#archives

IBM and Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is the area of science and innovation concerned with material of less than 100 nanometers. Specifically, it involves the control and manipulation of individual atoms and molecules. On this day in 1979, IBM created the smallest electronic circuit elements ever reported. The nano devices had a thickness of only 100 by 200 atomic diameters – that’s smaller than the fibers of a human nerve. This breakthrough was one of the first steps in the still-ongoing development of nanotechnology. Today, IBM scientists continue to explore and improve the design of semiconductors and computer chips, making them smaller, smarter and more energy efficient. It’s another way IBM is investing in practical technology development for the future.

Learn more about nanotechnology ->

IBM 3525 Card Punch: Innovating an Innovation

IBM was one of the first companies to begin manufacturing punched cards. For almost four decades, punched cards were the major medium for storing, sorting and reporting data processed first through punched card equipment and—later—computers. Colloquially known as “IBM cards,” the punched cards were so embedded in business operations that by the 1950s, they represented over 20% of IBM’s revenue. On this day in 1971, IBM announced a new version of the IBM 3525 Card Punch replacing incandescent lamps with LEDs—a new technology at the time—to read punched cards. While the punched card may now be a thing of the past, LEDs are as relevant as ever, with new applications being actively developed. In retrospect, with a bit of serendipity, one great innovation passed the baton to another.

Learn more about the long history of the punched card ->

Engineering the Sydney Opera House Arches

Today in 1973, the iconic Sydney Opera House was completed. One of the unsung heroes behind this marvel of human engineering was a Frenchman named Joe Bertony. Bertony designed the truss that supports the famous arches. Because each arch was differently curved, the mathematical equations required were extremely complex. So complex, in fact, that Bertony conducted over 30,000 separate equations to figure out how much stress could be applied to the arch structure. Because of this complexity – and because the margin of error could be no more than half an inch – a computer was required to double-check each of his brilliant equations. At the time, the only computer powerful enough was the IBM 7090, which was selected for the task. IBM is proud to have supported the construction of this amazing building and to continue supporting human ingenuity to create amazing things.

Learn more about the story of building the Sydney Opera House ->

Extremely honored to have been asked by @Blizzard & the team at @PlayOverwatch to do an illustration for their Anniversary event! This was in celebration of their latest #Archives mission- Storm Rising, located in the new, beautiful Havana map. As a huge fan of #Overwatch and the company, I’m so excited to have been able to work on this & share it with you now! 

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Soooo, I was asked on You Tube (hey S. H. Brooks *wave*) about the amusement park I had made in one of my ‘now retired’ worlds: Kreeh Peeh Creek. I don’t have any video from there but I do have a tooon of pictures and ‘old stories’ from that time about my sims -  + 3 of @aroundthesims Lison, Priya and Sheryll) and 1 of @batsheba (Porter Holden) -  so..

From the ARCHIVES - SEA MONSTER PARK  pt.2 (part 1 here) 

11, 12 - Sliding out of Squid Fun House

13, 14 - Porter and his crush (oh and also hosting student *facepalm* ) Jade Greenwood also went for a ride on the Jormungandr Coaster, with the other ones looking on on them.  

15- Everyone gathered at the restaurant for dinner. 

16, 17, 18, 19 - Mad(’s) faces - my lil’ cousin simself, in RL she is exactly like that ;-P -  +  Evening at the ‘arcade’ part of the park

20 - The whole gang at the park: Natasha, Priya, Porter, Jade, Sheryll, Liz, Laurel, Mad, Lison and Lisa

Soooo, I was asked on You Tube (hey S. H. Brooks *wave*) about the amusement park I had made in one of my ‘now retired’ worlds: Kreeh Peeh Creek. I don’t have any video from there but I do have a tooon of pictures and ‘old stories’ from that time about my sims -  + 3 of @aroundthesims Lison, Priya and Sheryll) and 1 of @batsheba (Porter Holden) -  so..

From the ARCHIVES - SEA MONSTER PARK  pt.1

- built in 2014 and played with it once *facepalm* in 2015, more pictures in this ‘video’  (still images)

It was Mad’s - my lil’ cousin’s simself - week. After a sleepover at her host family’s house (Grisby family - originally from Riverview) she + her friends + hosting teens went to the fun park. 

