The Rise Of The Smithsonian Institute

Many notable events occurred in the year 1846—more, indeed, than we shall here take space to enumerate. It was an important year in our national history. An American historian, Bernard DeVoto, published a 500-page book called "The Year of Decision: 1846," and it is surprising to see how well that year served as a milestone in our country's development. Scientifically, too, it was a year of decision, for in August 1846, after many sessions of debate on Capitol Hill, Congress finally decided what was to be done with James Smithson's $500,000 bequest to the United States of America.

In those early days great endowments for scientific, educational, and humanitarian purposes were not so common as they are today, and half a million dollars was considered a tidy sum. How best to appropriate this money was a question not to be taken lightly. There were those, in fact, who thought, with Senator Calhoun, that it was beneath the dignity of this nation even to accept this gift, especially from a foreigner. Smithson had specified that he wanted to found at Washington an institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men. This simple desire, it seems, was subject to broad and varied interpretation, but at last the argument, and discussion ended, President Polk signed the bill founding the Smithsonian Institution, and the legislators resumed their concern with such matters as the Wilmot Proviso, the Oregon question, and a war with Mexico.

On December 3, 1846, Prof. Joseph Henry, 49-year-old physicist from Princeton University, was elected the first secretary to head the new organization, and on December 23 the site for the Smithsonian Building was selected. To increase and diffuse knowledge among men— this indeed has been the guiding purpose of the Institution, as Smithson intended, during these first hundred years of its history. Oddly enough, however, most of the two million and more visitors who now stroll through its halls every year get only a one-sided picture of its aims and achievements. Most of them think of the Smithsonian as primarily a museum. They come to see its prize exhibits, such as the Spirit of St. Louis and the Winnie Mae, the original Star Spangled Banner, the Presidents' wives' dresses, the paintings in its art galleries, the animals in its National Zoological Park, and thousands of other unique and interesting objects.

Few of them are aware of what is going on, and what has gone on, behind the scenes. But the fact is that the Institution's museum exhibit activities, important as they have been from almost the beginning, are only half the story. They, together with the Smithsonian's thousands of publications, represent the "diffusion of knowledge" that Smithson envisioned.

By: davidbunch

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