in the 1920s. Given that her portrait was in the Science Service files, the archives guessed that Goodwin was a scientific illustrator.

Then, came a surprise. Linda Goodwin Eisenstadt posted a comment: “This is my grandmother.” Eisenstadt was able to fill in many of the gaps in Goodwin’s life story. She lived from 1902 to 1980, and was, in fact, an illustrator for Science Service. In the 1920s, she drew cartoonographs, which comically illustrated political, social and economic statistics.

Bertha Pallan has been referred to as the first female Native American archaeologist. Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette, a research associate at the archives, compared drawings Eisenstadt provided to others in the Smithsonian collections and ultimately found 38 unsigned cartoonographs that she could comfortably attribute to Goodwin.

“This is still is one of my favourite ‘stories’ on Flickr,” wrote Flickr user Brenda Anderson.

Of the 15 photographs of scientists the archives posted this month, Peters has strong leads on eight. She was particularly curious about Bertha Pallan, an “expedition secretary” shown holding atlatl darts (right).

“Certain images are going to attract your attention. This was one of them,” says Peters. “It is a stunning picture.” So far, Flickr users have reported that Pallan grew up in Southern California in the early 1900s. She married three times; her third husband was Oscar Cody, or “Iron Eyes Cody,” an actor who played Indian roles in numerous 20th-Century American films. Most significantly, Pallan has been referred to as the first female Native American archaeologist. She was secretary for an expedition of the Gypsum Cave in Nevada, when this photograph was taken.

Perhaps you know more.

Browse through this year’s additions.

Readers questions continue this month with some really intriguing queries. Can you identify a bird just by its feather? The aptly named Carla Dove, a Smithsonian ornithologist weighs in on that one in the video above. And speaking of our fine feathered friends, another reader wonders why it is that birds all seem to want to hang out near electrical transformers? From dinosaurs to telescopes to gemstones, you asked and we found the answers.

Are there any paleontological discoveries, such as dinosaur bones, left to be made in the United States?
Susanne Ott, Bern, Switzerland

There sure are. This is such a large country, and there are so many areas yet to be searched, that we may not run out of finds for several lifetimes. Just think: We have found only about 2,000 species of dinosaurs for the 160 million years they were alive on Earth. Given that a species lasts only a few million years, we must be missing many thousands of dinosaur species. The most promising places are out West, where it’s drier and paleontologists can get access to fossil-bearing rocks.

Matthew Carrano, Paleontologist
Museum of Natural History

How much artistic license do scientists use when they portray astronomical features detected by radio telescopes?
Jeanne Long, Atlanta, Georgia

A lot, actually. Radio-telescope images differ from the images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope—while Hubble images are recorded in the visible wavelengths of light we see in rainbows, radio telescopes record electromagnetic radio waves sent out by distant galactic objects. They detect what our ears might pick up if we could hear the universe. (Luckily, we can’t, or the world would be a jumbled mess of rumbling sounds.) Based on the intensity of the radio waves, astronomers plot signal strengths and assign different colors to them.

Although it would be handy and logical, there is no set convention to those color assignments. Scientists choose different colors to bring out specific details or molecules found in the image. (If you do a quick Google image search for the Trifid Nebula, you’ll see images with different color representations of the same object.) Is it fair to randomly assign different colors to objects in space? To astronomers, that’s not an issue. They are simply trying to isolate data. And the truth is, the human eye is not sensitive enough to pick up the true colors of these objects anyway. So, the next time you see a breathtaking picture from space, thank a scientist for putting it all together.

David Aguilar, Astronomer and illustrator
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Is it true that the Smithsonian is still cataloguing items from Charles Wilkes’ United States Exploring Expedition?
Kevin Ramsey, Washington, D.C.

