Top of page

Category: Science and Technology

Published engraved image showing a crowd observing the balloon "Intrepid," leaving the ground in the distance.

Nothing Happens in Washington without a Purchase Order: William J. Rhees and Thaddeus Lowe’s Balloons, 1861.

Posted by: Michelle Krowl

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.

Monochrome portrait sketches of George III and George Washington, with Washington in profile

The Universe and Cherry Pie: A New Exhibition at the Library of Congress Features the Papers of George Washington and King George III

Posted by: Julie Miller

After nearly a decade of planning, a new exhibition, “The Two Georges: Parallel Lives in an Age of Revolution,” opened at the Library of Congress on March 28, 2025. The exhibit features the papers of George Washington from the Manuscript Division and the papers of Britain’s King George III from the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle.

Two men in suits standing behind metal radiator on table

Intern Spotlight: Uncovering African American Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Manuscript Division

Posted by: Josh Levy

This is a guest post by Onur Ayaz, formerly a Junior Fellow in the Manuscript Division. When does entrepreneurship become innovative, and when does innovation become invention? Are activists, educators, scientists, and laborers also innovators? Are they entrepreneurs? In 1918 Carter G. Woodson, an African American historian who also collected manuscripts, ephemera, and other materials …

Nautical Almanac Office director Charles Henry Davis offers Maria Mitchell a position as a “computer,” at a time when computers were people and opportunities for professional work in astronomy were vanishingly few, for both men and women. Davis to Mitchell, August 10, 1849.

Maria Mitchell’s Enduring Legacy: From Astronomical Poetry to Liberty Ships

Posted by: Josh Levy

This post is coauthored by Morgan Black, librarian at the United States Naval Observatory, and Josh Levy, historian of science and technology at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. When Maria Mitchell spotted a telescopic comet from the roof of her Nantucket home in 1847, a historic feat that helped make her a national celebrity, …

Drawing showing names of railroad stations and railroad curvature.

William Wilgus: Progress, Loss, and a Divided Manuscript Collection

Posted by: Josh Levy

William Wilgus was one of the most accomplished civil engineers of his time. Today two manuscript collections document his sweeping career, one at the New York Public Library and another at the Library of Congress, which opened for research in 2023. Documenting incidents such as a fatal 1907 train accident in the Bronx and the 1915 flooding of New York’s massive Ashokan Reservoir, the two collections tell a story of progress and loss, and of memory and honor.