2, 3, 4 - Laurel Grisby and Priya were kinda frozen so Mad and Lison got volunteered instead for the first ride on the Jormungandr Coaster. Not sure Laurel appreciated the carrousel any better though ^^ 

5 - Lisa Bunch - Priya’s host student made friend with one of the locals Pennywiser. 

6, 7, 8, 9, 10 - Mad and Lison joined Sheryll and Natasha for a visit of Squid Fun House. WhilePriya, Liz King (Lison’s exchange student) and Laurel reluctantly went for a tour of the Haunted Beach House.

molieresphotography:

Beachcombing treasures. It’s the little things. Copyrights Val Moliere, Palma de Mallorca, Feb 2019

 Throw back Thursday to one of my all time favorite photos in the archives.

Opening Day on June 2nd, 1894. I love all of the people and their amazing outfits.

© The Field Museum, GN78508.

Opening Day crowds. Field Columbian Museum June 2, 1894

6/2/1894 

One of my favorite series of photos we have is the Move Series.

Seeing how they moved all of the exhibits and objects on train cars from our old building to the new one is really fascinating. 

Also getting a chance to scan all of these glass plates was really fun.

© The Field Museum, CSGN40514, Photographer Charles Carpenter.

Thirteen (13) men including Security Guard unloading dorsal vertebrae of Apatosaurus fossils. Parts of a skeleton in several wood crates or exhibit cases, outside new Field Museum building. Museum move series.

5x7 glass negative

4/26/1920

Here is a throw back to the Fighting Elephants in 1948. 

You can see why they are now on a taller base. It keeps people from being able to touch them. 

© The Field Museum, GN78722.

Stanley Field Hall with students. Shows several girls and a few boys with their teachers (nuns in habit), Penicillin exhibit, wood benches, girl touching one of the elephants legs, displayed at floor level, looking towards south staircase, Akeley Lion Spearing Bronze sculpture in background.

8x10 negative 

4/16/1948 

Taxidermy Tuesday, Here is a much more finished look from last week’s Taxidermy Tuesday. They are adding the skin to the mold. 

© The Field Museum, Z80768.

John Moyer and Frenchie (verify if Mr. John La Bontè) putting skin over unidentified bird specimen.

8x10 negative 

12/13/1937 

Here is a throw back to 1960. These two trucks were used to deliver Harris Loan teaching materials to schools.

Teachers can still check out amazing teaching materials from our N.W. Harris Learning Collection.

© The Field Museum, HE78691.

Benjamin Cascard, John Dykstra, Chris Priesmeyer and William Foust outside outside the South Entrance of the FM building with 2 N.W. Harris Public School Extension Chicago Natural History Museum delivery trucks. Note that the halls rooms with Caryatid porches are shaded or bricked up. Delivery truck and staff of Norman W. Harris Public School Extension.

8x10 negative 

6/14/1960 

Got leftover candy? We do too!

While processing a new collection, we came across a scrapbook from the Rawls-Dickson Candy Company.

Candy is delicious food. Enjoy some every day.

The actor David Garrick’s diary documenting his 1751 trip to Paris was thought to have been lost for more than a century.  It ended up in the hands of Harry Houdini, who was a collector of magic and theatre history. Houdini made the diary available to scholars for the first time in 1922, filling in one of the last major gaps in the life of Garrick. Now you can view the diary at https://hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15878coll94. 

Scholarship, time machines, and madness! The Hidden Room Theatre’s Beth Burns on John Wilkes Booth’s promptbook for “Richard III." https://budurl.me/unedv

KN-C29875. Fireworks Show at the White House

In her 1964 Oral History with colleague Pamela Turnure, the First Lady’s Social Secretary Nancy Tuckerman described how the fireworks show at a state dinner honoring the King and Queen of Afghanistan (pictured above) came to be, and what President Kennedy’s reaction to it was.

Nancy Tuckerman: When the King and Queen of Afghanistan came, Mrs. Kennedy decided it would be appropriate to have a military review on the South Lawn of the White House. And then she decided something even more spectacular had to be done—because there had already been a military performance before. So she thought of fireworks, which they had never had at the White House, and the President, I remember, was very dubious and a little bit nervous about this because he thought it might be too much of an extravaganza and too much of a display to suddenly have fireworks bursting forth.

