Photography and the Smithsonian were invented at the same time, and both were instrumental in revealing the modern world to itself. The Smithsonian holds more than 13 million images spanning over 150 years of taking and collecting photographs. This largely unknown body of photography, most never before published, represents nothing less than the Smithsonian's effort, in the name of all Americans, to describe and comprehend the world. the Smithsonian and an exploration of the wonder and power of the photographic image. Open anywhere in these pages to be plunged in the ongoing history of our modernity, and what the Smithsonian deemed important to document and preserve. The book contains photographs that span the medium's history and record science, geography, history, the arts, and cultural events, from the first photographs ever made to digital views beamed back from Mars. The famous, the infamous, and the never-before-seen are here in a remarkable democracy of images: Amelia Earhart, Abraham Lincoln, P.T. Barnum and Tom Thumb, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Lucille Ball, Greta Garbo, Babe Ruth; the earliest views of the moon and the earliest panoramic view of Damascus; rare Native American photography; views of Asia, Africa, and the American West; photographs of early flight, and more.