In summer 1861, William J. Rhees, chief clerk of the Smithsonian Institution, wrote to his wife about Professor Thaddeus Lowe’s balloon experiments on the National Mall . . . including the reason one ascent never got off the ground. Because (almost) nothing in Washington happens without first securing a purchase order or an appropriation.
Staff Favorites is a new interview-based series in which staff members share favorite items from Manuscript Division collections. This guest post is by Manuscript Division cataloging librarian Joy Orillo-Dotson.
Wendell Cannon, a high school teacher from Illinois, toured Europe during his summer break in 1936. His journal, photographs, and other souvenirs capture familiar tourist activities such as a visit to Paris’s Arc de Triomphe as well as the unique experience of visiting Nazi Germany and witnessing Jesse Owens win gold in the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics.
Join Rachel Gross, author of Shopping All the Way to the Woods: How the Outdoor Industry Sold Nature to America, to learn more about the surprising military origins of your favorite outdoor gear.
A 1937 tea party held at the home of the chief of naval operations, today’s official vice presidential residence, reveals a mansion that was once a showcase of women’s hidden political influence within the nation’s military elite.
In the latest book talk from the Made at the library event series, join author Allison S. Finkelstein as she discusses her research for Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials: How American Women Commemorated the Great War, 1917-1945.
In anticipation of National Cat Day on October 29, this post highlights some feline-related imagery and expressions of friendship found in the Manuscript Division’s Clara Barton Papers.
Join us on September 17, the anniversary of the 1862 battle of Antietam, as Manuscript Division historian Michelle Krowl and reference librarian Lara Szypszak interview historian George C. Rable about his new book Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War, which reevaluates the command relationship between General McClellan and President Lincoln during the Civil War.