That expedition returned from its four-year exploration of the Pacific in 1842 with an immense trove—hundreds of fish and mammal specimens, more than 2,000 bird specimens, 50,000 plant specimens, a thousand live plants, some 4,000 ethnographic objects, such as Fijian war clubs, Samoan fish hooks and New Zealand baskets. But no, the Smithsonian is not still cataloguing them. That job largely fell to the scientists who accompanied Wilkes, and they completed it, well, expeditiously. The collection was exhibited in the Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C. for several years, before it came to the Smithsonian.

Pamela M. Henson, Historian
Smithsonian Institution Archives

Did Mathew Brady really take all the Civil War photographs that are credited to him?
Patrick Ian, Bethesda, Maryland
No. By 1861, Mathew Brady was one of the best-known photographers in America, with portrait studios in New York City and Washington, D.C.  While his staff handled day-to-day operations, Brady provided the creative vision and marketing expertise that made his studios famous. When the Civil War began, he assembled and outfitted teams of photographers and sent them into the field to ensure that his cameras would be present to produce a visual record of the conflict. Although Brady traveled periodically to battlefields and encampments, the Civil War photographs that carry his credit line were typically made by his cameramen. The look of the portraits produced in Brady’s studios—such as those featured in the National Portrait Gallery’s new exhibition, Mathew Brady’s Photographs of Union Generals (March 30, 2012-May 31, 2015)—reflected his aesthetic even when he was not present for the portrait session.
Ann M. Shumard, Curator of Photographs
National Portrait Gallery

Why do birds like to congregate around electric transformers?
Luis Tewes, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

While the ever-growing electrical grid spells trouble for most species of birds, some have incorporated human structures into their lives. Power lines are a flight hazard to many species, but they also provide elevated perches, particularly in open country where there are few natural alternatives, for sit-and-wait predators, such as bluebirds, shrikes and small raptors. Many species use electric lines to rest or monitor their territories; and flocks of blackbirds and starlings and other birds gather on wires before they join large communal roosts. Power-line poles and towers and their attendant transformers provide additional support and protection for flocks and larger species, such as raptors. A few species even commandeer power poles and transformers as nesting sites. Transformers may produce some heat, which may explain why some birds like them. The monk parrakeet, introduced from Argentina, nests and roosts around transformers and has expanded into some pretty cold urban areas.

Birds’ use of power equipment illustrates their impressive adaptability, but awareness of high-voltage electric currents is not in their DNA.  While a bird can perch on a high-voltage line in complete safety, as soon as it makes secondary contact with a conductor that leads to a ground, it will be fried. Large birds taking flight or producing “streamers” of fecal material often complete the circuit to their demise. Fecal build-up, gnawing (by parrots) and nesting material can short out lines or transformers, leading to massive power outages.  Bird mortality might be reduced, and electrical service might be more reliable, if we had a better-designed grid.

Russell Greenberg, Wildlife Biologist,
Migratory Bird Center, National Zoo

In aserated (or “starred”) gemstones, such as the ruby and sapphire varieties of corundum, what is the average amount of rutile per square millimeter? And how many asterated gemstones does the Smithsonian Institution have?
Davis M. Upchurch, Fletcher, North Carolina

In synthetic asterated corundum, about 0.1 to 0.3 percent titanium oxide is typically mixed with the aluminum oxide. That gives you a ballpark idea as to the fraction of rutile (which is usually given as an amount per cubic millimeter). The Museum of Natural History has about 50 asterated gems in its collection, including, 21 specimens of corundum. We add new ones sporadically, and we’re always on the lookout for different or better examples.
Jeffrey Post, Curator of Gems and Minerals,
Museum of Natural History

We’re ready for still more questions. Please submit your queries here.

Hans Langseth and the world's longest beard. The beard is currently held at the Natural History Museum. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

In honor of American Archives Month, the Smithsonian Institution is hosting an Archives Fair on Friday, October 14 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Ripley Center. There, meet archivists and see some of the ephemera and materials held within the Smithsonian collections in person. Bring your own family heirlooms and precious items to participate in the popular “Ask the Smithsonian” program and get tips on preserving them (free consultation appointments can be made online).

