About SIA Collections

The Smithsonian Institution Archives is the repository for the official records of the Institution. In addition, it maintains personal papers of noted Smithsonian staff, researchers, artists, and founders of Smithsonian museums; special collections in subjects central to the Smithsonian's activities; records of professional societies and organizations, especially in natural history and museology; and video and oral histories. As of October 1, 1997, the processed holdings of the Archives comprised approximately 14,000 cubic feet of materials, arranged in some 1,100 record units.

Guides to Collections

To view guides to selected Smithsonian Archives collections, see Finding Aids to SIA Collections.

Collection-level descriptions of Smithsonian Institution Archives holdings are available on-line in the Archives & Manuscripts Catalog of SIRIS, the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. SIRIS can be accessed directly at http://www.siris.si.edu. Collection-level descriptions are also in published form in the Guide to the Smithsonian Archives, 1996, which is available FREE of charge.

An annotated bibliography on the history of the Smithsonian can be searched under Research Bibliographies, and a chronology of the history of the Smithsonian can be searched under Smithsonian Chronology in SIRIS.

Records

The official records of the Smithsonian document the history and the role of the Institution in the growth of the nation. Through its official programs and the pursuits of its secretaries and curators, the Smithsonian has been involved in American intellectual, cultural, and technological life since its founding in 1846. Important nineteenth-century material includes records concerning early surveys of the West and Alaskan expeditions; records of its meteorological program, which formed the basis for the Weather Bureau of the United States Signal Service; records concerning the Office of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries; records of the founding of the National Zoological Park and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; and records of American participation in international expositions, including Philadelphia's Centennial Exposition of 1876 and Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.

Twentieth-century material includes records documenting the Smithsonian's ongoing activities in natural history and astrophysics, as well as strong growth in the fields of American and Asian art, modern art, design, and craft, American history and the history of science and technology, and tropical biology. The Archives' records document the founding, administration of, and major exhibitions at the National Museum of American Art, the National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of American History, the National Air and Space Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Anacostia Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design, the Renwick Gallery, the National Museum of African Art, and selected aspects of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sacker Gallery. In addition records document continued Smithsonian explorations and expeditions to China, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Siberia, Alaska, the West Indies, and South and Central America.

The Archives has records from the public programs and educational aspects of the Institution, such as The Smithsonian Associates, the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies, and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). Other resources include an excellent collection of architectural drawings, numerous photographic collections--particularly strong in Smithsonian history, increasing amounts of sound recordings, and biographical and other informational files.

Special Collections

The special collections held by the Archives consist of the papers of Smithsonian secretaries, curators, and other staff members, as well as the records of a number of professional organizations and societies that have named the Archives as the official repository for their records. Of particular interest are papers of Smithsonian Secretaries: the Joseph Henry Collection, which documents electrical research; Spencer F. Baird's voluminous correspondence with American naturalists; Samuel P. Langley's manuscripts on early experiments in flight; Charles D. Walcott's paleontological correspondence; Charles G. Abbot's correspondence concerning his research on solar radiation; and papers that document the ornithological career of Alexander Wetmore. Other materials of interest include field reports of the Fish and Wildlife Service; some records of the United States Exploring Expedition; papers tracing the Smithsonian's support of Robert Goddard's early rocket experiments; and materials relating to the Theodore Roosevelt-Smithsonian expedition to Africa. Notable collections of personal papers include the papers of Washington artist and art patron Alice Pike Barney, art collector and museum founder Joseph H. Hirshhorn, naturalist Waldo LaSalle Schmitt, and astronomer Fred Whipple.

Holdings of professional societies include the records of the American Association of Museums, American Ornithologists' Union, the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, the Audubon Naturalist Society of the Central Atlantic States, Inc., the Biological Society of Washington, the History of Science Society, the Society of Systematic Zoology, and the Washington Conservation Guild. Additional special collections include small but notable collections of records of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century museums, and of selected Washington scientific societies.

Video and Oral History

Supplementing the records and papers in the Archives are both video and oral histories conducted and maintained by the Institutional History Division. Beginning in 1974, taped interviews with key administrative and scholarly staff have been conducted, and from the outset this program has provided an invaluable added dimension to the holdings of the Archives.

The Smithsonian Videohistory Program, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from 1986 to 1992, used video in historical research. The experimental program recorded projects that reflected the Institution's concern with the conduct of contemporary science and technology. Eighteen Smithsonian historians participated in the program to document visual aspects of their on-going historical research. Projects covered topics in the physical and biological sciences as well as in technological design and manufacture. Among the videohistory topics included in the series are black aviators, the conservation of endangered species, the Manhattan Project, robotics, and the Waltham Clock Company.

Visit the Institutional History Division for more information on these and other History Division programs.