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Sometimes you just need to smile at a photo of cute dogs before you can go on with your day. These pictures were taken ...
08/26/2026

Sometimes you just need to smile at a photo of cute dogs before you can go on with your day.

These pictures were taken by photographer Philip D. Gendreau. Gendreau began his photography career while traveling on merchant ships as a young man. In the 1920s, he started his own company and eventually moved to New York City where he captured the daily lives of New Yorkers for various publications, including school textbooks and Life Magazine. These images of Boston Terriers, English Setters, and a Wire-Haired Terrier are in the collection of National Museum of American History. The Boston Terriers are named Sonny Boy and Patsy!

We remember Dolly Parton, singer, musician, songwriter, actor, and businesswoman. Known as the “queen of country,” Parto...
08/25/2026

We remember Dolly Parton, singer, musician, songwriter, actor, and businesswoman. Known as the “queen of country,” Parton was a mainstay in American popular culture for six decades.

With grit, boldness, and a cup of ambition, Parton earned national fame at an early age. In 1967, she joined country singer Porter Wagoner on the television variety program “The Porter Wagoner Show.” Over the next decade, Parton released chart-topping hits, including “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You,” later covered by singer Whitney Houston in 1992.

More recently, her collaborations with musicians Beyonce, Miley Cyrus, and Sabrina Carpenter introduced her to a new generation of music fans. Parton was awarded 11 Grammys, and she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.

Outside of music, Dolly was a prolific philanthropist. Established in 1988, “The Dollywood Foundation,” included programs that expanded childhood literacy through the “Imagination Library” program, decreased dropout rates, and provided scholarships for continuing education.

These pictures of Dolly Parton are in our National Museum of American History

🎶: This photo of Dolly Parton is the back cover of the “Heartbreaker” album songbook. The book features photos of the singer alongside the music and lyrics from “Heartbreaker,” her 20th solo studio album released in 1978 that included hits like “Heartbreaker,” “I Really Got the Feeling,” and “Baby I’m Burnin.” Credit: Columbia Pictures Publications, 1979.

📷: Henry Horenstein captured this shot in 1972. On that day, Parton told him, “People don’t come out to see me looking like everybody else.”

☕: This film poster of the 1980 movie “9 to 5” features Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Dabney Coleman. The film’s theme song of the same name, written by Parton, won two Grammy Awards and a People’s Choice Award.

08/25/2026

From romantic keepsakes for secret lovers to morbid mementos of deceased loved ones, hair jewelry, like this locket from our Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum , was very popular in the 1800s.

While hair jewelry could be made at home, they were also designed and hand crafted by jewelers, as explained by curator Emily Orr. This locket contains finely braided human hair with four gold toned bands surrounding a silhouette by artist John Miers. The brooch, also in our Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, was also made by weaving hair together. This design was featured in Charles T. Menge’s 1873 design catalogue published in New York.

📖: “Charles T. Menge’s price list of ornamental hair jewelry and device work,” 1873. In the collection of our Smithsonian Libraries Archives.

Jackie Kennedy after catching a wave: icon. Us regular humans after catching a wave: eating sand. 🌊 Photographer Jacques...
08/24/2026

Jackie Kennedy after catching a wave: icon. Us regular humans after catching a wave: eating sand. 🌊

Photographer Jacques Lowe, a German immigrant and Holocaust survivor, was only 28 years old when he began photographing future President John F. Kennedy and his family. He captured Kennedy on the campaign trail and later served as personal photographer to the first family when they entered the White House.

Lowe captured this photograph of Jackie Kennedy at the beach in August 1960, just three months before her husband won the presidential race against Richard Nixon.

Lowe’s photographs, like this one, illuminated the warmth and humanity of the Kennedys that solidified their image as a young, modern American family. In one of Lowe’s earliest photos of the family, baby Caroline shoves her mother’s pearl necklace in her mouth. In another, we see the couple sipping coffee in a small-town diner. And just before the Kennedys posed for a formal 1959 holiday card, toddler Caroline plants a kiss on her father’s cheek.

Stored in a vault in the World Trade Center, more than 40,000 of Lowe’s photo negatives were destroyed during the September 11 attacks. Our National Portrait Gallery USA is home to numerous images of the Kennedys by Lowe, printed two years earlier.

