Newest Portraits

On April 10, 1862, Union brigadier general Quincy Gillmore asked for the surrender of the Confederate stronghold, Fort Pulaski. When they refused, he used his newly arrived rifled cannons to decimate the stone wall of the fort, causing its quick surrender, and changing the local momentum of the war in the process. One of the great unspoken consequences of this victory was that it convinced the uncle of a fourteen year old girl named Susan Ann Baker (1848-1912) to leave the pl

Two Stinsons. One named Katherine, the other named Katharine. Both pioneers in aviation, Katherine as a world-famous aviator, Katharine as an internationally respected aviation engineer, their legacies forever fated to be mingled and conflated with each other. Katherine Stinson (1891-1977), otherwise known as “The Flying Schoolgirl” or “The Queen of the Air”, is, of the two, the individual who has lived most fixedly in our memory. This is virtually unavoidable, because every

Prior to the arrival of C. Everett Koop (1916-2013) as Surgeon General of the United States in 1982, the position was a relatively low profile affair held by career officers dedicated to the task of gathering data on matters related to public health and suggesting policies to address problems uncovered thereby. In 1964, Surgeon General Luther Terry published a report on the dangers of tobacco, and before him, in 1959, Leroy Burney released an important report on environmental

Sometimes, science goes pfft. A promising line of investigation is begun, resources are marshalled, research is conducted, and at the end of it all, in spite of a mass of cleverness and a wealth of honorable intentions, what you are left with is decades of data that sum to a shrug. Results inconclusive. Better luck next life. The question, then, for us as science history enthusiasts, is what to do with the individuals who, through no fault of their ow

At the height of the siege of Vicksburg during the American Civil War, Emily Parsons (1824-1880) acted as the tireless supervisor of nurses at the Benton Barracks Hospital, where thousands of the war’s injured were sent for treatment after their long and physically harrowing journey up the Mississippi. Reading the letters she sent home during this time, one gets a glimpse into the demands of the position - the organizing of individualized care for a constantly shifting roster