This fashion plate from Les Robes De Paul Poiret (1908) is one of eleven illustrations, all recently scanned and now available for your viewing pleasure. Poiret is often credited with liberating women from the body constricting corsets popular during the Victorian and Edwardian eras (1837-1910).
On August 31, 1835, what came to be known as The Great Moon Hoax took its final bow in the Sun newspaper. During the following weeks, the story would be largely revealed as a hoax, but was still running wild as a story just the same. Other than discovering animal life and man-bats on the Moon, the other truly odd part of the hoax was that it was no hoax at all, but rather a satire that very few figured out.
The Great Moon Hoax continues. During the following days, Herschel’s new found discoveries were astonishing New Yorkers as the story spread like wild fire and was starting to find an audience beyond New York City itself including a number of scientist some of whom bought into the story, while others were fascinated but not so easily convinced. As a matter of fact, several scientists from Yale traveled to New York City in search of the truth behind the report. Back to the story at hand, Herschel’s subsequent nights of observations found him discovering even more astonishing flora, fauna, and geological marvels.
During this week in 1835, an incredible story broke in the Sun Newspaper, New York City, which reported that the famed astronomer Sir John Herschel had made Great Astronomical Discoveries. While cataloging and mapping nebulae in the night sky at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, Herschel trained his reportedly hyper powerful telescope on the Moon. The specifics of the telescope was covered in the first day’s article.
Are you itching to contribute to the wealth of knowledge at the Smithsonian? Well, now you can from the comfort of your own home (or local coffee shop or library or bus station . . .). The Smithsonian Institution is recruiting “virtual volunteers” to help unlock some of the mysteries in our collection through the Transcription Center.
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.
This post was contributed by Kaitlyn Tanis, intern at the American Art and Portrait Gallery Library. Walking around downtown Washington, D.C. (located between the Capitol and the White House) more »