With Archives Month in mind, we bring you a list featuring items from the Smithsonian Institution Archives, home to pieces of the Smithsonian’s history from its 19th century birth through recent times. Here are a few of the archive’s offerings:

1. The Last Will and Testament of James Smithson: The Institution’s founder James Smithson was a wealthy British scientist who never set foot in America. He stipulated that, if his nephew died without a legitimate heir, the Smithson fortune would go towards creating an establishment for the “increase and diffusion of knowledge” in Washington, D.C. The Smithsonian Institution bears the name of this unlikely founder and strives to carry out his mission to this day.

2. 1894 Exhibit of Automobiles: This 19th-century photo looks like one of a historical exhibition. At the time, though, the display of automobiles on view in the Arts and Industries Building (now closed for renovation) must have looked like the future. Nearly a decade before the Ford Motor Company was even established, the cars on display were still a new-fangled invention with little practical application.

An 1894 exhibition of automobiles at what is now the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building. Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution Archives

3. The Wright Brothers’ Letters to the Smithsonian: Before the Wright brothers became world famous for inventing the first successful airplane, they wrote to the Smithsonian asking for help. This set of six letters, beginning in 1899, asked for information on aeronautics and suggestions for relevant readings. The last letter, dated June 1903, came just six months before their legendary flight, December 3, 1903.

4. Letter Offering to Sell a Two-Legged Dog: In 1902, Frank Elliott of Phillips Station, Pennsylvania, wrote to the Smithsonian with a proposition: that the Institution pay him $800 for a remarkable two-legged dog named Clelonda. The dog, Elliott wrote, “is the liveliest dog I ever saw, handling himself with only the two hind leggs [sic] as well as other dogs can with four.” Despite its reputation as “the Nation’s Attic,” the Smithsonian declined the offer.

5. The World’s Longest Beard: Hans Langseth was born in Norway in 1846. When he died on November 10, 1927, he was an American citizen and had a beard 18-and-a-half feet long. During his years as a farmer in Minnesota and North Dakota, he used to roll up the beard and tuck it into his jacket. Later on, he joined a circus act and displayed his beard full-time. His relatives cut off the beard and donated it to the Natural History Museum upon his death, where it remains one of the Smithsonian’s strangest artifacts, and a photo of museum staff “trying on” the beard resides in the Institution Archives.

Winterton Conway Curtis (1875-1969) testified on behalf of John T. Scopes during the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian

The Smithsonian Institution Archives is celebrating the 86th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial this month with the release of 25 newly digitized photographs from the trial. The images depict the scientists who served as evolution experts in defense of teacher John T. Scopes. The cache of images were discovered in the archives in 2005 by independent researcher Marcel C. LaFollette among papers and files donated to the Smithsonian in 1971. This marks the first time the photos have been assembled together on the web and have been added to the Smithsonian Flickr page.

The photographs were taken by Watson Davis, the managing editor of Science Service, an Associated Press-like news organization that produced and published science and technology stories from 1920 to 1963. “Watson Davis and Frank Thone, a writer for Science Service stayed in the “Defense Mansion”—an antebellum home on the outskirts of Dayton used as headquarters by Scopes’ defense team—with the prospective expert witnesses. They took photos of the group as well as individual portraits. This addition to our Scopes Trial set on Flickr represents a rare, complete, grouping of images of the witnesses in one place. We are always looking to add more of our great collections online and the anniversary of the trial offered an occasion to highlight more from the material in our collections documenting the events of July 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee,” says Tammy Peters, Supervisory Archivist with SIA, via e-mail.

July 21, 1925, marked the announcement of the verdict of “The Trial of the Century,” The State of Tennessee vs. Scopes, also referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, and the subject of the famous play and film Inherit the Wind. Set in the small Tennessee town located a few miles outside of Chattanooga, high school teacher John T. Scopes was tried for breaking a law that banned the teaching of evolution in the state’s public schools. The arrest and prosecution of the teacher brought fame to Dayton, attracting the attention of lawyer Clarence Darrow and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.

