Smithsonian Institution

The man who endowed the Smithsonian Institution was born in France in 1765, the illegitimate son of Hugh Smithson, the first Duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth Keate Hungerford Macie, a widow connected to the royal family. Named James Lewis Macie, he took his father's name after his mother's death in 1800. A graduate of Oxford and an avid scientist, James Smithson traveled throughout Europe studying chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. He wrote 27 articles for scientific journals dealing with topics ranging from a better way to make coffee to the chemical makeup of a woman's teardrop. His personal library contained 213 volumes, and a type of zinc carbonate was renamed smithsonite in his honor. Smithson's provision was newsworthy in both Europe and the United States when it first became known, and newspapers tried to figure out why this man, who had never visited the United States, might leave the nation his estate. Although he may have had other reasons, one purpose was revenge: "My name," Smithson wrote, "shall live in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and Percys are extinct and forgotten." When Henry Hungerford died childless in 1835, the country, or at least those governing it, had to decide whether to accept the estate. President Andrew Jackson thought it was a good idea, but was not sure it was constitutional to accept the bequest. When he asked Congress to pass legislation making that possible, he ran into opposition from those who believed, as the Smithsonian accounted, that "acceptance of the Smithson bequest ... on behalf of the entire nation would abridge states' rights." The two senators from South Carolina were among the strongest opponents. Senator John C. Calhoun believed Congress had no authority to accept the gift, and Senator William Campbell Preston, while also questioning the constitutionality, complained that "[E]very whippersnapper vagabond ... might think it proper to have his name distinguished in the same way." Finally, on August 10, 1846, legislation containing many of these ideas, but eliminating the national university, was signed by President James K. Polk. The "Act To Establish the Smithsonian Institution" created a charitable trust, with its administration, independent of the government, the responsibility of the Institution's Secretary and Board of Regents, consisting of three members of the House of Representatives, three Senators, and nine private citizens appointed by a joint resolution of Congress. The vice-president of the United States and the chief justice of the Supreme Court served as ex officio members. The legislation that created the Institution required that the public have access to the Institution. Henry himself conducted public lectures, along with "a number of distinguished gentlemen ... whose character will tend to give due importance to the communications." In 1855 Henry moved his family into the second floor of the newly completed Smithsonian Building. Designed by James Renwick, Jr., it resembled a 12th century Italian Romanesque castle and housed offices, laboratories, art gallery, science museum, and lecture hall, with living space for resident scientists in the tower. The red brick building quickly became known as "The Castle," and when Henry's meteorologists received word of impending storms, they signaled nearby ports from the tower. Henry worked hard to keep his Institution separate from politics so as not to endanger support in Congress. He took no position on Darwin's theory of evolution and made sure no flag of any sort flew over the Smithsonian Building during the Civil War. As Assistant Secretary, he was in charge of the Department of Exploration, and his efforts included teaching a generation of naturalists how to prepare specimens for museum collections. He instructed and supplied naturalists attached to just about any expedition heading west, making the Smithsonian a center for information about the natural history of North America