This finding aid was digitized with funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women’s Committee.
Descriptive Entry:
The Doris Holmes Blake papers consist of correspondence, diaries, photographs and related materials documenting in great detail Blake's personal life and, to a lesser
degree, her professional career.
The heavy correspondence she maintained with her mother and daughter, her essays and children's books, and the 70 years' worth of daily journals all attest to her infatuation
with the written word and preoccupation with her inner life. Blake's diaries and family papers stunningly illuminate the contrasts in the daily lives of herself, her mother,
and her daughter.
The papers relating to her professional life are less complete. Although she spent almost 60 years (1919-1978) in association with the entomological staffs of the U. S.
Department of Agriculture and the Smithsonian Institution, published numerous professional papers, produced all of her own illustrations, and illustrated many of her husband's
botanical works as well, this collection contains only a very limited amount of material documenting those activities. The papers do, however, include her extensive correspondence
with fellow entomologists, both in the United States and abroad.
In the course of transferring her husband's papers to the University of Texas, some of Blake's own papers were included as well. They are presently in the collection of
the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin and include letters to her parents, 1906-1950; school and college notebooks, papers, essays and drawings;
and clippings, genealogical notes, and miscellaneous family letters and papers.
Historical Note:
Doris Holmes (1892-1978) was born in Stoughton, Massachusetts, to a middle-class grocer and his wife. Essentially an only child (two siblings died in early childhood
and infancy), her natural intelligence, stubbornness, and extremely competitive nature were well fostered by her parents, who steadily encouraged and supported her determination
to excel.
Holmes left Stoughton for Boston University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1909, where she pursued studies in business and the classics, earning her A.B. in
1913. Her business skills led to her association with the Boston Psychopathic Hospital in 1913, initially as a clerk, and later as aide to Dr. Herman Adler. Her interests
in science and psychology led her to an A.M. from Radcliffe College in zoology and psychology in 1917.
After a short time as a researcher at Bedford Hills Reformatory for Women, Holmes married her childhood sweetheart, botanist Sidney Fay Blake. Early in 1919, Doris Blake
found work as a clerk for the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Entomology under Frank H. Chittenden, and began the entomological studies that would continue for the rest
of her life.
Blake worked her way up to junior entomologist and, when Chittenden retired, continued her work under Eugene A. Schwarz at the United States National Museum. The birth
in 1928 of daughter Doris Sidney (an infant son had died shortly after birth in 1927) was not a sign for her to slow down -- Blake hired a nurse to watch the baby while she
continued to watch beetles. In 1933 her official employment came to an end with the institution of regulations prohibiting more than one member of a family from holding a
government position (Sidney Blake was then working for the Department of Agriculture).
Although no longer on the payroll, Blake continued her taxonomic work on the family Chrysomelides for almost 45 more years, first as a collaborator and then as a research
associate of the Smithsonian Institution. Shortly after her husband's death, Blake traveled to Europe in 1960 on a National Science Foundation grant to revise the genus Neobrotica
Jacoby. She ultimately published 97 papers in various journals (see "Doris Holmes Blake," Froeschner, Froeschner and Cartwright, Proc. Entomol. Soc. Wash., 83(3), 1981, for
a complete bibliography) and continued her active research until shortly before her death on December 3, 1978.
These records are the official minutes of the Board. They are compiled at the direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian, who is also secretary to the Board, after
approval by the Regents' Executive Committee and by the Regents themselves. The minutes are edited, not a verbatim account of proceedings. For reasons unknown, there are no
manuscript minutes for the period from 1857 through 1890; and researchers must rely on printed minutes published in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution instead.
Minutes are transferred regularly from the Secretary's Office to the Archives. Minutes less than 15 years old are closed to researchers. Indexes exist for the period from
1907 to 1946 and can be useful.
Historical Note:
The Smithsonian Institution was created by authority of an Act of Congress approved August 10, 1846. The Act entrusted direction of the Smithsonian to a body called
the Establishment, composed of the President; the Vice President; the Chief Justice of the United States; the secretaries of State, War, Navy, Interior, and Agriculture; the
Attorney General; and the Postmaster General. In fact, however, the Establishment last met in 1877, and control of the Smithsonian has always been exercised by its Board of
Regents. The membership of the Regents consists of the Vice President and the Chief Justice of the United States; three members each of the Senate and House of Representatives;
two citizens of the District of Columbia; and seven citizens of the several states, no two from the same state. (Prior to 1970 the category of Citizen Regents not residents
of Washington consisted of four members). By custom the Chief Justice is Chancellor. The office was at first held by the Vice President. However, when Millard Fillmore succeeded
to the presidency on the death of Zachary Taylor in 1851, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney was chosen in his stead. The office has always been filled by the Chief Justice
since that time.