Mrs. Wayne Fredericks: Well, was he overruled on this or did he think about it?

Nancy Tuckerman: He thought about it a great deal. In fact, he thought about it so much that he called me constantly to find out if the fireworks came from Japan; how long they would last; and many other things: whether by law in Washington you could set them off other than the 4th of July—but we found out it was legal. He had a hundred questions which I had never thought about—and had no answers for—but found out. 

…Also at the Afghanistan dinner, I remember, he suddenly got nervous again over the fireworks and about the day before the dinner he started into exactly the same routine that we had been through a few months ago. He said, “Well, I’ve decided now we must cut the fireworks in half.” So they went from ten minutes to five minutes, and the man who was setting off the fireworks didn’t quite understand or else he decided to make it more spectacular by putting the same amount of dynamite into five minutes because we’d paid for it… So suddenly when the fireworks went off it really was incredible. Do you remember? Oh, the noise! The switchboard in Washington, the police boards, everything was jammed up. People thought the end of the world had come.

Read the full Oral History.

National Doughnut Day goals. 

This pastry princess—check out that crown!—is from the Sally L. Steinberg Collection of Doughnut Ephemera in our National Museum of American History’s Archives Center. (Steinberg also considered herself a doughnut princess, as her grandfather Adolph Levitt was America’s original “doughnut king,” having developed the automatic doughnut making machine and founded the modern American doughnut industry.)

We’ve got more than a baker’s dozen in our collections. Find your favorite Smithsonian doughnut to snack on. 

Cats didn’t need the internet to achieve feline fame. 

Our@archivesofamericanart has a new exhibition, “Before Internet Cats: Feline Finds from the Archives of American Art,” which explores how cats are represented in rare documents like sketches and drawings, letters, and photographs from the 19th century through the early 2000s.

We decided to let the cat out of the bag…er, box with this collage postcard sent from fiber artist Lenore Tawney to filmmaker Maryette Charlton. Tawney’s postcards often featured intricate layers of found media and handwritten notes. Animals, especially cats, were a frequent motif.

While we think the whole exhibition is purrfect (we couldn’t help it), here are some of our favorite pieces from the archives:

Georges Mathieu, a French painter, embellished this oversize letter to painter Hedda Sterne. It’s among the cat-themed correspondence from Mathieu that are in Sterne’s papers.

Cats often make ideal studio companions. They serve as sympathetic critics and elegant muses. 

In this photo, Pozy the cat watches muralist Edna Reindel work in her California studio. (Pozy is also the subject of the wall mural behind them.)

Photos of artists in their studios enhance our understanding of their stories and their working processes.

Reginald Gammon was known for his evocative portraits of prominent African Americans (and not cats) but in the mid-1960s he illustrated a children’s book that chronicles the friendship between a boy and a bespectacled cat.

Thousands of sketches in the Archives of American Art offer insight into artists’ creative processes. A 1948 sketchbook of watercolor studies by muralist and children’s book illustrator Emily Barto highlights the distinct personalities of several felines—here’s one taking a cat nap.

#BeforeInternetCats is on view through Oct. 29 in the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery (the first floor of the National Portrait Gallery). You can also paw your way through the exhibition online. 

In FW 14 collection in collaboration with the artist Sterling Ruby, Raf Simons brought these boots back. It is a military shoe that the models worn on the runway. Some of them were original vintage editions and others were inspired versions in collaboration with Adidas.
This boot was created by the American Army during the Korean War in the 50s, and were designed to resist temperatures as low as -65 °F. The nickname “Bunny” is because of the boot shape and the color that resembles the feet of a rabbit. There is also a black version, which is nicknamed “The Mickeys” or “Mouse”, that are made for higher temperatures being able to resist -20 °F with a thicker rubber, and also prepared for other types of terrain.
There are three technical details in this shoe: a vapor barrier with valves, insulated materials and a spacious toe-box that prevents pressure and sweat on the feet. They also feature printed use instructions over the boot.
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