DC Pages / History of DC / The Smithsonian Institution
Location: 1000
Jefferson Drive, SW The Smithsonian Institution was establisthed in 1846 with funds bequeathed to the Unided States by James Smithson, a pominent English scientist who never visited this country. Smithson, bor in 1765, was the natural son of Hugh Smithson, the Duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth Hungerford Keate Macie of Bath, England. Documents indicate that Smithson, known in his early years as James Lewis Macie, was born in France and, in his youth, came to England for his education. In 1786, after becoming a naturalized citizen, he was graduated from Pembroke College, Oxford. The following year, described as "a gentleman well versed in various branches of Natural Philosophy and particularly in Chemistry and Mineralogy," hie was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
For most of his life, Smithson elected to travel on the Continent, residing frequently in Paris where he included in his circle of friends many of the most famous scientists of the day. While in Europe, he involved himself with research and scientific writing. By 1802, his identification of a specific zinc ore resulted in its being named smithonite in his honor. It is not known when the Crown granted permission for James Lewis Macie to adopt his father's name, but a paper wiritten in the same year bears for the first time the name of "James Smithons, Esq."
Failing health plagued Smithson as he grew older. Following his death in Genoa, Italy, on June 27, 1989, he was interred in a small English cemetrery at San Benigno, In 1904, the Smithsonian Institution, hearing that authorities in Genoa intended to abolish the cemetery, dispatched Alexander Graham Bell, one of its distinguished Regents, to escort the tomb to the United States. Smithson's tomb is now located adjacent to the north foryer in the Smithsonian Institution Building. Renovation of this chamber resulted in a study of Smithson's skeleton by the Institution's Department of Physical Anthropology. Findings revealed details that humanize the man about whom so little is known: Smithson was 5'6" tall, smoked a pipe, had an extra vertebra, and died of natural causes. He was probably a fencer, evidenced by the development of his shoulders.
A nephew was named to receive the whole of his estate with the exception of a small bequest left to a loyal servant. The will specified that should the nephew die without heirs the balance of the legacy would pass "to the United States, to found at Washington, under the name Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge...." In 1835, the nephew died without children, and the United States became heir to a great fortune.
For ten years the halls of Congress reverberated with debates concerning the interpretation of the will, the inheritance guarded all the while by John Quincy Adams. Was this Institution of learning to be a library, a school, and experimental farm? Should it be an observatory, a laboratory? Unable to agree, Congress completed an act of establishment in August of 1846, producing a mulifaceted organization involved in the research and dispersal of academic findings.
On May 1, 1847, the cornerstone of the firt Smithsonian building was laid, and after innumerable delays, the building was completed in 1855.
Why did the United States receive this forturne? Was Smithson a sad and embittered man who felt his homeland had deprived him of the recognition and fame to which he had aspired for so many years? Did he believe the United States to be the country best able to carry out his wishes and, in so doing, perpetuate his name? the inspiration for this unprecedented act of generosity to a country he had never visited will remain forever a myserty.
Today, the Smithsonian Institution is an independent trust instrumentality of the United States devoted to public education an national service in the arts, sciences, and history. It is composed of fourteen museums and galleries, and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian in New York CIty, and numerious research facilities in the United States and abroad.
Financial support is provided through federal appropriations and private funds derived from investments, grants and contracts, gifts, sales, and other revenue. Eentered on the National Mall between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian Institution has indeed firmly established itself as a respected Institution dedicated to "the increase and diffusion of knowledge."