A SMITHSONIAN FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

LAWRENCE M. SMALL

The nation's treasure keeper is retooling, renovating, and renewing its promise to Americans

If the Smithsonian Institution did not exist, who’d be so bold as to invent it? Of course, the Institution began in the mid-19th century as something much simpler than it is today—merely a good idea in need of practical realization. Over a century and a half, the idea manifested itself in an entire landscape of museums and research institutes and public educational programs. It is a great, sprawling, disparate enterprise, at first glance all electrons and no nucleus. But there is indeed a steady center to the far-flung components, and one of the goals is to make that center more apparent in the years ahead: to shape coherent activity for the Smithsonian as a whole, and to give the Institution a visible identity as powerful as its name.

I’ve been the secretary of the Smithsonian only since January of this year, but already have learned what an impressive draw the name “Smithsonian” is. The name resonates with Americans as few others do, and the sentiments stirred by it are honestly earned. The Smithsonian is one of the major attractions for Americans when they visit their nation’s capital. Over 90 percent of the Smithsonian’s visitors come from the United States. Americans consider the Smithsonian a distinctly national treasure that itself is filled with the nation’s treasures.

The 141 million objects housed in the Smithsonian are overwhelming evidence of Americans’ endless curiosity about the world and about themselves. The Smithsonian is home to the nation’s most extensive collection of biological specimens; an incredible array of gems, meteors, moon rocks, and, of course, the Hope diamond; the Star-Spangled Banner; Morse’s telegraph and Edison’s light bulb; President Lincoln’s hat and Dorothy’s red shoes; an electric streetcar and several locomotives; 5,000 musical instruments; the first Apple computer; the Wright brothers’ plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, and the backups for the Apollo 11 lunar module; portraits of every president; the First Ladies’ inaugural gowns; and the nation’s largest collection of American art. Even the sketchiest of inventories could fill many pages, and make for fascinating reading.

The Institution was established 154 years ago, in 1846, thanks to an odd private bequest to the United States from an English scientist named James Smithson, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Northumberland. Smithson’s wealth was inherited from his mother and, to this day, it is not clear why he left it to America, which he had never visited. The most idealistic explanation is that he may have seen in the vigorous young nation a glorious future for scientific inquiry.

When the bequest reached this country and was converted to American currency, it totaled $508,318.46, a great sum at the time. Smithson left no instruction as to how the money was to be spent, other than that he wanted his fortune to go toward creating “at Washington, under the name the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” The Smithsonian simply made itself up as the years went by, under the leadership of its changing Board of Regents and its various secretaries, of whom there have been only 11 in 154 years.

The first secretary was Joseph Henry, a professor of natural philosophy, the physics of the day, at the College of New Jersey, which was later to become Princeton University. Henry wanted no national museum or library, but instead conceived of a Smithsonian that would be primarily a center for scientific research, a “college of discoverers.” He equipped the Smithsonian Castle with lecture halls, numerous laboratories, and a library—rare scientific research facilities at the time. He established processes for sharing scientific knowledge, within the United States and internationally, and he initiated publication of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, a series that continues today. Henry was reluctant to accept the role Congress designated for the Institution, i.e., to be steward of the nation’s collections of scientific and historical objects.

And yet, the very accumulation of natural specimens for scientific study at the Institution marked the begin-nings of the Smithsonian’s museum identity. Once there were collections, the collections seemed to war-rant display. So, eventually, between 1879 and 1881, the National Museum Building (now known as the Arts and Industries Building) went up beside the Smithsonian Castle. The seeds of the subsequent history of the Smithsonian were planted.

Until the 1960s, there were only four Smithsonian museum buildings on the National Mall: the Castle; Arts and Industries; Natural History, which opened in 1910; and the Freer Gallery, which opened in 1923. The great age of Smithsonian expansion began in the 1960s, with the construction of the Museum of History and Technology, now the National Museum of American History. Developments over the next several decades gave the Smithsonian its current complement of 14 museums in Washington and 2 in New York City.

Most Americans think of the Smithsonian today principally as a group of museums. Many don’t know that the National Zoo is part of the Smithsonian, or that the Institution sponsors diverse education and outreach pro-grams all over the United States. And, yet, the unit of the Smithsonian with the largest budget this year is not any one Americans might be tempted to name. It’s the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Among numerous research pursuits, the Observatory, under contract to NASA, is responsible for the development and operation of the advanced X-ray space satellite, Chandra, which was deployed in July 1999, and is providing stunning new views of the heavens.

Nor do many Americans know of the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute in Panama, which pioneered the world’s largest tropical rainforest research project. It uses a uniform data collection methodology to track nearly three million trees at 17 sites in 13 countries throughout the world.

