A BIT OF HISTORY
©2021 SARAH BECKER
Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian
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n 1879 greenbacks reached a face value with gold; Congress granted female lawyers the right to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, and the California maxim “the Chinese must go” was popular. Thomas A. Edison discovered that “a thread of carbonized cotton in onemillionth of an atmosphere would burn for 45 hours without overheating,” and Congress passed a bill “allowing a sum…sufficient to erect a fireproof edifice…commensurate with the size and value of the [Smithsonian’s] many specimens.” America’s first National Museum: the Smithsonian’s Arts & Industries Building [AIB] opened to the public in 1881. Designed by architect Adolf Cluss, the building—“far ahead of its time: sustainable, efficient, and stunningly elegant”— temporarily reopens this month. A severe 2004 snowstorm raised concerns about the stability of the structure and forced the museum to close. The Smithsonian’s second oldest building—the Castle is the first—the AIB is described as “more than a museum.” It was “an incubator; a hall of invention, and the mother of museums.” The opening celebration was grand. Crowds poured in to see Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone; the first cast of a blue whale, “remarkable treasures that…showcased geology,
Old Town Crier
America’s First National Museum:
The Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building metallurgy, zoology, medicine, anthropology, art, history and technologies.” “It is not generally known that the functions of the National Museum and the Smithsonian are entirely different,” The New York Times wrote in 1879. “The object of the former is the establishment of a collection of specimens, natural and artistic, which shall exhibit the resources of the country, or present at a glance the materials essential to a condition of high civilization which exists in the different States of the Union; to show the various processes of manufacture which have been adopted by us, as well as those used in other countries; in short, to form a great educational establishment by means of which our inhabitants may be informed.” “The Smithsonian Institution, on the other hand, does not offer its results to the physical eye, but presents them to the mind in the form of new discoveries derived from investigations, and an extended interchange of new ideas with all parts of the world,” The Times continued. “It is the design of the Museum
to continually increase its collections of material objects; of the Institution to extend the bounds of human knowledge.” The Arts & Industries Building’s November 20, 2021-July 6, 2022 exhibit is fittingly titled FUTURES. The building was restored in 2014 and admission is free. Starting this November visitors “will be among the first to pilot an experimental new way to design sustainable, inclusive future cities—by building them from the ground up, together. The Co-Lab, a first of its kind collaborative design experience developed with Autodesk, a leading design of 3D software, invites the public to bring their creativity and sense of play to co-design better, greener communities in real time.” The FUTURES exhibit is “a milestone” as was the Smithsonian Institution’s founding. In 1829 British national James Smithson, a “liberal and enlightened donor,” died. In his will he bequeathed the whole of his property “to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an
establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men.” President Andrew Jackson [D-TN], President John Quincy Adams successor, was informed of the gift in 1835. Once advised, a grateful Congress responded. Representative, former President John Quincy Adams [NR-MA] chaired the select House Committee which recommended acceptance. “This was a bequest to the Congress of the United States…as parens patrias of the District,” Judiciary advocates concluded in 1836. “We were appointed trustees not for Washington, Georgetown or Alexandria [the then District of Columbia] but for all mankind.” Smithson’s bequest, received in 1838, equaled 100,000 gold sovereigns or more than $500,000, approximately 1/66 of the country’s federal budget. “Mr. [John C.] Calhoun was not friendly to the Smithsonian Institution,” Joseph Henry, the first Smithsonian Secretary wrote. “He thought the money should not have been accepted.” Senator Calhoun [Nullifier, D-SC] felt Smithson’s endowment, the lack of legislative limitations and
restrictions, violated states’ rights. After years of contentious debate Representative Owen [D-IN] rallied. Educated in natural science and medicine, Owen introduced the handwritten Act which established the Smithsonian Institution. President James K. Polk [DTN] signed the law on the day it passed, August 10, 1846. Owen was then appointed to the founding Board of Regents and remained “a Regent for some years.” “The Senate had passed a bill which devoted the bulk of the Smithsonian bequest to the purchase of a mammoth library; but when it reached the House of Representatives, Mr. Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana, introduced, as a substitute, another very different bill,” the Alexandria Gazette reported. “Taking our primary schools as the basis of the best means for ‘the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,’ Mr. Owen presented, what seems to us, a well arranged plan, including a scientific museum, library, experimental farm, agricultural professorship, and gratuitous lectures….” Robert Dale Owen [18011877] spent his life advocating for universal public education. He published “a small work, his Outline of the System of Education” in 1824. G.P. Putnam released his Hints on A BIT OF HISTORY > PAGE 10
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