A bequest and an act of Congress
The British scientist James Smithson's 1826 will named his nephew as beneficiary, with a condition: if the nephew died without heirs, the estate would pass to the United States to create a Washington institution bearing Smithson's name and supporting knowledge. Smithson died in 1829; his nephew died without heirs in 1835, activating the provision.
Congress accepted the bequest in 1836. The funds arrived in 1838 and amounted to more than half a million dollars after conversion. Debate over their use continued until President James K. Polk signed the establishing act on August 10, 1846. A Board of Regents and a secretary would administer the resulting institution.
Henry's organization of research and publication
The first secretary, Joseph Henry, prioritized original inquiry. His organization plan, adopted in 1847, distinguished producing new knowledge from distributing it. It proposed research funding, memoirs and periodic reports, with scholarly examination before publication. Suggested projects ranged from weather observations and geological surveys to experimental measurement and historical research.
Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge provided a publication channel. Exchanges with learned societies circulated results and brought journals and proceedings into the institution. Henry and librarian Charles Coffin Jewett disputed the appropriate scale and cost of the library, exposing practical choices among research, collections and buildings within a limited endowment.
Collections and distributed libraries
In 1866 roughly 40,000 volumes were transferred to the Library of Congress as the Smithsonian Deposit, with ownership retained and additions supplied through international exchanges. After the new U.S. National Museum building opened in 1881, Spencer Fullerton Baird helped establish a museum library using his own books, placing reference materials close to specimens and artifacts.
As work in astronomy, natural history and art expanded, collections accumulated across departments and sites. Library director Russell Shank, appointed in 1968, pursued common cataloguing, acquisitions policies and support services. The institution's research and public communication consequently depended on coordinated books, objects, facilities and displays.
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