Institutional History Division
Smithsonian Institution Archives
Smithsonian Institution
PO Box 37012
MRC 414
Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

hensonp@si.edu

History of natural history, especially entomology; history of women in science; history of scientific illustration; history of the Smithsonian Institution; history of museums; use of visual evidence, both photographs and moving images, to study science.

Current Research Projects

Recently completed articles on Smithsonian women attempting to conduct field work in the tropics, 1900-1960. Working on a book, with colleague, on images of American science, using visual evidence to analyze scientific practice. Completing an article on the history of museums in the United States, 1750 to 1890, focusing on the creation of the U.S. National Museum at the Smithsonian.

Current or Projected Exhibits

"Smithsonian Expeditions: Exploring Latin America and the Caribbean" with Jane Walsh  and Margaret Dittemoore, opened at the Miami Museum of Science in November 1999, until 2004.

"Smithson's Gift: The History of a Bequest," Smithsonian Institution Building, 1996--

See web exhibits at www.si.edu/archives/ihd/ihdhome.htm

Recent Publications

“Invading Arcadia: Women Scientists in the Field in Latin America, 1900-1950,”

The Americas 58, 4 (April 2002): 577-600.

"Spencer Baird's Dream: A U.S. National Museum," essay in Cultures and Institutions of Natural History, edited by Alan Leviton, California Academy of Sciences, 2000, pp. 101-126.

"The Smithsonian Goes to War: The Increase and Diffusion of Scientific Knowledge in the Pacific," essay in Science and the Pacific War: Science and Survival in the Pacific, 1939-1945, edited by Roy M. MacLeod, Kluwer Academic Press, 2000.

"'Objects of Curious Research': The History of Science and Technology at the Smithsonian," Isis, 90 (1999): S249-S269.

"'Through Books to Nature': Anna Botsford Comstock and the Nature Study Movement," in Natural Eloquence: Women Reinscribe Science, B. T. Gates and A. B. Shteir, eds., Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1998, pp. 116-43.