On this day in 1835 the author, inventor, investor, steamboat captain, social rights advocate and adventurer Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri. Better known by his pen name more »
Author: Doug Litts
Doug Litts is the head of the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library.
During July 1-3, 1863, the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War took place around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Confederate defeat is seen as the turning point of the war ending more »
After losing the rights to his original animated character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney created a new character named Mortimer Mouse who was quickly renamed Mickey Mouse. Mickey first more »
O'Connor, Mallory M. and Gary Monroe. Florida's American Heritage River: Images from the St. Johns Region. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2009. Once called the "Nile of the Americas" because more »
Vertical files in art museums and libraries are repositories of “ephemera” — things that are not intended to last a long time. Among other things, the ephemera collected in the more »
Recto: Charles Caryl Coleman (born Buffalo, NY, 1840; died Capri, Italy, 1928) Verso: Carte-de-visite photographer: Lorenzo Suscipj (1802-1885), Rome, Italy A native of Buffalo New York and nephew of an more »