Darrow was chosen as lead defense attorney for Scopes with Bryan heading up the prosecution. The result was an eleven-day trial beginning on July 10, that saw the defense team call as witnesses a panel of scholars of the day, including geologist Wilbur Armistead Nelson, anthropologist Fay-Cooper Cole, zoologist Horatio Hackett Newman and zoologist Winterton Conway Curtis.

Curtis, (left) a professor from the University of Missouri and a trustee of the Marine Biological laboratory at Woods Hole, MA, testified on day seven.

On July 21, Scopes was convicted of violating the Tennessee law, a big win for pro-creationist Bryan, who died 5 days later, but the decision would not stand for long as the anti-evolution law was later repealed.

During the trial, Watson Davis, photographed the proceedings while serving as a reporter for the Science Service. Nearly 80 years later Davis’s nitrate negatives were found by LaFollette, who has meticulously worked to identify the subjects and date each of the images. Her 2008 book Reframing Scopes: Journalists, Scientists, and Lost Photographs from the Trial of the Century, highlights these and other images from the trial.

Additionally, the Smithsonian Archives needs your help. A number of the subjects in the photographs are as yet unidentified — can you help them figure out why they are and what their involvement in the trial was? Leave your comments on the “Unidentifed-Scopes Trial” Flickr set with your insight.

Nancy Wilson signs the deed of gift, donating two of her gowns to the American History Museum, alongside museum director Brent Glass, at the Music Center at Strathmore. Photo by Jim Saah (c) 2011, Strathmore.

Renowned jazz singer Nancy Wilson recently donated two of her designer gowns to the National Museum of American History, fulfilling a long-time dream of John Edward Hasse, the curator of American music.

“Mindful of her importance in American song and jazz, I’ve been seeking a donation from Nancy Wilson for some years,” says Hasse.

Born in Chillicothe, OH in 1937, Nancy Wilson knew she wanted to be a singer from a young age. With early influences like Billy Eckstine, LaVerne Baker and Nat King Cole, she began her professional singing career at 15, when she became the host of a local television show. In 1956 she began singing and touring with The Rusty Bryant Band throughout the Midwest, but Wilson had bigger ambitions. She moved to New York City in 1959, and soon after her arrival, the artist had a regular gig singing in a nightclub and within six weeks, she had a record deal with Capitol Records. Her songs were so successful that she recorded and released five albums in two years. The three-time Grammy award winner would go on to perform on variety shows, host one season of her eponymous Emmy Award-winning television show, and take acting roles on many popular TV series into the 1990s, including the The Cosby Show and Hawaii Five-O.

Hasse says he pursued an acquisition from Wilson because of her distinctive song styling, versatility, range of intensity, clear respect for the lyrics and her impeccable musicianship. “We can’t literally collect her voice, of course,” says Hesse, “so the question becomes, what material culture represents her?” Her distinctively-styled dresses seemed like an obvious choice .

The jazz vocalist’s decision to donate the gowns came in the wake of two events—her participation in an oral history interview for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program and the decision of her manager, John Levy, to donate his professional archives to the museum.

As is true with most donations to the museum, these two dresses have stories.

In February of 2007, Nancy Wilson wore  a sliver-gray silk velvet wrap-dress with poet sleeves to the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, where she received her third Grammy Award for “Turned to Blue,” selected as best jazz vocal album. “I designed this dress for Nancy with an expression of elegance and timelessness,” said dress creator Angela Dean, according to a report.

In October of 2010, Wilson appeared at a special event at Jazz at Lincoln Center wearing a strapless “Trumpet” gown in champagne silk and wool. The dress, with hand-draped embroidered tulle and a matching tulle bolero, was designed by b michael. “Nancy has a sound and a motion that is visual and inspires the epitome of glamor, sophistication and sensuality,” said the designer, who grew up listening to Wilson’s music, according to a report.

Wilson's two dresses are flanked by the museum's director Brent Glass, left, and Eliot Pfanstiehl CEO of the Strathmore Music Center, and curator John Edward Hasse. Photo by Jim Saah (c) 2011, Strathmore.

