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At the Smithsonian

Burgess will build on the unifying motifs of "Confluence" as he and his team craft their latest opus

Reimagining Portraiture Through Dance

Choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess joins forces with the National Portrait Gallery

Dorset Horn sheep are one of eight heritage livestock breeds currently living at SVF. The gene bank currently contains 30 breeds.

For One Day Only, Visit the Farm and Cryogenics Laboratory Trying to Save Endangered Livestock Breeds

Enjoy a farm tour, cryogenics demonstration and a heritage-breed beef burger at Newport, Rhode Island’s Swiss Village Farm

This first-person account by B.C. Franklin is titled "The Tulsa Race Riot and Three of Its Victims." It was recovered from a storage area in 2015 and donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Breaking Ground

A Long-Lost Manuscript Contains a Searing Eyewitness Account of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921

An Oklahoma lawyer details the attack by hundreds of whites on the thriving black neighborhood where hundreds died 95 years ago

Kurt Riley, governor of the Acoma Pueblo people, spoke on the ever-present specter of theft of cultural objects.

Native Americans Decry the Auctioning-Off of Their Heritage in Paris

Community leaders convene at the National Museum of the American Indian to push for change

Portraits of Infamy by Roger Shimomura, 2016

Commentary

The Public Puts Great Trust in Museums, and Now It’s Time Museums Trust the Public

A new exhibition, curated by the community, debuts this weekend at the Smithsonian

"One of the first questions I ask myself," says Washington, D.C.-based artist Linn Meyers is, "'How well can I approach the quirks of the architecture?'"

The Mesmerizing Results When a Museum Asks an Artist to Draw All Over Its Walls

Linn Meyers took on the monumental task of creating a 400-foot-long artwork at the Hirshhorn

A trowel placed in a Native American oyster midden that dates to about 1,000 years ago shows the relative size of the shells. The average size of modern oysters is significantly smaller.

How Big Were Oysters in the Chesapeake Before Colonization?

A new multidisciplinary study reveals that yes, oysters were larger and more plentiful before European contact

Louis Armstrong's historic trumpet was a "great playing" instrument, says Wynton Marsalis, after his performance last Fall at the Smithsonian.

Breaking Ground

To Really Appreciate Louis Armstrong’s Trumpet, You Gotta Play it. Just Ask Wynton Marsalis

It’s not always the white-glove treatment; some artifacts live on through performance

Blair's Snow White Hair Beautifier

Old Cosmetics Made New Again Through the Art of Digitization

Arsenic Complexion Wafers? A whole new world of yesteryear cosmetics just got a refresh

Sewer in a Suitcase: This handy kit shows people where water goes after it goes down the drain.

These Kits Beautifully Explain How City Sewers and Zoning Laws Work

New York’s Center for Urban Pedagogy uses art and design to help people better understand complex laws and systems

Uniting past and present, Frank Chi brings the voices of Muslim-American youth to the personal narratives of those interned after Pearl Harbor.

In This Heartfelt Video, American Muslims Connect With World War II Internees

Filmmaker and activist Frank Chi sheds light on a sobering historical comparison

View of the Bahamas as seen from the International Space Station in the new IMAX film, A Beautiful Planet

A Tweet Is Just a Ritz Cracker, But an IMAX Film Is a Steak Dinner

That’s what astronaut Terry Virts says about the new IMAX film he helped to make

Why Do Humans Have Canine Teeth and More Questions From Our Readers

You asked, we answered

This Powerful Stokely Carmichael Portrait Never Made It to the Cover of Time Magazine

The artwork, by famed artist Jacob Lawrence, captured the turning point in the Civil Rights Movement

Sculptor Anne Arnold and her husband, the abstract painter Ernest Briggs, owned a house with a barn in Montville, Maine, where they raised farm animals, including pigs, cows, and chickens, and kept many dogs and cats. Arnold frequently relied on photographs of her menagerie to create her lively sculptures of animals in metal and wood.

A Look at the Creative Process and What Makes an Artist Tick

A new exhibition delivers a better understanding of where artists find their inspiration

The Biodiversity Heritage Library has the digitized version of the University of Toronto’s Fisher Library’s copy of Evelyn’s work

Celebrate National Salad Month with Rare and Historic Books that Include Your Favorite Leafy Greens

A Smithsonian librarian journeys through history and time on a quest to explore salads throughout antiquity

The 400,000-square-foot building has LEED Gold certification

Breaking Ground

Come Inside the New African American History Museum (Photos)

Take a peek behind the scenes to see how curators, architects and designers are prepping for the museum’s historic opening

The scope of Dyar's tunnel networks, first discovered in 1917 against the chaotic backdrop of World War I, didn't truly sink in until 1924, when the weight of a truck in Dupont Circle caused one to collapse.

The Bizarre Tale of the Tunnels, Trysts and Taxa of a Smithsonian Entomologist

A new book details the sensational exploits of Harrison G. Dyar, Jr., a scientist who had two wives and liked to dig tunnels

Freedmen's Hospital Nurses, 1930

Do You Recognize Anyone in These Historical Photos? The Smithsonian Wants to Know

The American History Museum calls on the public to select images and identify subjects in photos pulled from the museum’s archives

A club from Massachusetts in the shape of a fish, probably Atlantic sturgeon, dates to about 1750. The area was previously thought to have only one language at the time of European contact, but new research reveals there were five Native American languages were spoken in the Connecticut Valley of central Massachusetts.

Five Lost Languages Rediscovered in Massachusetts

Smithsonian linguist Ives Goddard finds that the Native Americans of central Massachusetts spoke five languages instead of one

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