Smithsonian Collections

• Armed Forces History—Collections document the history of the men, women, and technology of the armed forces of the United States, the Japanese American incarceration experience during World War II and the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
• Culture and the Arts—Collections document the history of music, dance, theater, film, broadcast media, sports, recreation, popular culture, photographic history, printing and the graphic arts.
• Home and Community Life—Collections document home furnishings, the production and consumption of food and beverages, clothing, religion, community organizations, patterns of migration and immigration and education. Family structure, gender identity, life cycles, childhood and the development of leisure time are examined, along with the roles of technology, invention and play in home and community life.
• Medicine and Science—Collections document the material culture of the biological, medical and physical sciences in the areas of the history of medicine and health, dentistry, pharmacy, psychology, disability, public health, biotechnology, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, meteorology, navigation, surveying, nuclear power, materials science, science education, and the environment.
• Political History—Collections document the history of American democracy and the political principles, practices, and institutions that have shaped the political culture of the United States, including changing definitions of citizenship and political rights; contested political ideologies; governmental policies and their impact; the role of political parties; elections; protest and reform movements; varied and changing expressions of nationalism; predictive opinion and media effects; and traditional political techniques and forms of communication.
• Work and Industry—Artifacts, documents, photographs and oral histories relate to work and industry in the United States, with a focus on agriculture, natural resources, timekeeping, retail, mining, engineering, electricity, telephone, telegraph, industry and transportation.
• Archives Center—Archival records in many media and formats complement the museum’s collections: personal papers, business records, graphic materials, trade literature, photographs, information and reference files, recordings, and motion-picture films and videotapes.

National Museum of the American Indian—848,357 objects

Collection represents the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere from the Arctic Circle to the tip of Tierra del Fuego and spans more than 12,000 years of Native heritage. Ranging from ancient Paleo-Indian points to contemporary fine arts, the collections include works of aesthetic, religious, and historical significance as well as articles produced for everyday use. Current holdings include all major culture areas of the Western Hemisphere, representing virtually all tribes in the United States, most of those of Canada, and a significant number of cultures from Middle and South America and the Caribbean. Collection includes fine carvings in wood, horn and stone from the Northwest Coast of North America; dance masks from the American Southwest; textiles from Peru, Mexico and the Navajo area of the United States; basketry from the American Southwest and Southeast and from Peru; pre-Columbian gold work from Mexico and Peru; jade objects made by the Olmec and the Maya; Inuit carved masks; Aztec mosaics; feather work from the Amazon; and painted hides and garments from the North American Plains.

National Museum of African American History and Culture—35,610 objects and 591 cubic feet archival materials

Collection includes works of art, historical artifacts, photographs, moving images, archival documents, electronic data, audio recordings, books and manuscripts that document the history and development of the African American experience in its many aspects. Collections cover such subjects as the era of slavery, the period of Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights movement, and that reflect the historical and cultural links of African Americans to the African diaspora such as in the Caribbean, Latin America and Canada.

National Postal Museum—more than 6 million objects

Collection is the largest and most comprehensive collection of stamps and philatelic material in the world—including prestigious U.S. and international postal issues and specialized collections, archival postal documents and three-dimensional objects that trace the evolution of the postal services.

Smithsonian Institution Archives—41,454 cubic feet of archival material

The Archives contains the official records—paper and digital—of the Smithsonian, as well as personal papers, special collections, records of professional societies, and oral/video histories of the Smithsonian.

Natural Science Collections

National Museum of Natural History—more than 145.8 million objects/specimens and 18,000 cubic feet archival materials

Collection is the world’s most extensive collection of natural history specimens and human artifacts, ranging from fossilized pollen to bones of Tyrannosaurus rex, algal samples to a slab of a giant sequoia tree, tiny crustaceans to giant squid, DNA samples to whale skulls, ancient spear points to Chinese shoes, and the Hope Diamond to Moon rocks (in the following departments):

• Anthropology—Artifacts and specimens representing cultures from around the world; contains one of the largest collections of North American Indian artifacts, including baskets, pottery, textiles and utilitarian objects
• Botany—Algae, flowering plants, pressed specimens and microscopic plants
• Entomology—Butterflies and moths, mosquitoes, beetles; collection includes all 30 of the known orders of insects
• Invertebrate Zoology—Marine animals, including sponges, crayfish, mollusks, worms and shrimp
• Mineral Sciences—Gems, minerals, rocks and meteorites
• Paleobiology—Fossil flora and fauna, sharks’ teeth and microscopic organisms on slides
• Vertebrate Zoology—Mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians; collection includes birds’ eggs and nests, fur pelts and elephant skulls

National Zoological Park—3,134 animals

The Zoo’s living collection represents nearly 400 species, of which about a quarter are endangered or threatened. Species include mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. The Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, located at Front Royal, Virginia, is a breeding preserve for rare and endangered species.

Smithsonian Gardens— 30,300 objects/specimens and 891 cubic feet of archival material

Collections include over 100,000 photographic images documenting historic and contemporary American gardens, antique and contemporary garden furniture and ornaments, seed boxes and seed packets, advertising cards, posy holders, floral frames, related to the florist trade, and a significant collection of over 8,000 orchids specimens, both species and hybrids.

Smithsonian Libraries—more than 2.1 million library volumes and 11,700 cubic feet archival materials

The Libraries’ collections includes books and manuscripts, along with over 400,000 pieces of ephemera, microfilm, photographic collections and audio visual material, housed in 21 specialized research libraries in Washington, Maryland, New York and Panama. The libraries span the range of scientific and cultural pursuits of humanity from aerospace, anthropology, and art history to business history and botany, cultural history, design, philately, zoology and much, much more.

How Items Are Added to the Smithsonian Collections

The acquisition of collections is fundamental and critical to the mission and vitality of the Smithsonian. Most collection items are donated to the Smithsonian by individuals and private collectors or through transfers from federal agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Postal Service and others. Thousands of items also come to the Smithsonian through field expeditions, bequests, purchases, and exchanges with other museums, and, in the case of living plants and animals, by propagation and birth. Collections must and do continuously grow to support the Smithsonian’s mission and programmatic goals. Ever-evolving collections ensure the ability of the Smithsonian to tell and share our nation’s continuing story in all its dimensions—across history, art, science, and culture. They contribute to global innovation and document the world’s forever changing cultural and scientific heritage from one generation to the next.

In doing so, the Smithsonian requires responsible, disciplined acquisition of collections based on stringent acquisition evaluation criteria. In order to provide responsible management of the collections, potential acquisitions undergo a rigorous selection and review process. The following criteria are considered during the review and evaluation of potential acquisitions: consistency with the museum’s mission, programmatic goals, and collections plan; the quality, size, physical condition, intellectual value, and significance of the collection item; the documentation of legal title and provenance; the potential for use in exhibition, education, and research; and the ability and costs to provide appropriate management, care and accessibility of the collection item, including conservation, long-term preservation, digitization, and storage. Because of this rigorous selection process, the Institution acquires only a small percentage of what is offered to the Smithsonian.

For an up-to-date list of Smithsonian collections visit http://collections.si.edu/search/.

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