What holiday do you think of when someone mentions costumes? Halloween? But have you ever thought of a costume for the holiday season at this time of year? The 1923 Dennison’s Christmas Book by Dennison Mfg. Co. gives three suggestions for holiday costumes.
Category: Holidays and Special Occasions
Tomorrow, December 7th, 2013, marks the 72nd anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor. On that day in 1941, Japanese bombers and other aircraft launched a surprise attack on the more »
This post was written by Chris Cottrill, head of the National Air and Space Museum Library.
November 11, 2013. Today is Veteran’s Day and a federal holiday.
For some of us that can mean a chance to sleep-in, run some errands, or have an extended weekend away. But it’s also the one day we should recall those we know or knew that put on the uniform (enlisted or draftee) and served their country during times of peace or conflict. The Smithsonian Libraries would like to thank those staff members who put on the uniform and served.
This week, September 22-28, is Banned Books Week, an annual event coordinated by the American Library Association that celebrates the freedom to read. Banned books are ones that have been removed, or threatened with removal, from library shelves because some felt their content was inappropriate for certain audiences. Many of the titles deemed controversial in the past have become today’s classics. We’ve already shared with you some of the surprising modern banned titles that are in our collection . In addition to the works listed there, our Dibner Library contains early editions of works by Galileo, Martin Luther and Voltaire, prohibited by the Catholic Church and listed in their infamous Index Librorum Prohibitorum (List of Prohibited Books).
Below are some of our staff’s personal favorites. Would you agree?
Who says librarians can’t be fashionable? Join us September 5th-12th as we celebrate New York Fashion Week by highlighting the fabulous fashion and costume items in our collections. Stay tuned here on the blog, as well as Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook, as we strut down the virtual catwalk!
In 1894, Labor Day, celebrated on the first Monday in September, was officially established and signed into law by President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) to recognize the contribution of American workers. The day is usually associated with trade unionism and its historic appeals for the right to organize in the workplace, the eight hour workday, the five day work week, workman’s compensation, the abolishment of night work without compensation, equal pay for equal work, and the abolishment of child labor. These hard fought for rights which are currently viewed as given conditions in the workplace were won through the organizational skills and spilled blood of labor leaders and the rank and file The Smithsonian houses many volumes dealing with labor history; the following monographs are located in the American Art/National Portrait Gallery Library (AA/PG).
This post was written by Leslie K. Overstreet, Curator of Natural-History Rare Books.
Walt Kelly, famed field naturalist of the Okeefenokee Swamp, was born on Aug.25, 1913.
He first revealed Okeefenokee’s extraordinary zoological community to the world in 1949. It included an alligator, turtle, owl, porcupine, skunk, three bats, even worms on occasion, and various others. Contrary to basic scientific protocols, Kelly tended to personalize, even anthropomorphize, his research subjects: He named them, for example, and published a series of illustrations of their behavior and interactions that ran in newspapers nationwide for decades.