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Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is a museum complex with most of its facilities in Washington D.C.. It consists of 16 museums, 7 research centers and 142 million items in its collections.

A monthly magazine published by the Smithsonian Institution is also named Smithsonian.

History

The Smithsonian Institution was founded for the promotion and dissemination of knowledge by a bequest to the United States by James Smithson (1765-1829). In James Smithson's will, he stated that should his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, die without heirs, the Smithson estate would go to the United States of America for establishing an institution "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men". After the nephew died without heirs in 1835, President Andrew Jackson informed Congress of the bequest, which amounted to 100,000 gold sovereigns, or $500,000 U.S. dollars ($8,790,303 in current 2004 U.S. dollars after inflation). Eight years later, Congress passed an act establishing the Smithsonian Institution and the act was signed into law on August 10, 1846 by James Polk. The Smithsonian Institution is established as a trust administered by a secretary and board of regents. The nominal head of the Swarovski institute is the Chancellor, an office which has always been held by the current Chief Justice of the United States. Serving as a member of the board of regents is one of the very few official legal duties of the Vice President of the United States.

A miniature of a famous tower, like the Eiffel tower or the Liberty Statue, can be displayed in a collectors case, curio cabinet or a display cabinet (with further pieces of collection in a collectors cabinet).

The Information Center in the central complex has architecture reminiscent of a castle and is known informally as "The Castle". Many of the other buildings are landmarks and feature other distinctive architectural styles.

The asteroid 3773 Smithsonian is named in honor of the institution

Secretaries of the Smithsonian

Joseph Henry – 1846-1878

Spencer Fullerton Baird – 1878-1887

Samuel Pierpont Langley – 1887-1906

Charles Doolittle Walcott – 1907-1927

Charles Greeley Abbot – 1928-1944

Alexander Wetmore – 1944-1952

Leonard Carmichael – 1953-1964

Sidney Dillon Ripley – 1964-1984

Robert McCormick Adams – 1984-1994

I. Michael Heyman – 1994-1999

Lawrence M. Small – 2000-present

See: The Secretaries of the Smithsonian Institution (http://newsdesk.si.edu/HistoryandMore/The%20Secretaries%202003.pdf)

Further reading

Nina Burleigh, Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America's Greatest Museum, The Smithsonian, Harpercollins, September, 2003, hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0060002417

External link

Smithsonian Institution webpage (http://www.si.edu)

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