“I’m not an expert on fashion design,” says Hasse, “but it seems to me that the dress styling, like Ms. Wilson’s public personae and her singing style, are graced with individuality, ‘class,’ and elegance.”

Wilson’s dresses now join the museum’s collection of famed ensembles, including gowns from: the First Ladies, Ella Fitzgerald, Beverly Sills and the Supremes.

While plans have not been established for the display of the Wilson dresses, the Levy Collection and the Jazz Oral History Collection can be found in the museum’s Archives Center.

Update: Nancy Wilson made the donation official April 22, signing the deed of gift after her sold-out performance at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland.

It’s extremely rare to find negatives of Edward Sheriff Curtis, the iconic photographer of Native American life and the Old West. And that’s what makes Jim Graybill’s gift to Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives all the more exciting. Graybill, the grandson of Edward Curtis, recently donated his collection of over 700 Curtis glass negatives and positives, which includes over 500 original negatives, 432 of which have not been published.

Curtis’ photography served as an important historical record to capture a “romanticized” version of Native American culture as it was slowly disappearing, and his work culminated in an epic 20-volume project, The North American Indian, funded by J. Pierpont Morgan. In it, Curtis photographed and documented Native American life and traditions around the continent. He was not without his critics, however, for his manipulation of subjects and images. For the purpose of image “reality” and composition, Curtis at times posed Native Americans, had Native Americans re-enact ceremonies, or removed modern-day objects from photos.

“It’s interesting that among Native Americans, even to the present, Curtis’ work has a very strong resonance, because he ennobles them,” says Jake Homiak, director of the Smithsonian Anthropology Collections and Archive Program. “They have a very positive, beautiful aesthetic. I would consider his style ethnographic romanticism, because he shows them in an immemorial timelessness, and that’s all a part of dressing them, or asking them to appear before him in traditional dress with all the erasures of modernity. That was the style he mastered.”

Curtis prints and photogravures are not exactly common, but they can be found in museums and at art dealers–it’s Curtis’ negatives that are difficult to find. “They’re extremely rare,” says photo archivist Gina Rappaport of Smithsonian National Anthropological Archives. “The original negatives, he probably made 40,000 during the course of this [The North American Indian] work. The negatives are the original object. Very few of these have survived. It’s believed that most of them were destroyed over the years.”

Watch the video above to see the items from the collection and hear more from Jake Homiak and Gina Rappaport.

The first commercial Christmas card was sent in 1843 by Henry Cole, a philanthropist who wrote hundreds of cards by hand. Courtesy of Pushing the Envelope

Total Eclipse of the Moon—Early yesterday morning (or late Monday night for those on the west coast), an astronomical event took place that only happens once in a blue moon. Well, okay, it wasn’t a blue moon, but it was a total lunar eclipse. This was the first lunar eclipse to fall on the winter solstice since 1638. By the time this happens again in 2094, most of us will be long gone. The AirSpace blog has more information on how lunar eclipses form and what they look like in case you happened to miss out.

Christmas Sweater Archives—I have certainly seen some festive holiday sweaters around the Mall this winter; my personal favorite (worn by ATM’s own Beth Py-Lieberman!) featured chiming jingle bells, appliqued gingerbread men, Christmas trees and red bows. The Archives of American Art has done their own archival roundup of holiday knitwear donned by poets, painters and explorers.

Winter Wonderland—The Bigger Picture blog has a slideshow honoring the onslaught of cold the Washington area has received in recent weeks. The pictures are from the Smithsonian Institution Archives and include snowflake art, icy expeditions, and the Smithsonian covered in snow in the early 1900s. The post also has links to snowflake templates for cutting your own winter decorations.

Solstice—If you thought the weather here was cold, SIRIS has posted photos of Alaska Natives buckling down for the dead of winter from the archives of scientist Leuman M. Waugh, who visited the area in the early 20th century. The photos are likely to make you want a fur-lined winter parka to brave the icy chill. Another post on SIRIS shows images of winter landscape paintings from the National Art Inventories.

