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: Cancer, James T. Patterson observed in The Dread Disease, serves as a powerful metaphor in American culture, where the malady mirrors the “manifestation of social, economic, and ideological divisions” in modern life. In the decades since publication of Patterson’s book, medical research has made great strides in methods of detection and treatment. But the challenge for science
Description: A couple of months ago, a few members of the Archives staff went out to the Smithsonian Conversation Biology Institute (SCBI) in Front Royal, Virginia, to collect some records that are being accessioned into our collections. One of the items we were given on this trip was a book detailing the facilities located on the property in Front Royal prior to it being used by the