Description: Each week, the Archives features a woman who has been a groundbreaker at the Smithsonian, past or present, in a series titled Wonderful Women Wednesday.
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.