January 2021 News

Photo by Jessica Scott, Smithsonian Archives.

Ring in the New Year by preserving your family history for future generations! Smithsonian Libraries and Archives has six helpful tips for creating a family archive that will not only house your special photographs and documents, but keep the stories and images they contain safe for decades to come.

How does our current moment in history relate to past pandemics and public health initiatives — and how will it be remembered in the future? Join curators and historians from the Smithsonian and beyond for a free virtual discussion series developed by the National Museum of American History that looks at the history of vaccines, masking up, essential workers, quarantine fashion, pandemic pastimes and more. Panelists will share objects from the past and address audience questions.

Brienne the Andean bear. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian National Zoo.

This fall, Brienne the Andean bear joined her grandmother Billie Jean and beau-to-be Quito at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo! Learn more about this curious and charming girl, her new habitat, and the lives of Andean bears in a Q&A with keeper Sara Colandrea.

Photo courtesy of Charlie Parr.

Beloved songwriter and blues guitarist Charlie Parr has signed with Smithsonian Folkways and will release new recorded music in 2021. In the meantime, Parr has announced an “online residency” of five streaming concerts each Sunday evening in January.

Photo by Ana Endara for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institue.

The latest digital addition of Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Trópicos magazine chronicles the necessity of science during times of crisis and the resilience of the scientists and staff who made discovery in 2020 possible. Read about bat research in Panama, the long game of collecting climate data, and more.

James Smithson, c. 1765-1829 (detail), James Roberts, 1753-c.1809, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Still returning gifts from the holidays? In 1890, the hot new holiday toy was a phonograph doll: a 22-inch tall figure with a porcelain head and metal torso which contained a wax recording. A revolutionary idea, this early technology had some limitations, including scratchy, screechy audio which made the dolls sound rather frightening. Ultimately, many were returned and the remaining inventory was destroyed, resulting in very few surviving examples.

Which famous inventor was responsible for the phonograph doll?