So, the imprecisely defined Institution of 1846 is now a complex organization, with 400 buildings containing seven-and-a-half million square feet of physical space, the equivalent of 155 football fields. The Institution manages more than half a billion dollars in government appropriations a year, and hundreds of millions of dollars of additional funds raised from the private sector. It tallies over 35 million visits to its museums and traveling exhibits each year. Some 6,500 people are employed by the Smithsonian, which also relies on the remarkably generous service of 5,000 volunteers, without whom the Institution simply could not function.

REDEFINING THE SMITHSONIAN’S MANDATE

Like all complex organizations today, the Smithsonian Institution must have a clear sense what it is and what it’s trying to accomplish. The cornerstone of the Smithsonian’s two principal missions will be adapting James Smithson’s original mandate, “the increase and diffusion of knowledge,” to contemporary circumstances. It’s not that the old grand purpose is insufficient. Quite the opposite. It’s all-encompassing and needs the discipline of being reined in and given forceful direction.

The Smithsonian in the year 2000 has two overarching missions, two ways of realizing and reconceiving Smithson’s 19th-century mandate. The first mission is committed to expanding a shared understanding of the mosaic that is American national identity. This will be accomplished by making the Smithsonian the nation’s most extensive provider of experiences that connect the American people to their history and to their cultural and scientific heritage. Its second mission will be to advance the uniquely powerful contribution science has made to the development of the United States. This will require operating world-class centers in astrophysics, tropical research, and a select number of specialized fields in the earth and life sciences.

The Smithsonian has every reason to be in the van-guard of scientific research, for it has a long, proud tradition of achievement in basic research. For example, Smithsonian scientists did work that led to the establishment of the National Weather Service in 1869. They also produced measurements of Earth’s atmosphere in the 1890s that NASA refers to today to determine how the atmosphere has changed.

But scientific research has now become so boundless and expensive an undertaking that no institution, not even the greatest university, can attempt it all. Prudent institutions will choose the areas in which they can excel, and then establish clear priorities within them. The Smithsonian will focus on selected areas to which the Institution can make a strong and sustained commitment, and continue to produce world-class research.

Once the Smithsonian’s scientific mission is delineated, and resources directed to its centers of excellence, the Institution will make a much stronger effort to describe its scientific achievements to the public, not with a level of detail that’s accessible only by professionals, but in nontechnical language that tells the story plainly and conveys the significance and the value of what Institution scientists have accomplished. If Americans want to understand the origins of life on Earth, or unlock the secrets of the rain forests, or contemplate the future of the universe, they will have to take account of what’s going on at the Smithsonian.

AMERICA’S MUSEUM

The Smithsonian is committed, as well, to engaging with the public in countless other ways. No other institution has the power to involve Americans as fully in the experience of their history and their cultural and scien-tific heritage. All told, the Smithsonian connects well over 100 million times a year with members of the American public, through visits to its museums, travel-ing exhibits, and web site (which now gets 36 million visits a year), educational and outreach activities, and Smithsonian magazine, which is read by eight million people each month.

The statistics on public engagement are already impressive, but the goal now is to better them, in Washington and throughout the country. The first way to do that, of course, is to see to it that all the museum exhibits are of absolutely first-rate quality. The topics must be of compelling interest to the public and the exhibits mounted according to the highest standards of contemporary museum presentation. Those standards apply both to the new exhibits and to the many current permanent exhibits that should be completely reimagined and redone for today’s audiences.

The public will also have two entirely new museums, scheduled to open in 2003-2004, to draw them to the Smithsonian: the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, adjacent to Dulles Airport; and the National Museum of the American Indian, adjacent to the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall. The Museum of the American Indian will house the George Gustav Heye collection, the single greatest ethnographic collection ever assembled by one person (see next article). The Udvar-Hazy Center will be two-and-a-half football fields long and ten stories high, large enough for 185 aircraft and 117 space artifacts to be displayed.

In addition to building those two museums, the Smithsonian is renovating the Patent Office Building in downtown Washington, which houses the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of American Art. The initial plan was to renovate the building’s infrastructure and hidden systems (electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing, and such). But the Patent Office, on which construction began in 1836, is so grand and irreplaceable a structure that it calls out to be restored fully to its original splendor. It measures 274 feet from east to west, 402 feet from north to south, and was conceived as the third great public building in Washington, after the Capitol and the White House. Four years from now, it will be a great public building once again.

Outside Washington, DC, the goal is to make the Smithsonian an increasingly vivid and ubiquitous presence across the United States. