American

This book came to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Library from the now defunct Panama Canal Zone Library, one of the most important libraries in Panama during the Canal Zone era.

This stunning book is the first comprehensive publication on the internationally renowned Cuban American artist Teresita Fernández. The idea of wayfinding—moving from place to place or even getting lost—is critical to understanding this artist’s body of work, which revolves around themes of landscape, the night sky, and other environments. "We have a tendency to think of landscape as something outside ourselves, and that’s a notion that I want to invert," Fernández states.

The works of Lucas Samaras can be understood through one unifying principle: the artist’s “natural instinct for subversion.” Rather than springing from an urge to rebel, however, Samaras’ originality and nonconformity are centered in treating art as a mutable subject. Samaras spent two years crafting gold jewelry, modeling them first in chicken wire, then casting them in solid 22-karat gold.

The “objects” of American artist Man Ray’s affection were small, limited-edition sculptures.

A first edition and first issue in English of this classic early work on the Americas includes one of the first views of New York City. The author, John Ogilby (1600-1676), was described as a "miscellaneous writer" of a good family. He translated, edited, and published many books, including several illustrated geographical works. These included America and others on China, Japan, Africa, Asia, and Britain. In 1671, Ogilby published America, translated from Arnold Montanus' original Dutch text.

Controversy and Hope is an immersion into not only the 54-mile Voting Rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, but also a view into a range of civil rights events from 1960 to 1965. Photojournalist James Karales was also an acquaintance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Droning a drowsy syncopated tune; Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon..." 

Part of a three-volume collection of Native American biographies and strikingly vivid portraits, this publication contains some of the finest American lithography of the 19th century. Published from 1836 to 1844, Thomas McKenney, US Superintendent of Indian Trade, wanted to preserve "in the archives of the Government whatever of the aboriginal man can be rescued from the destruction which awaits his race." His enlightened view that American Indians ought to be "looked upon as human beings, having bodies and souls like ours" was unfortunately shared by few at that time.

Dedicated to Louis Comfort Tiffany’s children, this biographical account features painted portraits and landscapes completed as Tiffany traveled the world. It includes design drawings and photographs relating to every aspect of his artistic career from stained glass and jewelry to glass vessels and textiles. The cover’s unique embossed squares visually allude to the celebrated designer’s work in metal.

Arctic Memories is an overview of Inuit life written for young people. The stories and illustrations are full of beauty and relay so much about life and culture in the Arctic. Author and illustrator Normee Ekoomiak was one of the the most prolific Inuit artists of the 20th century whose life, as a victim of the residential school system and homelessness, shows both the injustices suffered by Canada’s indigenous peoples and their remarkable resilience against that injustice.

Inuktitut is not just the name for the language of the indigenous peoples of the Eastern Arctic. It also means “like one of the Inuit” in that language, reflecting not only how one speaks, but also the culture, attitudes, lifestyle, and behaviors of Inuit peoples: Inuktitut is a way of life.

This limited-edition set of 43 vibrant, color printed cards housed in a custom box is parts that together comprise artist Sanford Biggers’ explorations of identity, rituals, and iconography. Divided into three sections—afronomix, fetico, and fides—the images offer moments of both intimacy and surrealism.

Cree, an Algongian language with nine dialects, is the most widely spoken aboriginal language across Canada. It is a written language using traditional syllabics, which is the text in this 1949 hymnal, which also includes a useful syllabarium. Based on shorthand, the Cree syllabic system was constructed in the mid-1800s by a Canadian Methodist missionary. Each symbol represents a consonant that can be ‘written’ four ways by directional placement. Psalms and Hymns compiler, Rev.

African American dental practices were first documented in 18th century when dentistry was a crude trade learned by apprenticeship to perform necessary extractions. Extramural dentistry is the practice of exercising dental expertise outside of the institution and bringing dental care and education into the community. In this book, Clifton Orrin Dummett, D.D.S. and Lois Doyle Dummett, B.A. thread together the dental milestones and contributions in African American history.

The Hampton Album elegantly depicts the industrial and agricultural skills that were taught to students at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton Institute in 1930, and finally Hampton University in 1984), the historically black school founded in Virginia in 1868 to educate freed slaves. The original images in this album were part of a series of photographs compiled by W.E.B Du Bois for the exhibition of African American life featured at the sensational world’s fair, the Paris Exposition of 1900.

Robert Charles Dallas (1754-1824), a British writer, was born in Jamaica and returned there after an education in England and Scotland.  In the West Indies, runaway slaves who formed communities independent from white society (often with American Indians) were called “Maroons.”  Those in Jamaica – about whom Dallas provides a first-hand account of their culture and mode of life – were considered the greatest threat to British colonists due to hostilities in the 1730s and again in the 1790s.

John Bigelow (1817-1911), born into a prominent New England family, was a newspaper writer and editor at the New-York Evening Post, under the leadership of William Cullen Bryant. An opponent of slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War, Bigelow travelled to Jamaica in 1850 to study the island’s economics following the abolition of slavery. His book soundly repudiated the assertion that freed slaves were incapable of self-governance and is still considered an authoritative analysis. It has been reprinted more than once in modern times, but this is the original publication. Our

Biologist Ernest Everett Just (1883-1941) is considered to be one of the most brilliant African American scientists of his era.  Born in Charleston, SC, he earned scholarships to attend northern schools, graduating top of his class at Dartmouth. He taught at Howard University where he became head of the new zoology department. He also studied fertilization in marine invertebrates at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratories and eventually earned his Ph.D. in experimental embryology at the University of Chicago in 1916.