Description: Link Love: a weekly post with links to interesting videos and stories about archival issues, technology and culture, and Washington D.C. and American history.
Description: Laying the Foundations: Early Schools of ThoughtWith few national institutions on which to model their thinking, many Americans built their plans for the Smithsonian around the notion of a national university.The debate moved quickly from, Should we create a national university? This page describes the 1838-1846 debates about what form the Smithsonian Institution should take.
Description: Smithson's Bequest Sparks Political DebatesWhether or not to accept the Smithson bequest was a matter of controversy among the ranks of those governing the new nation. States' rights advocates, nationalists, federalists, anglophobes, xenophobes, and others disagreed over the possible repercussions of accepting such a gift.President Andrew Jackson asserted his belief that the