From the dust jacket.

"My duties in connection with the Smithsonian are very arduous and in some cases very disagreeable--they require caution inflexible justice and in some instances moral courage. Still I do not think I did wrong to accept the position and I know that I am in the way of doing good."¹ With these words, Joseph Henry provided a summation of his first three years as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and a forecast for the succeeding four--the four that are documented in this volume. To be secretary meant plenty of hard, unpleasant work for Henry, tempered only by the certainty that he was making a major contribution to international science and American culture.

Some of the unpleasantness stemmed from a discordance between Henry's management style and the nature of the position of secretary of the Smithsonian in the 1850s. Henry was a micromanager who wanted to see and approve every detail of the work of the Smithsonian: "all official business with Learned societies must be transacted under my signature because I am the only responsible executive officer."² That approach was reasonable during the early days of the institution when Henry essentially worked alone and the activities of the Smithsonian were limited and highly focused. The hiring of Spencer F. Baird, Lorin Blodget, Solomon G. Brown, and William J. Rhees, however, doubled the size of the professional and clerical staff by 1853. The Smithsonian took on new responsibilities and expanded old ones. Perhaps Henry should have followed the example of his friend Alexander Dallas Bache, who oversaw the expanding activities of the United States Coast Survey by applying the managerial techniques he had learned in the army. The military had long before developed a system that provided for fiscal and personal accountability and control over subordinates a great distance away, let alone at a desk down the hall.³ Henry could have run the Smithsonian as a hierarchical bureaucracy, but he did not trust his employees and feared insubordination. "The institution is liable to danger from internal disension," he confided to his diary.⁴ By the summer of 1853, he was contemplating asking the regents' approval to formally regulate the actions of his staff.

Aggravating the situation was the nature of Henry's principal assistants. Both Baird and Assistant Secretary Charles Coffin Jewett were energetic and professionally committed individuals who had their own agendas for the Smithsonian. Both could work very successfully with very limited oversight. Limited oversight, however, was not Henry's managerial style.

The result was an overextended and tired Henry, a frustrated staff, and an inefficient administration. Jewett complained to a mutual acquaintance:

Prof Henry thinks he is bound to look into all the details of the business of the Institution. Consequently he wishes me to consult him about the most insignificant things--the ruling of my blank books--the purchase of a chair or curtain. This I would not mind if on the statement of a case I could get an immediate decision. But on the most in[significant] affair, I must wait weeks & months & worry him out with importunity. So with the payment of every bill, however small, weeks & weeks must pass, I must call on him & explain the matter a dozen times, before I can get the smallest bill paid.⁵

Henry worked long days, once complaining that he stayed at the Smithsonian from 8:30 a.m. until 8:30 p.m.⁶ He also worked in a building under construction, noting in the spring of 1850 that the air in the building was making him sick.⁷ The only habitable part of the Smithsonian Building in 1850 was the east range and east wing, much of which was taken up by a large lecture room. Henry and his staff shared the remaining space with the library and museum collections. Henry was forced to work without privacy and with frequent interruptions from his employees and the public. His frustration spilled out in his annual report for 1852:

In the present condition of affairs there is no part of the edifice to which the public has not access, and, consequently, business has to be transacted amidst constant interruptions. The loss of time and effective life to which all are exposed who occupy a position of notoriety in the city of Washington, is truly lamentable; and where this is enhanced by facility of access to gratify mere curiosity, the evil becomes scarcely endurable. Progress in business, under such circumstances, can only be made by an encroachment on the hours usually allotted to rest, and that, too, at the expense of wasted energies and shortened days.⁸

The attacks upon Henry's program by critics were another source of unpleasantness. About one such "vindictive attack on myself and the Institution," Henry commented that although it was "too false to be hurtful" it was "nevertheless provoking."⁹ An editorial in the New York Times voiced the common charge that Henry's program was too elitist:

Lectures delivered at Washington City in the Winter, and heavy publications, which few can afford to buy, and fewer care to read, strike us as the most futile and incompetent means of fulfilling the intentions of the donor.¹⁰

Henry summed up the criticism succinctly in his diary: "The old complaint. Should publish popular books--"¹¹ In his annual report for 1853, Henry wrote that managers of institutions such as the Smithsonian, founded by bequest and

intended to promote the public good, . . . are overwhelmed with suggestions, and subjected to illiberal criticisms, and unless they are firmly convinced of the propriety of their course, and have sufficient moral courage to pursue it notwithstanding opposition, there is danger of vacillation, and of an attempt to gain popularity by adopting measures not calculated to promote the desired end.¹²

He felt strongly that "the Institution, to be respected, must maintain a dignified character, and seek rather to direct public opinion than to obtain popularity by an opposite course."¹³

Another source of criticism was the scholarly community. Some disciplines, like ethnology and archaeology, were torn by internal dissent caused by scientific and personal disagreements. By publishing certain articles and selecting certain lecturers, Henry was giving aid and comfort to one or another of the feuding groups, incurring the animosity of the others. In turn, these alienated scientists joined ranks with non-scientists critical of Henry's policies. As George Robins Gliddon, the ethnologist, noted to E. G. Squier, the archaeologist and ethnologist, speaking of Henry's former principal competitor for the job of secretary: "[Francis] Markoe is a good friend of yours; and will do all he can to serve you. Remember, enmity to the Smithsonians is a good card to his favor."¹⁴ Ironically, Gliddon had become unhappy with the Smithsonian in part because of its building, which he felt was inappropriate, overly expensive, and a waste of the Smithson bequest, an evaluation Henry most heartily agreed with. Even more ironically, another of the Smithsonian's critics was Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, one of Gliddon and Squier's most bitter enemies within ethnology. Schoolcraft called the Smithsonian "that abortion of academical & popular knowledge," and accused Henry of being "deficient in ethnology."¹⁵

