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Author: Erin Rushing

Erin Clements Rushing is the Outreach Librarian for Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. She enjoys sharing the Libraries and Archives' treasures with new audiences and telling the stories from the stacks through various outreach efforts. She coordinates social media and the blog (Unbound), plans tours and manages the internship program. She also handles rights and reproductions for library collection images and acts as point person for copyright concerns. Erin holds an M.L.S from the University of Maryland, as well as a B.A. in History and Art History.

John Lewis Childs: A Profile of an American Seedsman.

Cultivating America’s Gardens, our newest exhibition produced with Smithsonian Gardens is now open in the National Museum of American History and features many colorful seed catalogs from our collection. This post, highlighting seedsman John Lewis Childs,  was written by social media intern Trudi J. Antoine.

Portrait of John Lewis Childs, from his profile in The Condor, September 1907.Via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

While some children played games and chased the pavement, John Lewis Childs pursued a dream of playing in the dirt. Starting from the ground up, horticulturist and businessman, John Lewis Childs made his way as a young lad to East Hinsdale, a town bordering Queens, New York, with only a glimmer of where his path would take him. He was only seventeen.

The Fix: Preserving “Nimm Mich Mit!”

This blog post was written by Noah Smutz, book conservator.

Nimm Mich Mit! by Lothar Meggendorfer is a lovely early 20th century German visual dictionary filled with colorful illustrations. They include everyday objects including geometric shapes, kitchen utensils, clothing, plants, animals, people at work, and house interiors (learn more in a recent blog post ). This book is part of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum National Design Library collection in New York City.

 

Nimm mich mit!

This post was contributed by David Holbert, Digital Imaging Specialist at the Smithsonian Libraries Digital Imaging Center. A wonderful German children’s book came through the Smithsonian Libraries’ Imaging Center recently more »