📷: Bathing Suit with Fins by Jacques Lowe, 1960. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. © Estate of Jacques Lowe Photo by Jacques Lowe / F. Harvey Collection.

He's the "Godfather of Go-Go.” Multi-talented musician Chuck Brown fused rhythm and blues, Latin Jazz, and funk music in...
08/21/2026

He's the "Godfather of Go-Go.”

Multi-talented musician Chuck Brown fused rhythm and blues, Latin Jazz, and funk music into D.C.'s official music genre, "Go-Go."
If you don't think you're familiar with Go-Go music, think again. Elements of Brown's song "Bustin' Loose," for example, was sampled in 2002's "Hot in Herre" by Nelly.

Dwan Reece, curator at our Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, remarked in our Smithsonian Magazine that Chuck Brown’s performances were electric. “There was an energy, and it was infectious. There was no line between the performer and the audience.”

Chuck Brown and his bands, including Soul Searchers, performed at our Anacostia Community Museum multiple times in his career. Tomorrow, August 22, on what would be his 90th birthday, celebrate Go-Go music with our Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum’s “Go-Go Fitness” event.

https://anacostia.si.edu/events?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D205901099
…
📸: "Chuck Brown performing with Chuck Brown Band on the Funk Fest Tour at Hampton Coliseum," November 2011, DC Public Library, The People's Archive, Chip Py Go-Go Collection.
🎸: Chuck Brown's Gibson Guitar, in the collection of Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum.

Editing a picture is not as modern as you may think. Artist W.H. Martin was famous for his early 20th century photomonta...
08/20/2026

Editing a picture is not as modern as you may think.

Artist W.H. Martin was famous for his early 20th century photomontages where he combined different photographs to create "out-of-scale" exaggerated scenes. He would then rephotograph these collages to create comedic postcards. They served as a relief from the harsh realities of midwestern agricultural life while also satirizing the idealized pictures that had lured people to the region a generation earlier.

This image features a county fair where the ears of corn are so large, each need its own wagon!

🌽 W. H. Martin, "Our County Fair contest on Iowa corn," 1908, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery.

08/19/2026

Animals like condiments, too. Feeding animals sounds easy… until your lunch crowd includes pandas, gorillas, elephants, and hundreds of other species with very different tastes, habits, and nutritional needs. 🍉🥕🍇

From panda carbs to elephant-sized portions, every meal is carefully planned to support animal health and wellbeing at our Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute's commissary kitchen.

Think of it as the world's most complicated meal prep...with a few very opinionated customers.

08/18/2026

Butter late than never! 🧈🐮 Don’t miss your chance to see this butter cow on view in “State Fairs: Growing American Craft” at our ’s Renwick Gallery through Sept. 7.

Every year, visitors to the Iowa State Fair line up to see a life-size butter cow, sculpted by Sarah Pratt and her daughters, Hannah and Grace.

Last summer, the trio created a new sculpture for the exhibition in a special refrigerated case right here in Washington, D.C. Starting with a wire frame to hold the sculpture in place, they carefully shaped 600 pounds of butter over the course of a few days.

08/17/2026

a day at the beach < 18 seconds in front of our mollusk collections

From snails the size of a grain of sand to the giant squid, the phylum Mollusca can be found in nearly every ecosystem on the planet.

Did you know that 16 American states have official state shells representing a variety of marine mollusks? A selection from Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s collections is included in “From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural History.” The exhibition, which marks the 250th anniversary of the United States, features 600 specimens and cultural items representing all 50 states, D.C., and the five U.S. territories.

08/14/2026

Our ’s most frequently asked question: how do astronauts go to the bathroom in space? The Artemis II astronauts used this space toilet system. 🚀🚽

Museum education manager Mike Hulslander goes above and beyond his ~duties~ to show us a reproduction of the Universal Waste Management System. It’s currently in use on the International Space Station and NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which sustains the crews on Artemis missions to the Moon.

Full disclosure: the astronauts are NOT drinking their urine! Well, not totally. The system doses the urine stream with a chemical mix and then sends it through the recycling system, where it distills, filters, and purifies the liquid into drinking water.

The space “toilet” will be on display in the museum’s “At Home at Space” exhibition, opening in October 2026.

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