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

Party goers don fancy hats for a swinging good time. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Libraries.

Parties are great, but costume parties are even better. Don’t show up to your social engagement unprepared! Let these costumes and party ideas guide you through this Friday’s soiree, from birdcages to matching “Pats.”

The birdcage dress is always a favorite with partygoers. Or, if you’re looking for something a bit more low-key, try on a flower mask. (No birds were harmed in the making of this illustration.) Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Libraries.

The original single lady, Miss Valentine knows “if you liked it, then you should’ve put a ring on it.” Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Libraries.

Planning a costume for two? The slightly out of season Pat and Patricia are the perfect pair. Don a shamrock and let the party begin. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Libraries.

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.

“Parks and Recreation” heroine Leslie Knope would love to see this mural study from an Indiana post office on her visit to DC. Clearing the Right of Way by Joe Cox, 1938. Image courtesy American Art Museum.

Right when D.C. needs her most, NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” heroine Leslie Knope appears. At least, that’s the hope. DCist, among other outlets, reported last week that the critically-acclaimed show about small town government in Knope’s beloved Pawnee, Indiana, will be heading to D.C. this week to film part of  its season five opener.

Viewers will remember that the on-and-off-again relationship between Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) took another hit when Wyatt decided to take a position in D.C. as a campaign adviser. NBC has only confirmed that scenes could be filmed Thursday and Friday but not whom those scenes would include or where those scenes would be shot. Poehler and Scott seem the obvious choices, but local fans are hopeful lovable curmudgeon and manliest of all the men, Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) will also make an appearance.

If Knope does make it to D.C., it would be a dream come true for a woman whose office includes framed photos of Madeleine Albright, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. With so much to see here in just two days, we narrowed our list down to five Knope must-sees.

Could these diminutive horses at the National Zoo be distant relations of Knope’s favorite mini-horse Li’l Sebastian? Probably not, but she’ll still like them.

1. Li’l Przewalski: Though no horse could ever replace the dearly departed Li’l Sebastian, Pawnee’s favorite mini-horse, the National Zoo’s diminutive band will help Knope feel right at home. The Przewalski’s horses, named after the Polish scientist who first described the species (and pronounced sheh-val-skee), grow to be just four feet tall.

2. Votes for Women pennant: The collection of First Lady artifacts, including Michelle Obama’s inaugural ball gown, is worth a visit for anyone, but we know Knope is more interested in being the first lady president, not the president’s First Lady. A big fan of voting in general, Knope should visit the American History Museum  to see pennants, buttons and signs from the suffrage movement and maybe take some notes for her own presidential campaign gear.

3. Waffle literature: That’s right, in the great treasure trove that is the Smithsonian Libraries, there are scores of documents about the creation of the waffle iron. Because Knope is such an avid and serious waffle-fan (Her position statement includes the line, “A Knope presidency will be a waffle-based presidency, and everyone has to deal with that.”), she’ll want to sift through papers about Cornelius Swarthout’s 1869 patent that made Troy, New York the waffle capital of the world.

Knope can purchase her own replica of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s Liberty Eagle pin after viewing the original in the American History Museum collection.

4. Clearing the Right of Way, Indiana mural: While this mural on view at the American Art Museum doesn’t have the bloodshed or aggressively offensive material Knope may be used to in Pawnee’s city hall, it does depict another sort of patriotic moment in Indiana’s history. Commissioned by the Works Progress Administration, Joe Cox completed this mural study for the post office in Garrett, Ind. of muscular loggers clearing land for the railroad. Though it hasn’t been confirmed, the mustached man far left could very well be Ron Swanson’s relative.

5. Madeleine Albright swag: Some look to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as a style icon, but the true trendsetter of Leslie Knope’s Washington will always be Madeleine Albright, whose pins alone warranted their own exhibit at the Smithsonian. After a generous donation to the American History Museum, Knope and other Albrighters can view the former Secretary of State’s red wool dress and Ferragamo pumps worn the day she was appointed to office, as well as several pins including her Liberty Eagle pin–patriotic and one-of-a-kind, just like Knope. She can even pick up her own replica while in town.

From the Smithsonian Institution Libraries’ new digital collection, an image of two baby chimpanzees out for a stroll from Minnesota Longfellow Gardens Guide. Photo by R.F. Jones.

