The Smithsonian An Interdisciplinary Institution 150 Years After its Conception by James Smithson

Abstract

Just over 150 year ago, in 1826, James Smithson FRS, distinguished English chemist and mineralogist made a will in which be left his fortune to a small wooden-hutted village in a swamp, Washington D.C., there to create the Smithsonian Institution. To this day no-one know exactly why he made this, then eccentric, will. After a century and a half, his Institution has grown to a world-famous interdisciplinary establishment attracting over 20 million visitors each year. This development is due entirely to the eight Secretaries who have been in charge of the Institution since it formal establishment in 1846. Here the eighth Secretary review the work of his predecessors and states his own philosophy.