Henry was also learning the harsh lesson that being a good administrator sometimes meant doing things one did not like to do. He admitted to his friend, the reformer Dorothea Dix, that

the administration of the affairs of the Institution have constantly been to me a service of moral training. I am continually called upon to act in cases in which generous feelings are brought in antagonism with the higher duty of justice in the administration of the trust confided to me.¹⁶

Henry's financial responsibilities weighed heavily on him. He was obsessed with the need to preserve the funds of the Smithsonian and with his sense of responsibility and stewardship. He was "accused of meanness"¹⁷ in approving expenditures, a charge he felt was grossly unfair because many of the limitations upon the Smithsonian's program were the result of the expense of the Smithsonian Building, which he had opposed. True to his nature as a micromanager, he attempted to oversee the expenditure of every penny.

Surely adding to Henry's unhappiness during these years were events in his personal life. His immediate family circle shrank, but his financial responsibilities increased. His brother James died in 1851, leaving Henry at least partially responsible for his sister-in-law, her children, and probably his sister Nancy as well. The death the following year of Maria Alexander, his aunt and mother-in-law, triggered threats of a lawsuit over the administration of her husband's estate.

Personal financial woes are a constant theme in this volume. Before his death, James Henry was in a financial crisis, borrowing $1,600 from Henry within one year.¹⁸ Henry himself had been in arrears when he came to Washington--"more in debt than I immagined," he told his brother in 1850.¹⁹ He had managed to pay off that debt, as well as additional debt incurred when he borrowed money for his brother, but was "resolved come what will to live within my means and to make my family conform to my circumstances."²⁰ The years documented in this volume were years of constant searching for less expensive housing. It is a measure of the man that in the midst of his financial adversity, Henry refused to accept a retroactive payment for housing based on a reinterpretation of his contract. In his diary he wrote, "cannot expect to save any thing from my salary ought not to do so."²¹

Henry also missed his family when they spent every summer and early fall in the north. Harriet and the four children either resided in Princeton with Stephen Alexander, Harriet's brother, visited family and friends in Albany, or simply escaped Washington for a vacation area. Henry admitted to Harriet that "I am some what inclined to the blues when I am separated from you."²² He no doubt missed her all the more for having to endure alone the ways of the capital. "Washington is a pandamonium in which is congregated all the personifications of all the evil passions of the human character," he told his friend Asa Gray.²³

Another cause of unpleasantness was the continuing controversy over the development of the telegraph. Samuel F. B. Morse's habit of suing competitors for infringements of his patents drew Henry into several cases. Preparing testimony was both time-consuming and stressful, as Henry reviewed his work and correspondence of years earlier and weighed every word in anticipation of careful scrutiny. Morse's opponents saw him as an ally, while Morse and his associates questioned Henry's version of events and even his integrity. Alfred Vail claimed in one instance that Henry had earlier given a favorable evaluation to a rival system in exchange for money.²⁴ One of the court decisions was interpreted--wrongly according to the judge who made it--as implying that Henry had lied under oath.²⁵ Morse described Henry as showing "a littleness of mind and a prejudice,"²⁶ while Alfred Vail found Henry petty and vindictive.²⁷ Leonard Gale was dismayed to find himself shunned by Henry, who suddenly began treating him with "marked repulsion" and "coldness."²⁸

With all his problems, Henry was sorely tempted by offers of positions that were his if he wanted them. Robert Hare's former professorship at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, "the most desirable in our country for a scientific man,"²⁹ according to Henry, who had turned it down once before, was again vacant. Henry was also nominated for the position of provost of that university and was approached about the professorship of chemistry at the University of Virginia. His former colleagues at Princeton also tried to interest him, first in the offer of an endowed professorship "in which provision should be made f[or] teaching the true relations between scie[nce] and revealed truth,"³⁰ and later in the presidency of the college. Many of Henry's friends and colleagues, and even some enemies, thought that Henry had been wasting his true talent ever since he had left the laboratory and the classroom for the Smithsonian. Almost every discussion of an alternative position was couched in terms of how much better it suited Henry's talents and interests than the secretaryship of the Smithsonian. It was a sentiment he did not disagree with.

Yet, in spite of the criticisms, the frustrations, and the unhappy relationship with some of his subordinates, Henry remained. He feared that if he did leave, the Smithson bequest would be wasted and the institution would

become a mere curiosity shop with a number of retired politicians as its keepers-- I am anxious now to give it such a direction in the beginning that it cannot lapse into such a state without the contrast being obvious to the world.³¹

At times he was depressed, as he admitted to his friend Alexander Dallas Bache.³² But more often he was driven by the certainty that his program for the Smithsonian was the correct one and that he had become secretary for the most noble of motives. As he told his son,

I undertook an immense labour in attempting to organize this Institution and though every thing proposed by myself has succeeded just as I intended they should do yet I frequently feel much discouraged and think it is impossible I can go on. These feelings are however more connected with occasional fits of dyspepsia than with real want of sucess--

I did not accept the office on account of emolument or fame. I could have go a large income from Dr Hares chair in Phil^d and more fame with less noterity from my descoveres in science. I accepted the office with the hope of doing good and because I was to use a political phrase the only available candidate. I have always felt that the Institution needed my service more than I need its honors or profits--

I frequently look back on my quiet and studious life with regret--but this unavailing and I exert myself to press on rather than to look back.³³

So Henry pressed on. The primary mission of the Smithsonian during the early 1850s remained as it had been during Henry's first years as secretary: the increase of scientific knowledge through publication subvention and research support. But Henry's rhetoric and methods of advancing the mission changed, becoming increasingly self-confident and combative. If there was a pivotal moment during these years, it was during the meeting of the United States Agricultural Society at the Smithsonian on June 24 and 25, 1852, when Henry publicly defended the Smithsonian's mission against criticism by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.

