New Acquisitions in the National Air and Space Museum Library

 Here are some of the newest additions to the National Air and Space Museum Library collection.

Ambassadors from Earth: Pioneering Explorations with Unmanned Spacecraft by Jay Gallentine.  University of Nebraska Press,Lincoln, Nebraska 2009.  TL795.3 G35 2009

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Edwards Air Force Base (Images of Aviation) by Ted Huetter and Christian Gelzer. Arcadia Publishers, Charleston, South Carolina, 2010.  TL568. E34 H84 2010

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Empire of the Clouds: When Britain's Aircraft Ruled the World by James Hamilton-Paterson.  Faber, London, England, 2010.  HD9711. G72 H36 2010

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Hot Air Balloons: History, Evolution and Great Adventures by Jean Becker.  White Star/Vercelil, London, England, 2009.  fGV762. B43 2009

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Out of Production List: Western Jet Airliners edited by M. Falcus.  DestinWorld, Durham, England, 2009.  TL685.7  O98 2009

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Women Military Pilots of World War II: A History with Biographies of American, British, Russian and German Aviators by Lois K. Merry.   McFarland and Company, Jefferson, North Carolina, 2011.  D785. M47 2011
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World's Fastest Four-Engine Piston-Powered Aircraft: Republic ZR-12 Rainbow by Mike Machat.  Specialty Press, North Branch, Minnesota, 2011.  TL686. R42 M33 2011 

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Leah Smith

Clara Barton’s Ambulance

National Museum of American History, Landmark Object: Clara Barton’s Red Cross Ambulance, 1898.

After the [Spanish-American War] war, the Red Cross sent this ambulance to Clara Barton for use at her home in Glen Echo, Maryland, the organization’s headquarters and distribution center for relief supplies.

As the founding director of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton was no stranger to battle but she loathed it. “The war side of war could never have called me to the field,” she explained. “I hate it. Only the desire to soften some of its hardships and allay some of its miseries ever induced me . . . dare its pestilent and unholy breath.” —National Museum of American History

The International Red Cross was organized on this date in 1863, in Geneva, Switzerland. The Libraries has many interesting items in its collections, on Clara Barton and the history of the American Red Cross.

The Red Cross; a history of this remarkable international movement in the interest of humanity, , Washington, D.C., American national Red cross [c1898], by Clara Barton …

Red Cross ambulance of 1898 in the Museum of History and Technology [by] Herbert R. Collins, Washington : Smithsonian Institution; [for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Gov't Print. Off.], 1965.

History of the Red Cross. The treaty of Geneva, and its adoption by the United States. American Association of the Red Cross, 1883.

125 years of hope, humanity, compassion: selected treasures from the art collection of the American Red Cross, [Washington, D.C.?] : American Red Cross, c2006.

A story of the Red Cross: glimpses of field work, by Clara Barton. New York : D. Appleton and Company, 1918, c1904.

Elizabeth Periale

That Snowbound Feeling: The USS Vincennes in the South Atlantic Ocean

Originally published on the Collections Search Center  (SIRIS Smithsonian Institution Research Information System) blog . . .

Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition during the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842. Volume 3, 1845, Vincennes in Disappointment Bay

This has been a winter to remember in the Washington, D.C. region. Early February brought at least a couple of feet of snow to the area, and it seems that everyone here at the Smithsonian has been looking through their collections for snowy scenes. Something with icebergs, frolicking penguins, and a tall-masted ship, for instance. 

This lovely image shows the war sloop USS Vincennes in Disappointment Bay, near the coast of Antarctica in the South Atlantic Ocean, in early 1840. The Vincennes was the flagship of The United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842), commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, whose sketch of the ship was used for this engraving. The voyage (sometimes referred to as "the Wilkes Expedition") was commissioned by the United States Congress to conduct a geographic and scientific survey of the southern oceans. The Smithsonian was later given many of the scientific specimens, ethnological artifacts, drawings, correspondence, and other materials collected by The United States Exploring Expedition. The published reports of the Expedition can be found in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. The Smithsonian Institution Archives has a number of the manuscripts and sketches created by members of the Expedition, and the National Museum of Natural History has cultural and scientific specimens collected on the voyage.—Diane Shaw

Illustrations below from Wilkes' Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842 (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1845), Q115.W68 1845c SCNHRB, from the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History.

Top, Charles Wilkes. 

Bottom, View of the Antarctic Continent.

Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition during the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842. Philadelphia, 1845

Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition during the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842. Philadelphia, 1845

2011 Resident Scholar Applications

Johannes Hevelius, Machinae Coelestis Pars Prior [and Posterior] [Celestial machines, or astronomical instruments], 1673-79, Four male figures (including Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, and possibly Ptolemy and Aristotle) contemplate a celestial globe; allegorical figures surround them

Johannes Hevelius, Machinae Coelestis Pars Prior [and Posterior] [Celestial machines, or astronomical instruments], 1673-79, Four male figures (including Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, and possibly Ptolemy and Aristotle) contemplate a celestial globe; allegorical figures surround them

The Libraries will award grants to Dibner Library Resident Scholars and Baird Society Resident Scholars in the 2011 academic year. These competitive short-term grants are offered for one to six months to historians, librarians and bibliographers, as well as predoctoral and postdoctoral students, with an approved research project. The scholars will complete their residencies at one or more of the Libraries’ twenty branches for various lengths of time throughout the year.

Dibner Library Resident Scholars will do research in the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology in the National Museum of American History. The Dibner Library specializes in the physical sciences and technology, and holds more than 25,000 rare books and 10,000 manuscripts covering a wide variety of subject areas and time periods, particularly in mathematics, astronomy, classical and Renaissance natural philosophy, theoretical physics, experimental physics, engineering and scientific apparatus and instruments. The collections range from early printed works of ancient Greek and medieval scholars through the Renaissance and Early Modern eras up through the 19th century. There are significant works by Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Galileo, Descartes, Newton and many others. This award is supported by The Dibner Fund.

Baird Society Resident Scholars will do research in other Libraries’ special collections located in Washington, D.C., and New York City. Included are 19th- and early 20th-century World’s Fairs printed materials; manufacturers’ commercial trade catalogs, numbering more than 300,000 pieces and representing 30,000 companies from the 1840s to the present; natural-history rare books; the air-and-space history special collection for the study of ballooning, rocketry and aviation from the late-18th to the early-20th centuries; James Smithson’s library; and the European and American decorative arts, architecture and design special collection, which spans the 18th to the 20th centuries. This award is supported by the Smithsonian Libraries Spencer Baird Society.

The deadline for applications to the 2011 resident scholar programs is April 1st. Visit our website for application materials and further information or e-mail SILResidentScholars@si.edu.—Liz O'Brien