Birth of the Christmas Card—Pushing the Envelope has published a guest post by Skidmore College professor Catherine Golden that reveals the first Christmas card ever, from 1843. The card depicts a merry gathering of people eating and drinking, and reads, “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year To You.” Read about the history of the holiday card, as well as Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which Golden writes was arguably more popular for its philanthropic message than even the author’s expert prose.

Poinsettia Video—Recently, Around the Mall brought you the true story of the Poinsettia, which involved Joel Poinsett and his idea to create a national museum. Watch Monty Holmes, a horticulturist at Smithsonian Gardens, talk more about the history of this holiday plant.

The Smithsonian castle's Christmas tree is surrounded by a ring of poinsettias on the floor. Photo by Eric Long

It’s that time of year, and the Smithsonian Institution is leaving no corner undecorated for the holidays. Garlands spiral up the banisters of several Smithsonian museums, and Douglas fir trees tower inside the museum entrances. At the very least, almost every Smithsonian building has what is perhaps the most ubiquitous holiday decoration: the poinsettia.

According to Monty Holmes of the Smithsonian Gardens, the horticulture team has grown some 1,700 poinsettias this year. With so many of the plants under his care, Holmes began investigating the original connection between it and the holidays. Surprisingly, he discovered a little-known link between the poinsettia and the Smithsonian.

As it turns out, the red-leafed plant was introduced to the United States by botanist and statesman Joel Poinsett (1779-1851), who as the first U.S. Minister to Mexico found the plant while serving there. The poinsettia is said to have been used by the Aztecs as a red dye and to reduce fevers.

And what was its connection to the Smithsonian?

Poinsett was a founding member of the National Institution for the Promotion of Science, which formed in 1840 to promote the study of natural history and physical sciences, among other fields. It is thought that the organization was founded with the intention of securing the James Smithson bequest. (Although Smithson had never visited the United States, he left his estate of $508,318–about $15 million in today’s dollars–to establish in Washington, D.C. an institution for the “increase and diffusion of knowledge.”) At the time, much debate was going on about how best to achieve Smithson’s request.

When Poinsett was United States Secretary of War in 1838, he presided over the United States Exploring Expedition, the first circumnavigation of the globe sponsored by the United States.

Joel Poinsett first posed the idea of creating a national museum. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian Institution Archives

“He insisted when this global exploring expedition went out that it included scientists,” says Smithsonian historian Pamela Henson of Poinsett. “They collected geological, biological, anthropological specimens throughout the trip. They were called ‘scientifics.’”

The artifacts collected on that expedition were brought back to Washington, D.C. and put on display much like a modern-day museum exhibition at the Patent Office building (currently home to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery). The exhibition was presided over by Poinsett’s National Institution. Poinsett was among dozens of who had strident convictions on how the money ought to be used; some thought it should be a library, others hoped it would support scientific research. But Poinsett was the first to argue that Smithson’s money should be used to create a national museum.

“He basically interjected the concept of creating a national museum into the debate surrounding what to do with Smithson’s money,” says Henson. “He never succeeded in getting the money [the Smithsonian was founded soon after in 1846 and the National Institution for the Promotion of Science promptly dissolved], but his push was what lead to the concept of the museum being part of the Smithsonian.”

As you peruse the halls of the Smithsonian Institution this Christmas, counting the poinsettias, remember Joel Poinsett, who planted the seed for the creation of a national museum.

Alan Shephard's Apollo 14 space suit was X-Rayed and is now featured in NASM's new book. By Roland H. Cunningham and Mark Avino, courtesy of AirSpace

Inner Workings of the Space Suit: This week, the AirSpace blog exposes one of their spacesuits from the inside out using X-Ray imaging. Until now, the only way to glimpse the inside of these high-tech uniforms was to shine a flashlight down the wrist or neck of the outfit. But recently, Mark Avino, chief of photographic services at the Air and Space museum undertook the challenge of doing a complete X-Ray of Alan Shephard’s Apollo 14 spacesuit. The result is now featured in the book, Spacesuits: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Collection.