Henry was already unhappy with Douglas. According to Henry, the senator had once publicly stated that Smithsonian funds were being wasted on "matters pertaining to the moon"³⁴ rather than being spent on something useful, such as agriculture. Henry had responded, although it is not clear whether he did so privately or publicly, "that if the highest cravings of the human soul were confined to the desire for good potatoes this might be true."³⁵

When the agricultural society met in June to call for the establishment of a department of agriculture in the federal government, Douglas suggested that the proposed department be attached to the Smithsonian. He criticized the Smithsonian for a lack of "practical results," claimed that it "is not what it was designed to be by its founder," and charged that research in astronomy had "no practical bearing."³⁶ According to Henry, when it was proposed that he speak, "Douglas objected stating that he knew that I would object to anything but the publication of sea weeds and such trash."³⁷

Henry's ire was raised, and although, as he later described himself, he was "a man of simple speech, and unaccustomed to address extemporaneously, public bodies,"³⁸ Douglas's "remarks were well calculated to excite me and to do away with my usual reluctance to speak in public."³⁹ Henry then stated his interpretation of the will, as paraphrased by a newspaper reporter: "Smithson intended not the diffusion of useful [italics in original] knowledge merely, but the increase of knowledge." Henry went on to express his heartfelt and fundamental belief in the linkage between basic research and later application. According to the reporter, he claimed that

all knowledge was practical, [italics in original] how abstruse soever it might to the uninitiated appear, and in good time would always vindicate itself. . . . The truth is, the higher the knowledge the more practical and useful, and in this view it was that agriculture is to be more advanced by the microscope than by the plough and harrow.⁴⁰

In both his account of the events to Bache and in his diary entry of June 24, Henry admitted to being very zealous and blunt with Douglas. In the press account, Henry was paraphrased as saying that he would rather blow up the Smithsonian and send the funds back to England than have it turned into an agricultural society. In the end it was the senator who yielded. "At the meeting next morning Judge D[ouglas] made some conciliatory remarks and afterwards made an advance towards me which I immediately met."⁴¹ Henry's friends recognized the importance of his impromptu defense:

This attack was a crisis in your life & in the fortunes of the Smithsonian-- You met it with the spirit of a man and the fidelity of an officer-- You have acheived a noble triumph--the triumph of truth over error, of honor over policy, of knowledge over pretention and quackery. And you did it at the right moment; when to have left it undone would have been to lose an opportunity never to be recalled.⁴²

Henry recognized its importance also. He emerged from the debate with renewed self-confidence in his interpretation of Smithson's intent, in the correctness of his program, and in the ultimate ineffectualness of attacks upon him and his agenda.

The single most important aspect of his program, at least to Henry, was the refereed series of monographs, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. As he wrote in his annual report for 1850, "It is chiefly by the publications of the Institution that its fame is to be spread through the world, and the monument most befitting the name of Smithson, erected to his memory."⁴³ The Smithsonian printed 1,500 copies of each volume,⁴⁴ an amount Henry claimed was unsurpassed by any other literary or scientific society in the world: "therefore the Institution offers the best medium to be found for diffusing a knowledge of scientific discoveries."⁴⁵ He planned that "the first half dozen volumes will give a character to the institution, from which our successors cannot well suffer it to decline."⁴⁶ He added in his annual report for 1852,

Should the government of the United States be dissolved, and the Smithsonian fund dissipated to the winds, the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge" will still be found in the principal libraries of the world, a perpetual monument of the wisdom and liberality of the founder of the institution, and of the faithfulness of those who first directed its affairs.⁴⁷

Four volumes of the series of original scientific monographs appeared from 1851 through 1853. Three of the volumes contained a total of twenty-one articles divided among various disciplines: ten in the biological sciences, six in the physical, two each in paleontology and archaeology, and one miscellaneous. The fourth volume was given over entirely to a Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language. There was no shortage of potential articles. Aside from a lack of funds to publish all of the valuable papers that were offered, Henry's main difficulties were budgeting for the more expensive illustrated biological papers, finding referees, and simply dealing with the numerous details involved in printing and publishing.

Given that Henry was publicly so insistent about peer review of articles in Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, it is startling to discover how he tried to solve the problem of getting competent referees to evaluate papers in a timely manner. By 1851 a double standard was in place. If Henry was confident of the scientific reputation and abilities of a contributor, he either waived refereeing or reduced it to a mere formality. Jacob Whitman Bailey "reviewed" two papers without Henry ever sending them to him. In one case, Henry's justification was that Bailey had "recommended the acceptance of a memoir" from the author. In the other, Henry simply asked, without any further justification, whether he could use Bailey's name as a referee "without the formality of sending the memoir to West Point?"⁴⁸ For another paper, Henry asked a referee to review the manuscript after it had been set in type, "because we think there can be no doubt of your approving of the memoir."⁴⁹ When, in this case, the referee refused to recommend publication, Henry went ahead and published the article, eventually finding another scientist willing to have his name used. If the author was unknown to Henry, however, then peer review was taken very seriously. Competent referees had to be found, not an easy task in a field like mathematics. As Henry wrote to the author of a paper on the classification of curves, "There is no class of papers submitted to the Institution which gives us so much trouble in the way of a critical and reliable report on their character as that of the mathematical."⁵⁰

