The word “museum” means house of the muses and is a designation of places that inspire, inform, entertain and delight. The history of the most well known museum in the country, the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., is an example of how an entire country can inspire one man to leave a firm mark in history.

Born in 1765, James Smithson was the illegitimate son of the English Duke of Northumberland who graduated from the University of Oxford in 1786. He went on to become a noted scientist specializing in chemistry and mineralogy. He was a fellow of the Royal Society and when his mother passed away, Smithson became heir to a sizeable fortune. What he did with that British fortune would become a part of American history.

Smithson began by leaving his inheritance to his only nephew with the stipulation that if his nephew would pass away with no heirs of his own, his bequest would then be deferred in whole to the United States. He left his fortune to the people of America with a single stipulation: the money be used to start a museum called the Smithsonian.

“… to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.”

The naming of the museum was very important to Smithson, who, because of British social correctness was legally named James Macie due to the fact that his father would not officially recognize him as his son. For Smithson, using his father’s name in spite of cultural mores was an act of rebellion truly befitting a want to be American.

The sad yet strange note of Smithson’s legacy is the fact that he never had the opportunity to actually visit the land he viewed as the embodiment of the Enlightenment perspective. He passed away in Italy in 1829. His nephew died without heirs in 1835. In 1836, Congress accepted the bequest officially and in August of 1846, then President James Polk created the trustee board of the Smithsonian Institution.

The Smithsonian Institution remains the guardian and storehouse of American history. From the Spirit of St. Louis to the dresses of former first ladies, the museum is the collective memory of this country. And it all began because a British scientist gave the nation half a million dollars and hoped his dream would come true.

Sometimes we forget that for many people, America is a place of inspiration, the place where opportunities abound and dreams come true. For Smithson, America was a place where he could be who he truly felt he was, a believer in the power of education to inspire and spark understanding. Lucky for us, Smithson’s dream of a national museum came true.

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