Description: Spencer Fullerton Baird - Smithsonian Secretary, 1878-1887 ". . . a National Museum, of which (let me whisper it) I hope to be director." -Letter from Spencer Fullerton Baird to George Perkins Marsh, Smithsonian Regent, July 2, 1853 Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-1887), an avid naturalist and collector, served as an assistant to Secretary Joseph Henry from 1850 to 1878. This
Description: It does not take long for today’s visitors to one of the Smithsonian Institution’s nineteen museums to find themselves engulfed within the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex. The flood of world’s fairs in the late nineteenth century played a central role in placing the Smithsonian en route to that unparalleled distinction. The New Orleans World’s