Despite critical acceptance from the scholarly community at home and abroad, articles in Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge exposed the Smithsonian to criticism from those who believed that "Smithson bequeathed his property to this country for the diffusion of useful knowledge among the people."⁵¹ In response, Henry wrote a ringing defense of basic research:

Smithson does not confine his bequest to the promotion of useful [italics in original] knowledge alone, in the lower sense of the term, but includes all knowledge in his liberal and philosophical design. The true, the beautiful, as well as the immediately practical, are all entitled to a share of attention. All knowledge is profitable; profitable in its ennobling effect on the character, in the pleasure it imparts in its acquisition, as well as in the power it gives over the operations of mind and matter. All knowledge is useful; every part of this complex system of nature is connected with every other. Nothing is isolated. The discovery of to-day, which appears unconnected with any useful process, may, in the course of a few years, become the fruitful source of a thousand inventions.⁵²

The second most important element of Henry's program was the meteorological project. Henry had predicted that the Smithsonian's network of observers would "constitute one of the most important systems ever instituted"⁵³ for meteorological observations. The system, which was in place by 1849, had grown by 1852 to 350 observers and stations and had an annual budget of $2,000.⁵⁴

Henry's involvement in the day-to-day activities of the meteorological project was limited. Until he left in July 1853, Edward Foreman, Henry's general assistant, handled most of the routine meteorological correspondence. It was his responsibility to acknowledge the receipt of observations, send out blank forms, and soothe the hurt feelings of observers who complained, like William Bacon, that in exchange for their "sacrifice," they had received "but very little" from the Smithsonian.⁵⁵ In December 1851 Lorin Blodget joined the Smithsonian staff to reduce and discuss the meteorological data generated by the observers.

Not all was well with the meteorological project, however. One of Henry's unfulfilled aspirations was to extend it throughout North and Central America, including Canada and the West Indies. The plan was deferred "on account of want of funds."⁵⁶ Also deferred for lack of funds was a plan to publish all the data gathered so far.

The threat of competition from Matthew Fontaine Maury, superintendent of the United States Naval Observatory, posed a more serious problem. In January 1852, seemingly ignoring the well-established Smithsonian system, Maury proposed an international meteorological conference to establish a uniform system of observations. Henry and Bache responded by proposing a division of labor for North America: the army would take responsibility for the western half of the United States, the Smithsonian the eastern half, the British government would be responsible for Canadian observations, while the Naval Observatory would handle observations taken at sea. All the observations would be sent to the Smithsonian for reduction. Although Maury pledged cooperation, he went ahead with his international conference in August 1853. The conference, however, accomplished little and ultimately proved to be no threat to the Smithsonian system.

Not all of the Smithsonian's energies were expended in trying to increase knowledge. Despite continuing doubts about its significance, Henry expanded the Smithsonian lecture series during the early 1850s. The series had proven to be much more successful than he had originally envisioned. Despite adverse weather, poor footing around the Smithsonian Building, the relatively isolated location of the building in the southwestern portion of the city (cut off from the rest of the city by the Washington Canal on the north and east), and Henry's insistence that lectures be serious and substantive rather than popular, the lecture room was frequently filled. Henry had no problem attracting lecturers either, and in fact was overwhelmed with applicants in spite of modest honoraria that barely met expenses. "We find no lack of lecturers and are almost every day requested to invite some one or receive intimations that certain persons would lecture were they asked."⁵⁷ To be selected was to be acknowledged as being among the elite of the American learned community.

Despite the popularity of the lecture series and the ready availability of distinguished lecturers, it presented Henry with numerous problems. He found scheduling "an unpleasant and perplexing duty."⁵⁸ As he wrote Benjamin Silliman, Sr., in December 1851, "If you don't come when expected the whole programme would be thrown into confusion."⁵⁹ When Henry Darwin Rogers was unable to lecture due to illness, Henry's inability to reschedule him to his satisfaction led to an estrangement.⁶⁰ Henry worried that some of the newspaper articles critical of the Smithsonian were written by disappointed lecturers whose applications he had refused.⁶¹

Henry micromanaged the lectures as he did other aspects of the Smithsonian's program. He worried about the specific arrangements for each lecture and problems with the lecture room itself. The original lecture hall in the east wing and the larger one that replaced it were too small to accommodate the crowds. Henry was concerned that an overflow audience might panic and that seats might collapse if people stomped their feet as they had at one of Silliman's lectures.⁶² Henry complained to Mayor Lenox, a Smithsonian regent, that the lectures were being disrupted by "half-grown boys"; the mayor offered to send a police officer.⁶³

Despite all the demands the lecture series made upon his time and patience, Henry recognized that it made friends for the Smithsonian. He hoped that the distinguished men who lectured would return to their communities with favorable opinions of the Smithsonian and that their reports would

so establish the Institution in the good opinion of the intelligent and influential part of the community, that it may bid defiance to the assaults of those who are ignorant of its true character, or are disappointed in not sharing its honors without the talents or the industry to win them.⁶⁴

The other chief form of diffusion was the library, which grew from 6,578 to 25,866 items in this period.⁶⁵ It was temporarily housed, pending completion of the main building, in the west portion of the Smithsonian Building in crowded, unheated, and damp rooms. Despite the lack of amenities, it proved to be a "place of great resort" for Washingtonians.⁶⁶ Charles Coffin Jewett, assistant secretary in charge of the library, worked to make the Smithsonian a leader in bibliography. While waiting for the Smithsonian Building to be finished, he developed standard cataloging rules and designed a system to produce a national union catalog.