The Regents of the Smithsonian have included distinguished Americans from many walks of life. Ex officio members (Vice President) have been: Spiro T. Agnew, Chester A.
Arthur, Allen W. Barkley, John C. Breckenridge, George Bush, Schuyler Colfax, Calvin Coolidge, Charles Curtis, George M. Dallas, Charles G. Dawes, Charles W. Fairbanks, Millard
Fillmore, Gerald R. Ford, John N. Garner, Hannibal Hamlin, Thomas A. Hendricks, Garret A. Hobart, Hubert H. Humphrey, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, William R. King, Thomas
R. Marshall, Walter F. Mondale, Levi P. Morton, Richard M. Nixon, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Theodore Roosevelt, James S. Sherman, Adlai E. Stevenson, Harry S. Truman, Henry A.
Wallace, William A. Wheeler, Henry Wilson.
Ex officio members (Chief Justice) have been: Roger B. Taney, Salmon P. Chase, Nathan Clifford, Morrison R. Waite, Samuel F. Miller, Melville W. Fuller, Edward D. White,
William Howard Taft, Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan F. Stone, Fred M. Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren E. Burger.
Regents on the part of the Senate have been: Clinton P. Anderson, Newton Booth, Sidney Breese, Lewis Cass, Robert Milledge Charlton, Bennet Champ Clark, Francis M. Cockrell,
Shelby Moore Cullom, Garrett Davis, Jefferson Davis, George Franklin Edmunds, George Evans, Edwin J. Garn, Walter F. George, Barry Goldwater, George Gray, Hannibal Hamlin,
Nathaniel Peter Hill, George Frisbie Hoar, Henry French Hollis, Henry M. Jackson, William Lindsay, Henry Cabot Lodge, Medill McCormick, James Murray Mason, Samuel Bell Maxey,
Robert B. Morgan, Frank E. Moss, Claiborne Pell, George Wharton Pepper, David A. Reed, Leverett Saltonstall, Hugh Scott, Alexander H. Smith, Robert A. Taft, Lyman Trumbull,
Wallace H. White, Jr., Robert Enoch Withers.
Regents on the part of the House of Representatives have included: Edward P. Boland, Frank T. Bow, William Campbell Breckenridge, Overton Brooks, Benjamin Butterworth,
Clarence Cannon, Lucius Cartrell, Hiester Clymer, William Colcock, William P. Cole, Jr., Maurice Connolly, Silvio O. Conte, Edward E. Cox, Edward H. Crump, John Dalzell, Nathaniel
Deering, Hugh A. Dinsmore, William English, John Farnsworth, Scott Ferris, Graham Fitch, James Garfield, Charles L. Gifford, T. Alan Goldsborough, Frank L. Greene, Gerry Hazleton,
Benjamin Hill, Henry Hilliard, Ebenezer Hoar, William Hough, William M. Howard, Albert Johnson, Leroy Johnson, Joseph Johnston, Michael Kirwan, James T. Lloyd, Robert Luce,
Robert McClelland, Samuel K. McConnell, Jr., George H. Mahon, George McCrary, Edward McPherson, James R. Mann, George Perkins Marsh, Norman Y. Mineta, A. J. Monteague, R.
Walton Moore, Walter H. Newton, Robert Dale Owen, James Patterson, William Phelps, Luke Poland, John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn, B. Carroll Reece, Ernest W. Roberts, Otho Robards
Singleton, Frank Thompson, Jr., John M. Vorys, Hiram Warner, Joseph Wheeler.
Citizen Regents have been: David C. Acheson, Louis Agassiz, James B. Angell, Anne L. Armstrong, William Backhouse Astor, J. Paul Austin, Alexander Dallas Bache, George
Edmund Badger, George Bancroft, Alexander Graham Bell, James Gabriel Berrett, John McPherson Berrien, Robert W. Bingham, Sayles Jenks Bowen, William G. Bowen, Robert S. Brookings,
John Nicholas Brown, William A. M. Burden, Vannevar Bush, Charles F. Choate, Jr., Rufus Choate, Arthur H. Compton, Henry David Cooke, Henry Coppee, Samuel Sullivan Cox, Edward
H. Crump, James Dwight Dana, Harvey N. Davis, William Lewis Dayton, Everette Lee Degolyer, Richard Delafield, Frederic A. Delano, Charles Devens, Matthew Gault Emery, Cornelius
Conway Felton, Robert V. Fleming, Murray Gell-Mann, Robert F. Goheen, Asa Gray, George Gray, Crawford Hallock Greenwalt, Nancy Hanks, Caryl Parker Haskins, Gideon Hawley,
John B. Henderson, John B. Henderson, Jr., A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Gardner Greene Hubbard, Charles Evans Hughes, Carlisle H. Humelsine, Jerome C. Hunsaker, William Preston
Johnston, Irwin B. Laughlin, Walter Lenox, Augustus P. Loring, John Maclean, William Beans Magruder, John Walker Maury, Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, John C. Merriam, R. Walton
Moore, Roland S. Morris, Dwight W. Morrow, Richard Olney, Peter Parker, Noah Porter, William Campbell Preston, Owen Josephus Roberts, Richard Rush, William Winston Seaton,
Alexander Roby Shepherd, William Tecumseh Sherman, Otho Robards Singleton, Joseph Gilbert Totten, John Thomas Towers, Frederic C. Walcott, Richard Wallach, Thomas J. Watson,
Jr., James E. Webb, James Clarke Welling, Andrew Dickson White, Henry White, Theodore Dwight Woolsey.
