Free to Use and Reuse: Scientists & Inventors
This set highlights the work of American scientists and inventors in many fields. Their careers represent many kinds of scientific investigations, primarily from the 1800s to 1900s. The images can encourage discussion about the history of science as an endeavor influenced by social conditions and political and financial aims. Unless otherwise noted, the images are from the Prints & Photographs Division.
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Scientist and inventor Benjamin Franklin's book "Experiments and observations on electricity." 1774 -
Scientific American magazine. Poster advertisement. 1905 -
Agricultural research scientist George Washington Carver standing in a field, probably at Tuskegee. 1906 -
Microbiologist Alice C. Evans working in her laboratory in Washington, D.C. 1928 -
A scientist studies a beeker containing adult stem-cell samples at the Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center. 2016 -
Paleontologist Norman Ross preparing the skeleton of a baby dinosaur at the National Museum. 1921 -
Polio research: a light is beginning to dawn. Poster, 1949 -
Physicist Albert Einstein receiving his American citizenship. 1940 -
Mathematician and aerospace engineer Mary Jackson. This statute is at Hampton University in Virginia. 2019 -
American scientists and inventors. 1862 (reprinted 1956) -
Inoculating a horse with diphtheria bacteria to produce an antitoxin at the New York City Department of Health serum and vaccine farm, Otisville, New York. 1944 -
Physicist Dr. Leo Esaki at IBM corporate headquarters lab in New York. 1975-1980 -
Project Mercury astronauts shown floating upside down in a weightless experimental flight. 1959 -
Inventor and teacher Nancy Maria Donaldson Johnson, who patented the first hand-crank mechanism for ice cream freezers. Around 1875 -
AIDS researcher Dr. Mathilde Krim. 1987 -
Telephone invention. Drawing by Alexander Graham Bell. 1876. -
Laboratory of inventor Thomas Edison, known for incandescent light bulb, phonograph, and movie camera. 1880 -
American Chemical Society members with Dr. Harvey Wiley. 1892-1899 -
Geological Society of America, all but 60 of their fellows. 1899 -
Aeronautical engineers Orville and Wilbur Wright at their first flight, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. 1903 -
Inventor Charles S.L. Baker with his radiator system. 1906 -
Women scientists (plant pathologists) at the US Department of Agriculture: Nellie A. Brown, Lucia McCollock, Mary K. Bryan, and Florence Hedges. 1910-1920 -
Chemist Ellen Swallow Richards specialized in sanitary engineering and environmental science. 1915. -
Astronomer Anne Sewell Young. 1915-1920 -
Margaret D. Foster, "Uncle Sam's only woman chemist." 1919 -
Zoologist George R. Agassiz. 1915 -
"Dr. Sara Foulks, of Burlington, N.J., examining a tubercular Mohammedan woman." 1920 -
Inventor Guglielmo Marconi in the General Electric Research Laboratory, New York. 1922 -
"Miss Louise Thorne, of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, holding a small living plant hermetically sealed in an old electric light bulb." 1923-1929 -
Astronomers at Naval Observatory viewing eclipse of sun, Washington, D.C. 1925 -
Genetics: Luther Burbank with Nobumi Hasegawa, visiting student from Japan, selecting corn for seed, Santa Rosa, California. 1925 -
Group of scientists from the Carnegie Institution for Science broadcast over CBS radio. 1930 -
"The Automotive Section of the Bureau of Standards is studying the anti-knock proportion of fuel used in automobile and aircraft engines." 1930 -
Doctoring a sick sheep. U.S. National Agricultural Research Center. 1935-1942 -
Entomologist making metal casts of insects. 1937 -
"Small farmers hire a scientist. Measuring the butter fat content in a sample of milk ... Blackhawk County, Iowa." 1939 -
Television inventor Philo Farnsworth (center) talking about his patents. 1939 -
Laboratory technician, Provident Hospital, Chicago, Illinois. 1942 -
Botanist, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama. 1942 -
"Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wisconsin: Miss Eloise Gerry conducting experiments on cork substitutes made from American woods." 1942 -
Letter from president Franklin D. Roosevelt to J. Robert Oppenheimer with thanks for the ongoing secret atomic research. First of two pages, 1943 (Manuscript Division) -
Chemist Dr. C. K. Liang working at the National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryalnd. 1944 -
Chemist Gerald Edelman, Nobel Prize winner. 1970-1985 -
Physicist Dr. Walter Kato (right) at the Brookhaven simulator lab. 1979 -
Zoologist Marlin Perkins. Statue in Carthage, Missouri. 2020