Although Jewett and Henry agreed on the Smithsonian's role as a leader in library science, their conflicting conceptions of the Smithsonian's own library collections began to emerge. Jewett looked forward to the time when the Smithsonian library would be "a National Library for reference and research."⁶⁷ Henry, in contrast, saw a national library as a responsibility of the federal government.⁶⁸ He envisioned the Smithsonian library as a small reference collection designed to support scientific research. He argued that "Congress will probably increase indefinitely its Library [the Library of Congress] and therefore a large one is not absolutely necssary for the Smithsonian Institution."⁶⁹ As the completion of the Smithsonian Building drew closer, Jewett and Henry both became more vocal in their arguments.

With the hiring of Spencer F. Baird in July 1850 to be assistant secretary with responsibility for the museum and publications, the Smithsonian became much more active in building its natural history collections. Two months before he was hired, Baird was appointed an agent of the Smithsonian by Henry and empowered "to take charge of making collections in Natural History, intended for the Smithsonian Museum."⁷⁰ Henry had agreed to the issuing of a circular soliciting specimens of American animals, plants, minerals, and fossils for the Smithsonian's natural history collection. At the end of 1851, Henry reported to G. P. Marsh that thanks to the "energetic operations of Professor Baird there will be no danger of our rooms appearing empty for want of specimens in natural history."⁷¹ Although grateful he now had an efficient assistant capable of prodigious amounts of work, Henry worried that Baird might be too energetic. He confided to Asa Gray that Baird "rather requires the rein than the spur."⁷²

Henry had not changed his stance against the Smithsonian serving as the host of a national museum. He made a distinction between a museum of static collections, "in which miscellaneous collections of objects of nature and art are merely exhibited as curiosities,"⁷³ and collections that "supply all working naturalists with the materials of research."⁷⁴ Henry explained that his "idea of the museum of the S.I. is that it should be of special objects and not an omnium gatherum of the ods & end of creation."⁷⁵ The museum could also serve as a repository in which specimens could be cared for until researchers or the federal government located a more appropriate home for them. Henry, for instance, volunteered the temporary use of the Smithsonian for the collections of the United States Naval Expedition to the North Pacific.

A major addition to the Smithsonian program in the early 1850s was the international exchange. This exchange had started simply as the usual reciprocal trading of publications between learned societies--in this case, the Smithsonian and learned societies in England. In response to the obvious logistical problems that arose in this transatlantic exchange, Henry sought "a more sure and less expensive method . . . of transmitting packages betwen this country and Great Britain."⁷⁶ Once the system was in place, he decided to offer the Smithsonian as the agent for the distribution of scientific publications intended for other people and institutions in the United States. Working through Her Majesty's ambassador to the United States, Sir Henry Bulwer, and the Royal Society of London, Henry developed a plan in which British publications destined for American learned societies and libraries, and American publications destined for British learned societies and libraries, would enter the respective countries duty-free.

Once the agreements with the British were in place, it was a relatively simple step to expand the exchange to other European nations and then to the rest of the world. The Royal Society took responsibility for Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal. Agents were appointed in both Paris (for France and Italy) and Leipzig (for the rest of Europe). The exchange system was eventually extended to Asia, Africa, Mexico, and South America.⁷⁷ It worked magnificently. In 1852, for example, the Smithsonian transmitted nearly eight thousand volumes on behalf of American institutions and received over five thousand foreign publications for distribution. In the Smithsonian's annual report for 1852, Baird estimated that three-fourths of the scholarly materials exchanged between the United States and Europe were sent through the Smithsonian system.⁷⁸ The international exchange exemplified Henry's belief that "the worth and importance of the institution is not to be estimated by what it accumulates within the walls of its building but by what it sends forth to the world."⁷⁹

Although Baird was not hired explicitly with the international exchange in mind, he was given responsibility for carrying out the program. There is little question that it would not have succeeded without him; the details would have overwhelmed Henry. Tellingly, in the same letter that Henry informed Edward Sabine that Baird was responsible for the exchange, he wrote:

For the last five months my thoughts and time have been so occupied with the financial, the building, and other operations of the institution that I have been unable to keep up with my correspondence.⁸⁰

Smithsonian financial matters, in fact, occupied much of Henry's time. The income from the principal of Smithson's bequest was around $31,000 a year. Half of this income was combined with the income derived from the accrued interest (the $242,000 of interest earned on the bequest between 1838 and the establishment of the Smithsonian in 1846) to finance construction of the Smithsonian Building. Henry was proud to report in 1850, after almost three years of construction, that the accrued interest was only $10,000 less than its original $242,000 sum.⁸¹ Fearing that this fund was vulnerable to misuse by the regents or by special interests with designs on Smithsonian funds, and aware that it could be diminished or lost through poor investments, he attempted without success to have Congress add it to the principal of the Smithson bequest in the United States Treasury, an action that would have both increased the Smithsonian's annual income and freed him from worry.

The other half of the annual income from the Smithson bequest funded all remaining Smithsonian operations, including the publications program, the meteorological project, the lectures, the museum, and the library. Henry began to argue bluntly, both in public and private forums, that "the programme is too broad for our income."⁸² In 1850 he had $4,500 to spend on publications, research support, lectures, and the meteorological network. He complained that "out of this sum we have been expected to produce results for which the whole income would be entirely inadequate."⁸³ To drive home his point, he cited the costs of some recent federal publications, including some $300,000 for the Wilkes Expedition publications, $42,000 for David Dale Owen's most recent geological report, and $20,000 for just one volume of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's six-volume work on Native Americans.⁸⁴ The annual report of the Patent Office cost two or three times the Smithsonian's entire annual income.⁸⁵ He increasingly began to argue that the Smithsonian's limited budget could not support a broad program and would force him to drop some elements to focus on others.

