Secretary Is Official Organ of Communication

Summary

Recommendations by a committee of the Smithsonian Board of Regents formed to determine the mode of communication to be used between the "Establishment" and the Board of Regents lead to a resolution that all correspondence of the Institution shall be conducted by the Secretary, and no assistant or employee shall write or receive any official letter except under the authority of the Secretary. Previously, on December 15, 1847, the Board had resolved that the Chancellor be the organ of communication between the Smithsonian Institution and the public, and that the Secretary be the organ of communication between the officers of the Institution and the Board.

Subject

• Board of Regents
• Chancellor of the Smithsonian Board of Regents
• Smithsonian Institution Establishment of

Category

Chronology of Smithsonian History

Notes

• Goode, George Brown, ed. The Smithsonian Institution, 1846-1896, The History of Its First Half Century. Washington, D.C.: De Vinne Press, 1897, p. 836
• Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for the year 1854, p. 78
• Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, volume 18, number 329. "Journals of the Proceedings of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution 1846-76, Reports of Committees, Statistics, Etc." ed. by William J. Rhees. Washington: Published by the Smithsonian Institution, 1879., p. 44, 120

Contact information

Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu

Date

February 24, 1855

Topic

• Assistant Secretaries
• Public relations
• Policies
• Letters
• Secretaries
• Communications

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