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: For the last year the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History has been preparing to celebrate its 100 year anniversary. As part of the celebration, curators and archivists have been combing the files in preparation for an exhibition of historic photographs that will describe the museum’s history. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="218" caption="Photomicrograph
Description: [caption id="attachment_4168" align="aligncenter" width="261" caption="Albumen portrait of the Reverend Levi L. Hill, Baptist minister and early daguerreotypist, West Kill, New York and New York City, b. 1816-d. February 9, 1865. Inscription on reverse, “Levi L. Hill, Died February 9, 1865, He is Asleep in Heaven.”"][/caption] Just when we think that we must have at last