Henry therefore showed interest in any proposal that might possibly relieve the Smithsonian of its "fantastic and almost useless building."⁸⁶ In March 1850, the secretary of the treasury advised that the building "be sold to the Catholics."⁸⁷ One of the regents introduced a resolution in Congress whereby the government would purchase the building for office space, while the commissioner of patents suggested the government buy it to house the national collections currently in the increasingly crowded Patent Office Building.⁸⁸ Henry predicted in the latter case that "if this proposition can be carried into effect, we shall be able to do twice as much as we are now doing for science."⁸⁹

But nothing came of these proposals, and Henry was stuck with the building and its many problems. On February 26, 1850, just after the completion of a lecture by Louis Agassiz, a section of the interior of the main portion of the building collapsed, nearly trapping Jewett and his wife. An investigation followed that offered no conclusions about the specific cause of the collapse but focused instead on the general quality of the construction. The committee of regents charged with the investigation concluded that a trade-off had taken place. In order to afford the elaborate exterior of the Smithsonian Building, the interior had been short-changed. In Henry's words: "The great error consisted in adopting a style of architecture so highly ornamental in attempting to finish the interior in so cheap a manner."⁹⁰ To finish the interior properly, including fireproofing and structural improvements, would cost an additional $44,000.

The day the committee made its report to the full Board of Regents, Henry wrote in his diary: "Thus the difficulty with regard to the building after having occcupied the attention of myself for months and produced much unpleasant feeling has at length been satisfactorily settled."⁹¹ He was too optimistic. There followed almost two years of wrangling with architect James Renwick, Jr., and three with contractor Gilbert Cameron. After consultations with attorneys, the regents refused to renew their five-year contract with Renwick in 1852, but decided a year later to allow Cameron to continue on the project.

Although the exterior of the main building was completed in 1851, nothing was done about the interior while the controversies with Renwick and Cameron remained unresolved. In 1852, Lieutenant Barton S. Alexander, a member of the Army Corps of Engineers and a protégé of regent Joseph G. Totten, was asked to draw up plans for finishing the interior of the main part of the Smithsonian Building. If his plans were satisfactory, Alexander was to be given responsibility for overseeing the work. He was already superintending construction of the Soldiers' Home in Washington, a fact that the building committee looked upon favorably: "As he is an officer of the army, on duty in this city, he will be enabled to give daily attention to the work at a comparatively small expense."⁹² Alexander was selected and work commenced on the interior in June 1853, after a hiatus of over three years.

Henry was also concerned with the grounds surrounding the building.

I have been impressed since my connection with the Smithsonian Institution with the importance of improving the public grounds on which the Smithsonian is placed in accordance with a general plan, and I have taken every opportunity of expatiating on the capacity of the mall to be made one of the most beautiful drives in the world.⁹³

Now such an opportunity arose. With the support of William W. Corcoran, one of the city's leading bankers, Henry seized upon a congressional appropriation to improve the grounds around the White House to remake the landscape of Washington. Henry, Corcoran, Mayor Lenox, and Commissioner of Public Buildings Ignatius Mudd asked Andrew Jackson Downing, the leading landscape gardener in the United States, to draw up a general plan of improvements for the Mall.

Although it was Mayor Lenox who initially suggested Downing, Henry quickly became one of his leading supporters. He personally lobbied President Millard Fillmore on his behalf, expressing his belief in

the importance of this improvement to the welfare of the city, and the conviction that it will be a measure which will receive the approbation of all except those who may have some contrary views of a personal character.⁹⁴

To a senator, Henry proclaimed that if Downing "has full power he will make Washington one of the most beautiful cities of this continent."⁹⁵ When trouble arose between Downing and William Easby, Commissioner Mudd's successor, Henry intervened. Downing's death in a steamboat accident in August 1852, with only the "Smithsonian Pleasure Grounds" portion of his plan completed, was a great loss to Henry.

Henry's involvement in the improvement of the Mall highlights one of the ironies of his secretaryship. Although he was not enthusiastic about the aspects of the Smithsonian's program that were primarily local in impact (lectures, the library, a museum), the Smithsonian under Henry was a major force in the local intellectual environment--and not merely because of those program elements. Henry freely offered the Smithsonian as a meeting place for local cultural organizations and sometimes became involved in their activities. The Columbian Association of Teachers, for example, was organized at the Smithsonian in December 1849 at Henry's suggestion and usually held its meetings there on Saturday afternoons. Henry served as its first president until the fall of 1854. Henry also served as the first president of the Metropolitan Mechanics' Institute (1852-1856), which also met at the Smithsonian and used its lecture hall, library, and apparatus. For better or for worse, the Smithsonian was an integral part of Washington the city.