In A Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare wrote one of the strangest stage directions ever given in the history of theater: “exit, pursued by bear.” This order is difficult to follow in modern-day productions of the comedy, but in the 17th century, bears and other animals we now call exotic were, for better or worse, often assimilated into daily life. Many of the images in Zoos: A Historical Perspective, a collection of pamphlets, photos, maps and guidebooks beautifully displayed by the Smithsonian Libraries, reflect a similar sentiment. Bears can be seen climbing poles, elephants in Australia carry elegantly clad school children, and tigers stare lazily at humans inches away from their cages.

The collection features pamphlets, sketches and photos from not only the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, but from zoos across 30 states and 40 countries, making it the largest project of its kind, and providing a valuable perspective on the changing relationship between animals and humans throughout history. The photographs demonstrate, for example, how zoos were once places frequented for the sake of spectacle, and the evolution of the zoo into what it is today: an educational and conservation-minded institution.

Children enjoy a ride from the New York Zoological Park’s obliging elephant, Gunda. Photo by Elwin R. Sanborn, 1905.

Head of Information Services Alvin Hutchinson hopes that the online collection will give visitors “an appreciation of the history of zoos and the fact that they’ve been around for more than 300 years. They were once a place for oddballs and curiosities, but they’ve evolved into much more than that.”

The current collection is just one example of a larger effort by the Institution to digitize a host of print documents. “This collection was sitting in boxes and folders,” says Hutchinson, “and we put out a call for things not easily findable, and discovered these pamphlets.”

Hutchinson hopes to digitize the entire collection one day (the current exhibit features about 80 images), based on the feedback he’s received from those already on display. “I’ve gotten many calls,” he explains. “Mostly out of curiosity, but some have been very personal. One guy called and told me that his relative in England had done the stonework photographed in one of the zoos. The feedback has been great.”

Some of the images—lions sitting behind heavy metal bars, monkeys in cages too small—may seem a bit disturbing, but they serve as a reminder of how our understanding of animals and animal intelligence has changed over the years. Whereas once we poked fun at how easily chimps could look like humans (a photograph in the collection shows a family of chimps sitting down to dinner, complete with china tea cups and a tablecloth), we now view these similarities in the context of scientific understanding.

At once contemplative and whimsical, the collection is a valuable lesson in how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go.

View it here, along with an introduction from the curator.

By Jeanie Riess

With new summer hours in place, you can stroll through this special butterfly exhibit with exotic plants and live butterflies from around the world until the last entry at 6 PM. Tickets are required, however and rates are as follows: $6 for adults; $5.50 for seniors (60+); $5 for children and members. Big tip for the frugal visitor: There is no charge on Tuesdays; however you still must get a ticket at the desk. Visit the Butterfly Pavilion’s Web site to purchase tickets and for more information about free entry on Tuesdays. Natural History Museum, 10:15-5:00 PM.

Tuesday, May 10 — Harry Potter pops up

The Houston-based paper engineer Bruce Foster talks about designing the 2010 Harry Potter: A Pop-Up Book, the design process and paper engineering. “I will show the process from beginning to end, explain some of the math involved in creating this boo and share secrets of Harry Potter that did not make it into the final book,” Foster writes. Free. 12:00 PM. American History Museum. Sponsored by Smithsonian Libraries. Related exhibition: “Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop and Turn”

Photo courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum

Wednesday, May 11 Behind the Scenes at the Lunder Center

Learn how museum conservators use science, art history and skilled hands to preserve the art collections at the American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. Free, but register before 3:00 PM at the Luce Foundation Center information desk. Tour begins at 3:00 PM at the same place. Repeats most Wednesdays. American Art Museum.

Thursday, May 12 Pick a Flick just $10

“Film Forward: Advancing Cultural Dialogue” presents 10 films with a discussion following the screenings: Freedom Riders (already sold out); La Mission; Udaan and A Small Act at 6:00 PM; Boy at 6:15 PM and The Last Train Home; Afghan Star; Amreeka; Son of Babylon (free admission, but tickets required) and Winter’s Bone at 6:30 PM. $10 tickets for general admission are available online. Various National Mall locations.

