Description: AcknowledgementsThe web version of From Smithson to Smithsonian: The Birth of an Institution was adapted from an exhibition that appeared from July 1996 to January 1997 in the Smithsonian Libraries Exhibition Gallery in the National Museum of American History. It was one of the official projects that celebrated the 150th anniversary of the 1846 founding of the Smithsonian
Description: The Freer Gallery of Art’s collections were donated to the Smithsonian in 1906 and its building opened in 1923. It was the first Smithsonian museum specializing in fine arts. The building was designed by Charles A. Platt in the Italian Renaissance style. The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery was established in 1982 to complement the Freer, and it opened in 1987. Together, the Freer