The Smithsonian had always been part of Washington the national capital. Federal officials consulted Henry, as secretary of the Smithsonian, for advice on science-related appointments and activities. Henry, in turn, took advantage of his position to try to increase the amount of science sponsored by the federal government. His influence was undoubtedly enhanced in 1850 by the accession to the presidency of Millard Fillmore, chancellor of the Smithsonian, a fellow New Yorker, and a good friend of Henry's friend Dorothea Dix. The scientific community recognized Henry's growing impact. As Asa Gray wrote him in 1852, "The position of your institution as scientific adviser to the Government is becoming assured, and will be productive of excellent results."⁹⁶

Henry exercised his influence carefully. To insulate himself from the effects of changes in administration whenever a party lost the presidency, he was deliberately nonpartisan and circumspect in expressing his political opinions. As he wrote to E. G. Squier, "I do not wish to be mixed up in political matters and must be careful what I repeat of political conversation."⁹⁷ He was silent, at least in the letters which have survived, on slavery, the burning political issue of the day which was to dominate political discourse throughout the 1850s. Remarkable for its singularity was Henry's observation on the death of President Zachary Taylor and the possibility of the passage of the legislation that would become known as the Compromise of 1850:

The condition of affairs is one of a very critical nature the event has been so sudden and unexpected that conjectures as to the future have not been formed the only opinion I have heard several times expressed is that the Compromise bill will now pass and that had Gen Taylor lived a week longer the admission of Californ would have taken place without being coupled with any other provisions.⁹⁸

Even in this instance, Henry restricted himself to passing along the opinion of others rather than offering his own.

In addition to keeping his political opinions to himself, Henry protected his influence by rationing his use of it. As he informed a former student, "I am so much applied to for recommendations for positions under government that . . . were I to give one in every ten of those requested I would be bankrupt in conscience and influence."⁹⁹ Henry's approach succeeded. He received assurance from the secretary of the interior, in one instance, that "if the request was . . . backed by myself that would be sufficient!"¹⁰⁰ In one area, Henry refrained from using his influence. Although he noted in his diary that it was rumored the Patent Office consulted him "on special occasions" and that patentees were therefore "anxious to secure my good opinion,"¹⁰¹ he officially refused to examine or endorse "the innumerable inventions by which the ingenious and enterprising seek to better their own condition and that of the public."¹⁰²

Henry's successes owed much to his being attuned to the ways of Washington. Whether he dealt with Congress, the executive branch, or the military, he recognized, even when his fellow scientists did not, that to get things done there were procedures that had to be followed and egos that had to be massaged. When Captain Charles Wilkes and Asa Gray clashed over the use of Latin in Gray's publication on the botany of the Wilkes Expedition, Henry stepped in as a mediator. Gray did not want to translate Latin descriptions into English, but Wilkes refused to pay Gray unless he did. Unfortunately for the Gray-Wilkes relationship, Gray had corresponded directly with the congressional Joint Committee on the Library, which had ultimate oversight of the Wilkes Expedition publications. Although there were issues of substance at stake, including that of the freedom of a scientist to control his publications, Henry felt that if he could soothe Wilkes's feelings over Gray's breach of protocol, Wilkes would ultimately yield over the issues of substance. As Henry reported to Bache:

I have been endeavouring to settle the difficulty between Wilkes and Prof Gray. The latter made a false step in not sending his accounts to the former who is the authorized agent of the Library Committee--Informed the Prof. of this who immediately made the proper acknowledgement which though the Capt declared it was a matter of no consequence will I think go far towards an adjustment of the difficulty.¹⁰³

Which it did.

Henry found out how difficult it could be to elicit federal support for science and technology when he became involved in organizing the first world's fair. The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, usually known as the Crystal Palace Exhibition, was held in London in 1851. Henry served on an organizing committee of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, which had been chosen by the State Department to oversee American participation. The benefits to the United States were obvious to him.

By means of this exhibition not only will our reputation be enhanced and our national credit increased--objects of greater importance at this time than perhaps ever before--but we shall be able to derive much valuable information from the various devices and products which will be exhibited.¹⁰⁴

America's reputation was indeed enhanced as European attitudes toward the American exhibits gradually changed from open ridicule at the utilitarian plainness of the objects and the meagerness of the display to awe at American technological accomplishments.

Government support for the American effort, however, was minimal. As Henry complained to Asa Gray,

after much trouble the Executive Department of the Government, was induced to grant the use of a ship to convey the goods to England but declared its inability to appropriate a single dollar towards employing an agent to attend to the business abroad.¹⁰⁵

In the end, Henry personally provided some of the travel funds for the American commissioner. Looking back a decade later, Henry reflected that "the whole affair turned out as far as management was concerned, anything but creditable to the country."¹⁰⁶ When two years later New York City hosted the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, better known as the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, Henry restricted his involvement to some judging.

Despite the Smithsonian's status as an advisor to the government on scientific matters, Henry was determined to have no federal involvement in the Smithsonian beyond the government's general trust obligations and provisions in the act of establishment relative to the appointment of regents and the constitution of "the establishment." The proper policy, according to him, was to "ask nothing from Congress."¹⁰⁷ This meant not assuming responsibility for the collections of the Wilkes Expedition, as their care would have required congressionally-appropriated funds,¹⁰⁸ and not using Smithsonian funds to care for the federally-owned collections of the United States Naval Expedition to the North Pacific until the expedition returned. As Henry wrote late in 1853, "I do not think however that it would be well to mix up the affairs of the Institution with those of the government. They should through all time be kept separate and the former be preserved from political influence."¹⁰⁹

At the conclusion of his paper on the "Analysis of the Dynamic Phenomena of the Leyden Jar," presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in August 1850, Henry complained, according to an account of his remarks, that since he had become secretary of the Smithsonian,

he had been obliged to withdraw himself entirely from scientific research, but that he hoped that now the institution had got under way, and the Regents had allowed him some able assistants, that he would be allowed, in part, at least, to return to his first love--the investigation of the phenomena of nature.¹¹⁰

He reiterated that hope in a letter to Bache a year later: "If my life be spared I intend to take an active part in the section [of the AAAS] and if possible reestablish myself as a working man."¹¹¹

Henry's hopes were partially realized. He did persevere as a researcher and managed to keep up with the scientific literature. As a scientist, however, Henry continued the reorientation of his research from basic to applied that had begun when he became secretary. His responsibilities as a member of various ad hoc advisory commissions and the United States Light-House Board took precedence over disinterested research. In August 1851, after an absence of four years, Henry found time to return to the laboratory for a sustained series of experiments on cohesion. But aside from this two-week burst of energy, Henry recorded only eight "Record of Experiments" entries between October 1847 and July 1855.

