By David Haberstich When I accepted the position of coordinator/editor of the Smithsonian Institution Collections Blog about two years ago, I certainly didn't think I would all too soon be presiding over its demise. But I'm afraid that's the shocking truth--the party's over. This apparently will become the last post for this blog. The Powers That Be, so to speak, have decided to pull our plug.  To provide a bit more gravitas, I'll try to explain matters fairly, although without going into the technical details that I don't fully understand. The shutdown decision was precipitated by an ann ..read more

The Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives (EEPA) is pleased to share the Lynn McClaren collection as part of the Women Photographers in Africa initiative. Eluned M. Demarest – better known professionally as Lynn McLaren (1922-2008) – was an American photojournalist whose work was published in National Geographic, Time-Life, Newsweek, and the New York Times and helped global audiences visualize foreign cultures and landscapes. Her collection (EEPA 2007-009) of 648 color slides (35mm), 38 color transparencies, and 10 black-and-white prints has been digitized and will be available online later thi ..read more

By Muna Ali and Ashley Ray      Documenting Diversity: How Anthropologists Record Human Life is an exhibit that outlines the ways in which anthropologists have utilized changing technology to record various aspects of human life. The exhibit is organized into four sections: film, photography, paper, and sound. It includes the equipment used for documentation such as rolls of film, video cameras of various ages, wax cylinders, phonographs, and multiple notebooks. The objects shown in the exhibit come from the National Anthropological Archives (NAA) and the Human Studies Film Arc ..read more

By Adam Gray, May 2022 Rehearsal of the toka dance in Yoohnanan on the island of Tanna, September 1974. Kal Muller films and photographs of Vanuatu (New Hebrides), Tanna Island slides, Slide roll #56. In the 1960s and 1970s, Vanuatu (then known as the New Hebrides) was on the brink of independence from French and British colonial governance. The culturally and linguistically diverse archipelago in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, with over 100 languages spoken across multiple islands, had been governed as the New Hebrides under a joint French and British “Condominium” administration ..read more

 By Joe Hursey The Archives Center possesses an incredible set of architectural drawings of late 19th-century textile mills, known as the Lockwood-Greene Records.  At first glance, these drawings seem nothing more than well-drafted images of factory buildings on heavy linen material. But to the people who worked in the mills built from these drawings, they represent the beginning of numerous communities throughout South Carolina. The most impressive of these mills was the flagship mill, Piedmont Manufacturing Company. Between 1862 and 1863, Henry Pickney Hammett and his partner and f ..read more

By David Haberstich In recent years the Smithsonian Collections Blog has featured numerous posts about women photographers represented in Smithsonian collections. For instance, I’ve blogged about the photographers Katherine Joseph, Dawn Rogala, and Melody Golding, whose work is in the NMAH Archives Center, but now I want to highlight a much earlier Smithsonian effort to celebrate women in photography. The National Museum of American History (then the Museum of History and Technology) featured female photographic artists in a series entitled “Women, Cameras, and Images” in 1969-1970, initiated ..read more

By David Haberstich Actor Sir Sidney Poitier, Feb. 3, 1977, photograph probably by Robert Scurlock. Gelatin silver acetate  negative, Scurlock Studio Records,Archives Center, National Museum of American History. Above is a photograph from the National Museum of American History Archives Center’s Scurlock Studio Records, probably taken by Robert Scurlock, showing famed actor Sidney Poitier besieged by young fans seeking autographs. More than any other African American actor, Poitier (who died in January this year) helped to integrate Hollywood. I first saw him many years ago i ..read more

 By Jennifer Sieck Joy McLean Bosfield framed this page from the score for “Gloria in Excelsis” signed for her by MASS composer Leonard Bernstein. She sang in the choir for MASS’s world premiere, conducted by Bernstein for the Kennedy Center’s dedication in 1971. Joy McLean Bosfield papers, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Joy McLean Bosfield. "Gloria in Excelsis" proclaims the title of this autographed musical score in prelude to the story of Joy McLean Bosfield (1924-1999), a musician, educator, and entrepreneur who lived in Washington, DC from 1962 ..read more

By Lily Stowe-Alekman Elizabeth Bourne Robinson was born on December 3, 1892, and died on July 25, 1976.  On November 20, 1929, she married Frank A. Robinson and moved to the Robinson family farm near Brandywine in Prince George’s County, Maryland. They had three children: Mary Elizabeth, Franklin Alexander, and Robert Lee. After Frank’s father died in 1937, he bought out his siblings’ and mother’s portions of the estate to retain the property as one. In 1937, the farm consisted of "1 corn house & cow stable, 1 stable, and 1 Granary & Stable.” Elizabeth kept a record of life on th ..read more

By Haley Steinhilber Writing? On an archival document?! Traditionally, archives are known for their dedication to preserving original photographs, documents, and visual materials in their original condition and order—but what happens if the donor invites collaboration? When former USAID Foreign Service officer Stephen Grant donated his annotated copy of Images de Guinée (1991) to the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives (EEPA) in 2020, he hoped that the book should remain open for others—specifically Guineans and those with ties to Guinea—to share in the margins their own reflections of the hi ..read more