Friday, May 13 Not Your Father’s Planetarium Show

Cosmic Collisions, a planetarium show, is the story of a speeding comet that collides with Earth’s atmosphere. Zipping along at 40 million years per second, the film takes visitors on a journey through time and space that includes colossal impacts and exciting explosions. Scientific visualizations, images from NASA and advanced simulation and imaging technology enhance the experience. Seven shows daily, beginning at 11:00 AM. Tickets are $6.50 members, $9.00 adult (13-and up), $8.00 senior, $7.50 youth (2-12 years old). Purchase tickets by phone (toll-free) 866-868-7774; online up to two weeks in advance or at the box office. Albert Einstein Planetarium at the National Air & Space Museum

The "Godmother of Punk" performs at a benefit for the Archives of American Art in 2008. Courtesy of the Archives of American Art

First Aircraft Moved to New Hangar: This week, AirSpace reports that the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver was the first aircraft to move into the Udvar-Hazy Center’s new Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar. Designed in 1938 and manufactured in 1942, the scout bomber flew in World War II. The Air and Space Museum’s plane is one of only a handful still in existence. The plane is scheduled to be restored over the course of the coming year, along with several other aircraft that will soon move into the new hangar. Later in 2011, the mezzanine level of the hangar will open so that visitors can see the aircraft refurbishment in action.

Patti Smith Wins National Book Award: Singer Patti Smith, perhaps best known as the “Godmother of Punk,” just won the National Book Award for her memoir, Just Kids, which chronicles her friendship with photographer and artist Robert Mapplethorpe. The Archives of American Art blog has a sound clip of Smith reading at a 2008 benefit, or your can hear her on NPR.

Twain Galore: It seems that in addition to Around the Mall’s post honoring Mark Twain’s would-be 175th birthday, a couple other blogs around the Smithsonian have paid their own tributes to the 19th century American author. Face to Face has posted some of their favorite Twain quotes as well as Edwin Larson’s 1935 portrait of the writer. The Smithsonian Libraries blog has a list of further reading straight from the Smithsonian’s collections.

Flamingo-Keeping: Now on the Smithsonian Science homepage, a video from the National Zoo features footage of the Zoo’s 61-bird flock of flaming pink Caribbean flamingos. Sara Hallager, flamingo keeper, says the birds are extraordinarily social animals (their squawks can be heard in the background). She discusses how she and the other keepers prevent inbred chicks during mating season by putting different colored bands on the flamingos’ feet to keep track of who’s who.

National Museum of “Dad-Trolling”? The web comic XKCD has proposed a new Smithsonian museum that specializes in enabling fathers to tell little white lies to their children. Click on various parts of the museum’s floorplan and see what waits inside the “Hall of Misunderstood Science,” “Regrettable Pranks: An Interactive Experience” or the “Rotunda of Uncomfortable Topics,” among others.

Accelerometers in iPhones can sense how to orient your display. Photo courtesy of the AirSpace blog.

For the record, October is American Archives Month—To celebrate, the Smithsonian Collections blog, SIRIS, is hosting a 31-day blogathon, where Smithsonian museums and affiliates will be blogging about their archives, giving an insider’s look at what goes into preserving and storing so many precious artifacts. The Institution is also hosting the “Ask the Smithsonian” program, where members of the community can set up appointments to bring in objects and learn how best to care for them. An online version of the program will be available on the Smithsonian’s Facebook page.

Cell Phones and Far Beyond—You know that nifty feature on your iPhone that flips your display vertically or horizontally depending on how you hold it? According to a post this week on the AirSpace blog, that mechanism is called an accelerometer, and consists of a tiny chip inserted into the phone that can sense the acceleration of gravity. This technology has apparently been used for years in automobiles, video games and even ballistic missiles, and was designed in 1970 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Charles Stark “Doc” Draper.

Skating Through the Week—It might be time to dust off those old roller skates and take them for a spin. As we emerge from the dog days of summer and enter early fall, there couldn’t be a better time for National Roller Skating Week, which the Smithsonian Libraries blog let us know about yesterday. They also posted a charming trade advertisement of Plimpton’s Patent Roller Skates from around 1879 (Plimpton’s roller skates were patented in 1863 and 1866).

It Has Been Fifty Years… Since Vice President Richard Nixon faced off with John F. Kennedy for the first ever nationally televised presidential debate. The Portrait Gallery’s Face to Face blog has two posts on the debates, and we published an article about the changing dynamics of debating on television this month as well.

