Description: Why would an English chemist donate his fortune to the United States, a newly formed country he had never visited? We will likely never know exactly why in 1826 James Smithson chose to bequeath more than half a million dollars to create the Smithsonian Institution.
Description: Jeannine Smith Clark began forty seven years of involvement with the Smithsonian working as a volunteer docent at the National Museum of Natural History in 1968. Since then, she has served on the influential Smithsonian Women’s Committee and was appointed to the Board of Regents, where she served from 1983 to 1994. Jeannine Smith Clark worked with the Smithsonian for 47 years
Description: Readers of The Bigger Picture will be familiar with the Hungerford Deed, a 1787 property contract dividing a lucrative land inheritance between the mother and aunt of the Smithsonian’s founding donor, James Smithson. Over the last three years I have been able to take a deep dive into the content of the Deed and strengthen our understanding of Smithson’s choice to leave his
Description: …in which a member of the Archives staff turns her passion for sloths into a mission to research their history at the Smithsonian Institution.