National Museum of American History. Division of Cultural History Search this
Extent:
10 cu. ft. (10 record storage boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Manuscripts
Clippings
Brochures
Transcripts
Floppy disks
Electronic records
Floor plans
Color photographs
Black-and-white photographs
Color negatives
Color transparencies
Audiotapes
Videotapes
Date:
1981-2004
Descriptive Entry:
This accession consists of the records of Susan Ostroff, Museum Specialist, documenting her exhibition activities in the Division of Cultural History and, prior to
joining that Division, as museum specialist in the Collections Support Office at the National Museum of American History (NMAH). Ostroff participated in exhibition planning
teams and at times either served as research assistant or project manager for exhibitions at NMAH. Also represented in these records are Division of Cultural History curators
Richard E. Ahlborn and Charles McGovern, who, before that Division was created, were curators in the Division of Community Life. Documented are the following exhibitions,
some of which are proposals: Rock 'n' Soul: Social Crossroads; Spirit of America; American Voices: Music at the Smithsonian which was presented by Discover
Card and accompanied the traveling America's Smithsonian exhibition; This is your Childhood, Charlie Brown: Children and American Culture, 1948-1968; 1848:
New Border, New Nation; American Encounters; A Community between Two Worlds: Arab Americans in Greater Detroit; The Segesser Hide Paintings; The
American Experience: Contemporary Immigrant Artists; and How We Discover.
Materials include correspondence, memoranda, and notes; exhibition proposals; planning and design information; scripts; budget summaries; meeting agendas and minutes; floor
plans; photographs, negatives, and slides; loan information; brochures; press releases; fund raising information; collection policies; audiotapes and videotapes; contractual
agreements; interview transcripts; clippings; and reports. Some materials are in electronic format.
Rights:
Restricted for 15 years, until Jan-01-2020; Transferring office; 10/9/2012 memorandum, Johnstone to Rogers; Contact reference staff for details.
National Museum of History and Technology. Division of Political History Search this
Extent:
3 cu. ft. (6 document boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Manuscripts
Date:
circa 1950-1969
Descriptive Entry:
These records consist of general correspondence, primarily public inquiries, particularly concerning the First Ladies' Hall and objects associated with presidents and
other prominent figures; administrative files pertaining to exhibits and the operation of the Department of Civil History and MHT; annual reports of the Divisions of Civil
History and Political History; curators' research reports; and examinations and reports concerning objects submitted to the Division for historical authentication.
Historical Note:
Some of the earliest objects in the Smithsonian documenting American political history came to the United States National Museum (USNM) from the United States Patent
Office in 1883. These objects consisted of a collection of George Washington relics originally purchased by the United States Congress as well as Washingtoniana exhibited
at and transferred from the Patent Office.
These objects were the responsibility of various divisions in the USNM until 1949 when the Division of Civil History, Department of History, assumed curatorial responsibility.
When the Museum of History and Technology (MHT) was set up in 1957, the Division of Political History, Department of Civil History, became responsible for the objects. In
1969 MHT was renamed the National Museum of History and Technology, and the Division of Political History became part of the Department of National and Military History.
From 1950 to 1969, curators in the Division of Political History and its predecessor, the Division of Civil History, included Margaret B. Klapthor, assistant curator, 1949-1951,
and associate curator, 1952- ; Charles G. Dorman, assistant curator, 1957-1960; Anne W. Murray, assistant curator, 1957-1964, and associate curator, 1965-1967; Herbert R.
Collins, assistant curator, 1961- ; Wilcomb E. Washburn, curator, 1965; Keith E. Melder, associate curator, 1965- ; and Claudia B. Kidwell, assistant curator, 1965-1967.