Unexpected New Bird Species—Smithsonian researchers at the Conservation Biology Institute and Natural History have discovered that the magnificent frigatebirds living on the Galapagos Islands are genetically distinct from those living on the mainland of the Americas, and have been for over half a million years. This comes as quite a surprise, as frigatebirds are able to travel hundreds of miles and are not particularly isolated from those on the mainland.

Bugs Bunny Stamps, courtesy of National Postal Museum

What’s Up, Doc? His buck teeth and long ears may be timeless, but Bugs Bunny has reached a ripe old age. It was 70 years ago yesterday that everybody’s favorite “wascally wabbit” first popped his head out of his rabbit hole and posed the notorious aforementioned question to arch nemesis Elmer Fudd. Arguably the most famous cartoon character of all time, Bugs Bunny ushered in the Loony Tunes era that enraptured adults and children alike. Complete with slippery banana peels, plummeting planes and extensive carrot chomping, the Smithsonian Libraries blog posted a 1943 video of Bugs, alongside other links of interest, in tribute to his life in television.

Introducing the Art-O-Matic: Following the ban on cigarette vending machines in the late 1990s, artist Clark Whittington co-opted the machine and re-purposed it as an art dispenser for cigarette-sized, original works of art. The “Art-O-Matic” took off, and now Whittington oversees 83 over 90 such machines, one of which just arrived at the Luce Foundation Center for American Art. According to Eye Level, at five dollars per work, you can get your own miniature art straight out of this 60-year-old vending machine. Works include everything from jewelry to sculptures to collages, all handmade by an international array of artists.

It is an exciting time… As a result of a recent effort to broaden accessibility and searchability of all the Smithsonian has to offer, Smithsonian has produced a prototype of the Smithsonian Commons, a centralized online forum for the “Smithsonian research, collections and communities.” Featured recently by We Love DC, the Commons will open the doors to a global audience interested in the Smithsonian who aren’t necessarily able to travel to the museums in Washington, D.C. Explore, vote and comment on the prototype in order to shape the final product!

For lucky iPhone and Android owners, the Collections Search Center (CSC) has recently enhanced their mobile web portal, so that you can find any object in the collections that strikes your fancy while on the go. Simply visit the CSC Web site on your phone, and you’ll get to see the new and improved version.

Holy Mangrove! This past Monday, the National Museum of Natural History’s Ocean Portal blog celebrated International Mangrove Action Day. If you missed out this year, you can still listen to  a podcast of Dr. Candy Feller of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), in Edgewater, Md., speaking with SERC ecologist Dr. Dennis Whigham about the importance of these twisted, tropical plants. If you did take a moment out of your day for the mangroves, they invite you to share your celebration with other readers.

A picture from "The Graphic Alphabet" by David Pelletier - Courtesy of Smithsonian Libraries

In my first year of college, I spent three days a week assisting in a laboratory Kindergarten classroom on campus. My duties weren’t difficult. I was there to make sure the playground shenanigans were kept to a minimum and that snack time conversation was enlightening and informative.

Though my students spoke surprisingly well, at 5-years old, they were still too young to read. I remember sitting with one young boy, dinosaur book on the table, and reading aloud. To me, the letters and the sounds they made went together—the nasal “ahhhh” of A and the buzz of Z. To him, they were just pictures.

How do our minds bridge that gap from pictures to words? It’s an old discussion among educators, but I finally came to my own conclusions when visiting a Smithsonian Institution Libraries exhibit at the National Museum of American History “Picturing Words: The Power of Book Illustration,” on view through Jan. 4, 2010.

It was one particular display case in the dimly lit exhibition room that aroused these thoughts. I watched the letter O morph into an octopus and the letter F into a flamingo, images from “The Alphabeast Book: An Abecedarium” by Dorothy Schmiderer (1971). Next to it, Os hung like ornaments and elbow noodles flooded into a pool of letter Ns from “The Graphic Alphabet” by David Pelletier (1966).

These are great mnemonic devices for children. A few years of A is for alligator, A is for apple, A is for airplane, and after a while, with positive reinforcement, the child catches on. He or she will realize there’s something to each of these sounds that’s special, and it has to do with that triangle with legs. I think as adults, we forget that when we’re reading our favorite blogs or newspapers online, we’re actually reading pictures.

“Illustration is another aspect of literacy,” says Smithsonian’s Helena Wright, who co-curated the exhibit along with Joan Boudreau. “It helps people who are learning to read as well as gives them another dimension at what they’re looking at.”