Thanksgiving in the Smithsonian: Mary Henry (1834-1903) was the daughter of Joseph Henry, the very first Smithsonian Institution secretary. Her diary provides a firsthand account of a pivotal period in the history of the United States, spanning the years of the Civil War and early Reconstruction. One personal anecdote, quoted in a post this week on The Bigger Picture, describes Henry’s Thanksgiving day in the Smithsonian Castle, where she lived.

Up Where He Belongs: The American Indian Museum’s Current exhibit, “Up Where They Belong: Native Americans in Popular Music” tells the stories of Native Americans in every genre of music, from rock to hip-hop to jazz (see my article on the exhibit in the October issue). The NMAI blog has posted an interview with one of the most well-known musicians in the exhibit, Robbie Robertson, who is perhaps best known as a member of The Band and for writing the song “Up on Cripple Creek.” Robertson talks about his favorite artists and what he’s learned in his long career as a Native musician.

Freer/Sackler Annual Auction: The Freer and Sackler Galleries opens its annual auction today in conjunction with their benefit gala, “Dancing Dragon, Roaring Tiger,” this evening. The gala celebrates the opening of the museum’s Chinese jades and bronzes exhibit.  The auction features four works by the renowned Asian artists Mei-Ling Hom, Sun Xun, Hai Bo and Cai Guo-Quiang. View the works and short biographies of the artists. Bids must be emailed to  fsgala@si.edu before midnight tonight.

World Folk Music Map: Smithsonian Folkways Records has contributed folkloric music from around the world to an interactive map posted on the “Preserving Intangible Culture” section on America.gov. Click on any country or region, from Mongolia to Norway to Sierra Leone, and listen to a Folkways music sample from there.

A visitor gathers information at the Archives Fair. Photo courtesy of the Bigger Picture blog.

Recently, a crowd of more than 300 people attended the first ever Smithsonian Archives Fair to learn how the Smithsonian helps to maintain millions of artifacts in a condition that withstands the effects of time. Representatives from nearly every museum set up information booths, gave lectures, and taught visitors how to preserve objects of their own through the Ask the Smithsonian program.

“Not only does [the Archives Fair] showcase all the Smithsonian archives have, but it also educates the public on how to preserve their own treasures,” said Freer/Sackler archivist Rachael Christine Woody, who helped organize the event.

I asked the Smithsonian how to preserve a recent gift from my grandmother—her mother’s (my great grandmother’s) scrapbook, from around the 1930s. A member of the Muscogee (Creek) tribe of Oklahoma, my great grandmother traveled the country as a performer, singing songs and telling stories she had learned from her people. She filled her scrapbook with newspaper clippings, photographs, and handwritten notes. The book proved invaluable; she passed away when my grandmother was only nine years old, and this scrapbook was what my grandmother got to remember her by.

Keeping the scrapbook in good condition is important, to say the least; someday, I want my children to be able to leaf through the book’s now brittle pages to learn about their heritage. I consulted with Smithsonian paper conservator Nora Lockshin and photo archivist Marguerite Roby about how to make sure my scrapbook survives for generations to come.

What do I need to know before I start the preservation process?

Nora: We don’t immediately advocate taking anything apart, ever, because in photographs and albums, context is everything. And really, the person who put it together and how they put it together is important. So if you start disrupting that you lose some of the original content.

What would the first step be?

Nora: If the scrapbook doesn’t have a slipcase, the first step is putting it in an enclosure. Check the pages out; make sure there are no problems already going on like bugs or mold. If that seems stable and fine, get a box, an archival drop-front storage box that sits flat is probably the best thing, versus putting it upright on a shelf because gravity will fight you, and things will drop forward. So the best thing to do is put [the book] in a flat, archival, material storage box, so everything is contained. This protects it from the light, and dust and pests.

And then?