With the exception of the above-mentioned paper on Leyden jars, which was based on work Henry had done years earlier, he published only two scientific papers during the four years of this volume, both in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The first, "On the Limit of Perceptibility of a Direct and Reflected Sound,"¹¹² stemmed from his work on the design of the lecture hall of the Smithsonian Building. The second, "On the Theory of the So-Called Imponderables,"¹¹³ was both a reaffirmation of Henry's belief in the unity of the imponderables--light, heat, electricity, and magnetism--and a statement of Henry's philosophy of science. In the paper, Henry defended the introduction of the hypothesis of an all-pervading ether into the discussion of the laws governing the imponderables. He argued that "it is not necessary that an hypothesis be absolutely true in order that it may be adopted as an expression for a generalization for the purpose of explaining and predicting new phenomena."¹¹⁴

Membership on advisory commissions pushed Henry's experimental work toward applied science. In 1851 Secretary of the Interior Alexander H. H. Stuart appointed Henry, along with Joseph Totten, Commissioner of Patents Thomas Ewbank, Downing, and Thomas U. Walter, the architect of the extension of the Capitol, to a commission "to ascertain and test, by scientific means, the relative quality of the samples of stones furnished by the bidders for the marble work for the extension of the Capitol."¹¹⁵ In the summer of 1852, Acting Secretary of the Treasury William L. Hodge appointed Henry, Bache, and Charles G. Page as members of a commission to examine the calcium lamp of Robert Grant for use in lighthouses. In 1853, in response to a request from Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, Henry and Bache reviewed the plans of Montgomery C. Meigs for the acoustics, heating, and ventilation of the new chamber of the House of Representatives.¹¹⁶

In addition to these ad hoc commissions, in 1852 Henry was appointed to a position of responsibility which he retained for the rest of his life. In the fall of that year, President Fillmore appointed Henry as one of six members of the newly constituted United States Light-House Board. Henry was chairman of the committee on experiments until his death nearly twenty-six years later; from 1871 to 1878 he was also chairman of the board.¹¹⁷

The Light-House Board oversaw a government activity that spanned the country and had an annual appropriation in 1852 of $500,000, or sixteen times the income from the Smithson bequest. Henry took his responsibilities very seriously, spending according to one estimate from six weeks to two months each year working full-time for the board during his vacations from the Smithsonian, in addition to attending board meetings throughout the year.¹¹⁸ Under his leadership the board undertook both basic and applied research in optics, thermodynamics, and acoustics. Henry is generally credited with helping to professionalize the board and with introducing numerous improvements in methods of illumination and signalling.¹¹⁹

As the nation's leading physicist, Henry occasionally spoke out publicly against fraudulent claims which captured the public's imagination. Although he found Henry M. Paine, who claimed to have discovered a method of generating gas from water, "the most plausable humbugs,"¹²⁰ he made it known that the claim violated the laws of physics. He was also disturbed by the public's uncritical acceptance of spiritualists and table-rappers. He was particularly distressed by the gullibility of some scientists and other well-educated and influential men. Diagnosing a "mental epidemic" among the public, Henry described himself as "doomed to perpetual skepticism."¹²¹

Henry realized he could not stop the frauds and the charlatans by himself. He took the opportunity of his presidential address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science on August 22, 1850, to call upon the group "to protect its members and the cause of truth against the attacks of the prejudiced and the encroachments of the pretender and the knave."¹²² Henry defined six different forms of fraud or deception: "hoaxing," "forging," "trimming," "cooking," "humbugging," and "quackery," extending the categories first developed by Charles Babbage.¹²³ He called on the AAAS to "adopt the strictest code of scientific ethics and frown upon all who would in the least degree depart from it."¹²⁴ In response, Henry was selected to be a one-man subcommittee to devise a code of ethics. There is no evidence, however, that he ever translated his charge to the American scientific community into a practical code of conduct.

Shortly after the confrontation with Senator Douglas in June 1852, Henry placed in motion a series of events which in the end confirmed his position as the leader and policy-setter of the Smithsonian. He began a campaign to end the fundamental compromise that governed the distribution of funds among the Smithsonian's various programs.

In January 1847, the regents had agreed to divide the annual income of the Smithsonian in half upon the completion of the building: one half for Henry's program of "active operations," including publications, research support, and the meteorological network; the other for the collection-based activities--the library, museum, and art gallery.¹²⁵ But in the Smithsonian's annual report for 1851,¹²⁶ written in August 1852,¹²⁷ Henry raised the possibility of abrogating this compromise and subordinating the library and museum to the active operations.

At the regents' meeting of March 12, 1853, Henry deliberately provoked a crisis by arguing the necessity of revising the equal division of income between the "active operations" and the collections. Reporting to his friends, his language was pointed and uncompromising: "I am now resolved that nothing shall stand in the way of the publications; Libraries and museums must be collected and supported by other means particularly by those of the General Government."¹²⁸ And again:

In the development of the plan it has become evident that the support of a large library and an extensive museum is incompatible with the limited income of the institution and that these objects must be provided for by other means.¹²⁹

This issue was, in the next two years, to become the ultimate test of his power as secretary and of his ability to carry out his vision.