This interaction between letters and words isn’t only true in English. Sharing the case with the alphabet books was “Tu l’as vu l’oiseau? (Have You Seen this Bird),” by Armand Monjo (1993), in which Arabic calligraphy is shaped into illustrations of birds. According to Wright, this is a form of concrete poetry, when arrangements of words are used to convey the intended effect of a poem.

I wish I had these thoughts when I was back in the classroom, maybe I wouldn’t have emphasized letters so much. I didn’t realize how much learning to write is like learning to paint. Instead of primary colors, my students’ palettes were 26 letters, and as they scribbled their first sentences, it was like watching them fingerpaint.

Check out the Libraries other exhibition, “The Art of African Exploration,” at the National Museum of National History.

Brumidi

Recent visitors to the United States Capitol might have noticed the frescoes. The building’s frescoes are like a sailor’s tattoos: each one tells a story. Take the famous Apotheosis of Washington, which dangles overhead in the Capitol rotunda and shows George Washington surrounded by Liberty, Victory, Science, War, and other allegorical figures. Or the naturalistic scenes that dot the Senate-side corridors.

I’d like to think most people are at least familiar with John James Audubon, America’s most popular wildlife artist, and Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist accredited with binomial nomenclature. But what about Mark Catesby, the English explorer, naturalist and artist whose work informed and inspired them both?

Anyone?

Yeah, I don’t blame you. Catesby’s not exactly a household name. In fact, very little is known about the man himself other than that he was born in Essex in 1683 and made several trips to America–Virginia, then the Carolinas, Spanish Florida and the Bahamas – before returning to England. But his book, Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, chock full of the first depictions of the plants and animals of the colonies begs the question, why? With 220 hand-colored etchings detailed down to the scales of a catfish and wisps of hair on a bison, Catesby could dethrone Audubon as the founding father of nature illustration. In fact, Catesby (1683-1749) makes Audubon, who came more than a century after him, look like a downright copycat. Their styles are remarkably similar–birds propped on tree limbs with sterile white backdrops. And Linnaeus, too, stood on Catesby’s shoulders, infusing his moniker in to Latin species names in his honor. FYI: The Linnaean name for the North American bullfrog is Rana catesbeiana.

For Catesby’s long list of firsts–first to portray the flora and fauna of America, first to draw sketches from life as opposed to dead, posed specimens, first to give viewers a sense of environmental relationships by picturing plants and animals with the wildlife that surrounded them in their habitats, first to discover that birds migrate (nixing the thought that they hibernate in caves, hollow trees or at the beds of ponds) and likely the first to recognize how natural and man-made destruction of a species’ habitat leads to extinction–he’s been unduly forgotten. Finally, some fans of his are taking it upon themselves to yank him out of the folds of history.

David Elliot, founder of the Kiawah Island Natural Habitat Conservancy in South Carolina and executive director of the Catesby Commemorative Trust, and Cynthia Neal, an award-winning documentary producer–fueled by Elliot’s interest in history, especially that of Kiawah Island where Catesby once tramped, and Neal’s passion for wildlife conservation–teamed up to create The Curious Mister Catesby, a film about the one and only. A writer for London’sThe Times called the endeavor “more a labour of love than a hard-headed commercial venture,” a sentiment that if kept in mind should let you get past the hokey, over-articulate narrator. And, so far, over 1,000 people have seen the film at London, Washington, DC, Charleston and Kiawah Island screenings. Its producers are working towards public television broadcasts across the country.

The Curious Mister Catesby from David Elliott on Vimeo

Smithsonian Institution Libraries, which has two of the roughly 80 remaining originals of Natural History, is doing its part to bring the rare book to the everyman’s living room. The text will be digitized for inclusion in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, a digital portal for literature on biodiversity of which the Smithsonian libraries are a part of, and made accessible through the Encyclopedia of Life, an online project aiming to create a Web site for every known species that calls up relevant material. The idea is that researchers–tikes to adults–will be able to call up a site on a Rana catesbeiana and get Catesby’s painting of one, along with other interesting sources. Smithsonian Institution Libraries will also have an all-Catesby Web site up and running by the end of the year with a selection of illustrations and essays on his influence on art, natural history and scientific observation.

Join in the Catesby revival! If you’ve heard of him or learn something about him, post a comment.

(Photograph Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Libraries)