Nora: You could think about putting interleaving paper between the album pages. Photographic interleaving material is special paper that is meant to be photographically neutral. You can put that in between the leaves so that the pictures aren’t rubbing on each other and potentially sticking. We usually put it in where there’s enough space in the spine to accommodate and definitely where pictures are facing.

Keep it in a safe environment that’s not too dry. It’s not too damp, either. You don’t keep it in the back of the closet where you can’t see what’s going on and where pests can gather. Basically, out of sight, out of mind really is that, and it rarely preserves things. Most often, it leads to their deterioration. No attics, no basements, not the bathroom or the kitchen, you want to try and find the most stable place in the house, away from windows and doors, not on exterior walls. Basically, you want it in a bookshelf, but in a box. That way, in five years you can look at it, and go, “That wasn’t there before,” like a little mousy chew hole or something.

What about the photos and newspaper clippings that are just sort of loose. That’s something that makes me nervous. I worry every time I open it that they’re going to fall.

Nora: It really helps to document original order. But definitely taking pictures of it is a good idea because things can fade and darken. You would take a shot with an overhead camera. That’s the one time you’d put it in a sunny spot in your house so you don’t have glare. Just shoot it all the way through on the highest resolution you possibly have.

And if there’s an image that you love, love, love, and you want it because you want a cool vintage look in your house or something, you can make a duplicate—what we call the access copy and the display copy.

You could also consider separating them and putting them in a “V-fold” sleeve of archival paper, or an archival envelope with a little sling. If you’re getting a box anyway, you might consider taking the clippings out and putting them in a little folder. And you might write on them, for example, “found between pages 18 and 19.”

What’s the one thing I have to keep in mind in the preservation process?

Marguerite: I think preserving that context of every single thing is really the most important part of this. Because if you put all the loose photographs at the end, you don’t know if one is supposed to go with an article, or maybe one does go with an article and the article is in between different pages. You’ll be the biggest help to yourself and future generations by being as meticulous as possible about documenting each page.

The sun, as photographed by Erin Braswell, Smithsonian Public Observatory Project on Sept. 8, 2010

Just Close Enough To The Sun—This week, the folks at the “AirSpace” blog treat us to a few photos of that fiery red giant near and dear to our hearts, the sun. Using a telescope from the Public Observatory Project made especially for looking into the sun’s harsh light, solar imaging expert Greg Piepol instructed blogger Erin Braswell on how to account for turbulence in the earth’s atmosphere that often obscures photographs of the sun. The resulting pictures show a crisp outline of the star, including sunspots and a “prominence,” or protrusion of hot matter coming from the sun’s surface.

Piano Podcast—Michael Asch, son of Folkways Records founder Moses “Moe” Asch, hosts Smithsonian Folkways: Sounds To Grow On, a 26-part radio program of music from the label’s original collection. Interspersed throughout the show is the story of Asch’s father, who started his own record company in 1948, the products of which were later donated to the Smithsonian. Episode 23, Piano, features a variety of jazz and blues piano music from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Download the podcast from Folkways, along with the your pick of the 22 preceding installments.

Warhol Meets Jackson—In 1984, pop artist Andy Warhol did a portrait of Michael Jackson, which was published as the cover of Time magazine in March of that year. “Face to Face” has entries from Warhol’s diary of those days, which provide a window into the mind of one of the 20th century’s most famous artists. After reading the story behind the work, you may just be enticed to head on over to the Portrait Gallery to see the actual silkscreened portrait, which is hanging in the “20th Century Americans” exhibit.

Archives Fair—In conjunction with the month-long blogathon for American Archives Month, this Friday the American Archives will be hosting an archives fair, (free and open to the public) from 10 to 5 at the S. Dillon Ripley Center. The event will include lectures from the archivists about preserving, cataloging and ensuring accessibility to the precious collections at the Smithsonian. Today, “SIRIS” has posted interviews with Anne Van Camp, Director of the Smithsonian Archives; Wendy Shay, curator at American History, Archives Center; and Freer/Sackler archivist Rachael Christine Woody.