The Smithsonian Photography Initiative introduces you to extraordinary collections of photographs and to an understanding of the integral roles photographs play in our lives.

Photography and the Smithsonian were born within a decade of each other in the mid-19th century. The fledgling Smithsonian was quick to adopt the camera to advance its mission, cataloging plant and animal species and documenting the grandeur of the American landscape as well as its original inhabitants. Photography brought the faraway near and made visible the previously invisible.

Today we have more than 13 million images in some seven hundred collections throughout our museums and research centers. The collections are organized by museum and discipline—for instance, the National Museum of Natural History holds natural science images in its collections, the National Air and Space Museum houses images of flight in its archives, and the National Museum of African Art holds photographs of Africa in its collections. We believe that the Smithsonian’s ability to look at photography broadly and in context makes the Institution unique. Beyond locating and describing the hundreds of Smithsonian photography collections, the SPI website lists all the current and upcoming photography programs that happen at the Smithsonian, both online and on the ground.

Click Photography Changes Everything

The Smithsonian Photography Initiative (SPI) invites you to contribute to click! photography changes everything, a collection of commentaries by invited contributors and visitors like you, exploring how photography shapes the way we understand the world.

You can submit your photo and story anytime to be considered for the click! website. SPI curators will review and feature new visitor-contributed text on a monthly basis, so yours could be next!

Visual Literacy Lesson Plans

At the Smithsonian we believe that being familiar with an image’s context is an important part of understanding its meaning. We also believe that being culturally literate requires you to use the visual language of photography in an active, critical, and creative way.

Click the play button above for a special message.

The National Postal Museum, a Smithsonian Institution museum, is located in the old Post Office building next to Union Station in Washington, D.C. The Museum was created by an agreement between the Smithsonian Institution and the United States Postal Service in 1990 and opened to the public in 1993.

The Museum is dedicated to the preservation, study and presentation of postal history and philately. The museum uses exhibits, educational public programs and research to make this rich history available to scholars, philatelists, collectors and visitors from around the world.

The National Postal Museum offers a variety of materials and services for educators and students.

An Online Audio Tour of the National Postal Museum
Listen to this special audio tour in which K. Allison Wickens introduces the National Postal Museum and its many educational resources.

Arago™ Online Collection Database
Arago™, the Museum’s educational and research Web site, presents the collections in a context-rich setting with full color images and zoom-in capability.

Arago Featured Collections
Arago™ Research Participants and the National Postal Museum staff create unique exhibits that juxtapose personal selections of museum objects and exceptional private collections to present interesting interpretations and great history.

Navigating Arago
Take a special self-guided tour of Arago prepared especially for the Smithsonian Online Conference Series.

Stamp Stories of Abraham Lincoln
History teachers, do your students’ eyes glaze over when you mention a study review for the big test coming up? If so, then break the mold with this fun and engaging activity. Stamp Stories emphasizes visual learning with authentic U.S. postage stamps, pictorial windows into American history. In this lesson, students build their own stamp collections to show what they’ve learned and debate why their stamps reflect the history of Abraham Lincoln.

Victory Mail
Grades 2-12
These activities provide a creative way to teach writing skills – letter writing for elementary and middle school – and about World War II as well as writing for high school students. In conjunction with the National Postal Museum’s online exhibition Victory Mail along with textbooks and other resources already in use in the classroom, these materials will help students understand aspects of patriotism during wartime, and the significance of personal correspondence by focusing on the efforts made by civilians on the home front during the war. Students will likely find learning about V-Mail an interesting way to engage in writing and social studies lessons.

We Were There: Letters From the Battle Front
Grades 7 – 12
Activity book and resource guide that uses historic letters, envelopes and commemorative stamps from American wars to engage students in historic analysis.

Postal Pack for Elementary School Students
Grades K – 6
Collection of illustrated activity sheets that teach about postal transportation history, and encourage letter writing and an appreciation of stamps and historic letters.

Stamp Mural Mosaics
Grades K – 6
Stamps are exciting, educational tools! Using stamps, you can explore other countries, learn about history, and experience art. The activities on this web page will show you and your students how to use cancelled stamps for a variety of creative projects.

War Letters: Lost and Found
"War Letters: Lost and Found" features original letters from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam that were lost or abandoned and then rediscovered by strangers.

A Nation Divided
When the conflict between the northern and southern states finally exploded into war, tearing the country apart, the nation’s communication system was also ripped in two. The system instituted to unify the country through the dissemination of information was instead used to solidify the break.

Posted Aboard R.M.S. Titanic
The tragic sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic has captivated our imaginations for decades. Among those who lost their lives when the ship sank were the ship’s five postal clerks.

As Precious as Gold
This online exhibit examines the great Klondike Gold Rush and the unforgettable role of the mail carrier in providing contact between those so far from home and the families they left behind.

Art of the Stamp
Compelling works of art that serve, in the words of W.B. Yeats, as "the silent ambassadors on national taste."

Research Section of National Postal Museum Web Site
The "Research" section of the Museum’s web site includes an array of primary and secondary source material. The section features links to the Video Zone, Photographic Archives, National History Day, Museum Library, Online Articles, among others.

The Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum maintains the largest collection of historic aviation- and space-related objects in the world. It is also a vital center for research into the history, science, and technology of aviation and space flight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics.

The Museum has two display facilities. The National Mall building in Washington, D.C. has hundreds of artifacts on display including the original Wright 1903 Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Apollo 11 command module, and a lunar rock sample that visitors can touch. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center displays many more artifacts including the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay and Space Shuttle Enterprise.

The National Air and Space Museum offers a variety of free educational programs for school groups and organized youth groups. See http://www.nasm.si.edu/education for more information.