National Museum of American History. Program in African American Culture Search this
Extent:
8.5 cu. ft. (8 record storage boxes) (1 document box)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Manuscripts
Brochures
Clippings
Transcripts
Floppy disks
Black-and-white photographs
Color photographs
Color negatives
Date:
1976-1999
Descriptive Entry:
This accession consists of the records of the Program in African American Culture (PAAC), with earlier records dating from when PAAC was known as the Program in African
American History and the Program in Black American Culture, respectively. The records primarily document planning for conferences and symposiums, such as "Will the Circle
be Unbroken? Historical Perspectives on the African Diaspora;" "Contemporary Black American Congregational Song and Worship Traditions;" "Black American Popular Song: A Rhythm
and Blues Symposium;" "We'll Understand It Better By and By: A National Conference on African American Gospel Music Scholarship in Tribute to Pearl Williams-Jones;" "Currents
of the Spirit in the African Diaspora: Survivals, Innovations, and New Expressions;" "In Search of Blueprints: The Making of an African American Literary Critic . . . Stephen
E. Henderson;" "Black Migration and the American City: Forging the African American Urban Community;" "Mind on Freedom: Celebrating the History and Culture of America's Black
Colleges and Universities;" "Voices of the Civil Rights Movement;" "Disturbing the Peace: The Impact of Malcolm X on the Politics and Culture of the 1960s;" and "Rock in a
Weary Land: African American Religious Traditions."
Materials include the correspondence, memoranda, and notes of Bernice Johnson Reagon, Director, 1983-1988; Gwendolyn Robinson, Director, 1989-1992; Niani Kilkenny, Acting
Director, 1988-1989, and Director, 1992-2004; and Alonzo Nelson Smith, Research Historian. Also included are proposals; reports; contracts and agreements; budget summaries;
program schedules; publications; press releases; meeting agendas and minutes; concerts and special events information; and photographs.
National Museum of American History. Division of Politics and Reform Search this
Extent:
1.43 cu. ft. (1 record storage box) (1 12x17 box)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Manuscripts
Clippings
Compact discs
Floppy disks
Drawings
Floor plans
Color photographs
Color transparencies
Black-and-white photographs
Electronic records
Date:
1960-2004
Descriptive Entry:
This accession consists of the records of William L. Bird, Jr., Curator, and documents the planning for and creation of the exhibition Vote: The Machinery of Democracy
at the National Museum of American History. The exhibition, which opened in July 2004, traced the evolution of voting techniques and suffrage issues in America over the past
two centuries. Materials include Bird's correspondence, memoranda, and notes; exhibition proposal, script, design drawings, and floor plans; budget summaries; object lists;
loan information; press releases; election memorabilia; and photographs. Some materials are in electronic format.
Rights:
Restricted for 15 years, until Jan-01-2020; Transferring office; 3/13/2006 memorandum, Johnstone to Bird; Contact reference staff for details.
9.85 cu. ft. (9 record storage boxes) (2 tall document boxes) (1 16x20 box)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Brochures
Clippings
Manuscripts
Drawings
Posters
Phonograph records
Black-and-white photographs
Black-and-white negatives
Place:
United States -- Civilization -- History
United States -- Politics and government
Date:
1962-1990
Descriptive Entry:
This accession consists of the personal papers of Wilcomb E. Washburn, director of the Office of American Studies at the Smithsonian Institution, and document his scholarly
interests in American political and cultural history, as well as his professional activities over the years in furtherance of those interests. Materials include correspondence,
memoranda, reports, images, drawings, posters, phonograph records, brochures and clippings.
Restrictions:
Box 1 contains materials restricted indefinitely; see finding aid; Contact reference staff for details.
This accession consists of papers documenting aspects of the career of Wilcomb E. Washburn, a historian and a teacher of American political and cultural history. He
held positions at the National Museum for American History, Division of Political History and later at the Smithsonian Institution, Office of American Studies. Materials include
correspondence, memoranda, and notes; research papers, articles, and general literature; travel reports; exhibition proposals and planning information; press releases; professional
society information regarding symposiums and conferences; and records pertaining to courses in American studies.
These papers document Wilcomb E. Washburn's professional career, a historian and a teacher of American political and cultural history. He held positions at the National
Museum for American History, Division of Political History and later at the Smithsonian Institution, Office of American Studies. Materials include correspondence, appointment
books, files concerning Washburn's activities on the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission and research on bicycles, and other papers documenting his professional activities.
This accession consists of materials documenting aspects of the career of Wilcomb E. Washburn, historian and teacher of American political and cultural history. He
held positions at the National Museum of American History, Division of Political History and later at the Smithsonian Institution, Office of American Studies. Much of the
material deals with research on the Indians of North America. A small quantity of material deals with his service in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and the United States
Marine Corps Reserve. Materials include correspondence, papers, course administrative materials, notes, and conference materials.
