The National Academy of Sciences is making 150 years of 
American scientific history available on the internet. It 
will publish its entire collection of Biographical Memoirs, 
brief biographies of deceased NAS members written by those 
who knew them or their work.
Since 1877, NAS has published over 1,400 memoirs. Although 
the memoirs published since 1995 have been freely available 
on the Academy's Web site, over 900 memoirs were available 
previously only through archives and libraries. ..Among the 
additional 500 memoirs published online are those of famed 
naturalist Louis Agassiz; Joseph Henry, the first secretary 
of the Smithsonian Institution; Thomas Edison; Alexander 
Graham Bell; noted anthropologist Margaret Mead; and 
psychologist and philosopher John Dewey...