Lincoln and Thaddeus Lowe Objects in the Collection
The National Air and Space Museum has several objects related to the Civil War ballooning era, including balloon parts, Thaddeus Lowe’s binoculars used during balloon ascents, souvenir tokens, and lithographs.

The Birth of the Balloon Art Collection
This collection of prints documents and celebrates the invention and early history of the Balloon.

Balloonamania
This display case on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center brings together a rare collection of objects related to early Balloon flight. Play the video below to learn more.

Hear Tom Crouch, Senior Curator in the Aeronautics Division at the
National Air and Space Museum, talk about Balloonamania. Crouch is the presenter of an online session entitled "Mr. Lincoln’s Air Force"which is being featured at the Lincoln Online Conference.

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Handout:
This document is the handout for the "Lincoln’s Deathbed: Images of a Martyred President" online conference session. Use the handout to structure discussions of primary sources in your own classroom.

Mary Henry diary
Read the diary Mary Henry kept during the Civil War containing description of battles, life in the nation’s capital, and her reflections on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Listen to "Mary Henry" read a portion of her diary:

Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life
Visit online any time or at the museum through January 2011

The life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln is brought to light for the first time ever with a re-examination of the unique and unparalleled collection of Lincoln artifacts and memorabilia held by the National Museum of American History. Each highlighted object is augmented with personal stories told by Lincoln and the people who knew him best. The exhibition showcases more than 60 historical treasures associated with Lincoln’s life from an iron wedge he used to split wood in the early 1830s in New Salem, Illinois, to his iconic top hat he wore the night he was shot at Ford’s Theatre. Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life tells a new and very intimate story of the nation’s 16th president.

Image Gallery:
Visit the Image Gallery to see a set of Lincoln-related objects from the National Museum of American History and quotes from Abraham Lincoln. The objects and quotes in the Gallery are available for easy downloading and printing.

A Letter to Abraham Lincoln

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, the National Museum of American History created a set of activities centered on a little-known episode in the life of the 16th president. In 1860, while Lincoln was campaigning for the presidency, he received a letter from 11-year-old Grace Bedell, who recommended that he grow a beard. Mr. Lincoln’s Whiskers, written and illustrated by Karen Winnick, tells this story by focusing on Grace’s experience.

After reading Mr. Lincoln’s Whiskers, children can engage in several related activities, including a computer-based project, a creative craft, and a field trip right from the book! The activities are intended for use with children from kindergarten to fourth grade in classrooms, during afterschool programs, and at home. Each downloadable activity includes a parent and teacher guide along with directions and historical background information.

America’s New Birth of Freedom: Documents from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
Visit online any time or at the museum through April 2009

The National Museum of American History, is hosting an exhibition of 10 rare and important documents on loan from the Lincoln Library in Springfield, Illinois. These documents have become the cornerstone of current thinking on Lincoln and his legacy and will include a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. Also on view are letters expressing Lincoln’s views on emancipation and the conclusion of the Civil War, including Lincoln’s letter to James C. Conkling in which he makes his forceful defense of the Emancipation Proclamation, and his letter to Francis Blair on his unwavering demands for peace.
The online exhibition includes background information on the Emancipation Proclamation, videos, and a high-resolution scan of the letter to James C. Conkling which allows you to zoom in to view Lincoln’s individual pen strokes.

The Gettysburg Address

Commemorating the 145th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s most famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, the National Museum of American History is showcasing the rarely exhibited Bliss version of the speech. Lincoln’s short address at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863 became one of the most famous and eloquent speeches in American history.
The Bliss version is one of five drafts of the speech, and the last to have been written in Lincoln’s hand. Penned in March 1864 for an anthology to raise funds for the Union, it was kept by one of the book’s publishers, Alexander Bliss, and was auctioned in 1949. Oscar Cintas, a former Cuban ambassador, purchased it and on his death in 1957, he asked that it be placed in the White House collection. With the generous support of Mrs. Laura Bush, the White House loaned this copy of the Gettysburg Address to the National Museum of American History for a limited public viewing in the museum’s Albert H. Small Documents Gallery and a permanent online exhibition.
The online exhibition includes background information on the speech and a high-resolution scan of the document which allows you to zoom in to view Lincoln’s individual pen strokes.

Harry Rubenstein and Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life

In this short video, Harry Rubenstein brings to life objects from the National Museum of American History’s collection of artifacts related to Abraham Lincoln. The voice-over descriptions and still-images in this video make it a great way to introduce students to Abraham Lincoln and object-based learning.

Harry Rubenstein is the Chair of the Division of Politics and Reform at the National Museum of American History. He curated the exhibition Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life and is a presenter during the virtual conference.

Produced by Beth Py-Lieberman, Ryan Reed, and Molly Roberts for Smithsonian.com.

Life of Lincoln: 1809-1865

In anticipation of the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, Smithsonian Magazine compiled an interactive timeline this videos and links to its articles about the life of our 16th president. The timeline is rich with images, audio, and background information on Abraham Lincoln. It would be a good way to introduce students to new details of Lincoln’s life or review what they have already learned.

Produced by Ryan Reed and Brian Wolly for Smithsonian.com.

Smithsonian’s History Explorer

Smithsonian’s History Explorer is your gateway to innovative, standards-based online resources for teaching and learning American history, designed and developed by the National Museum of American History as part of Verizon’s thinkfinity.org consortium. Explore the rich resources of the Museum and bring history to life with artifacts, primary sources, and online tools for the classroom, afterschool programs, and home.

Related Resource:

Virtual Handout: The following article is a virtual handout from the session by Shannon Thomas Perich entitled "Public and Private Photography During the Civil War".

"A Handy Kit for Do-It-Yourself Critics" by Ralph Hattersley, 1962.
(Posted with permission.)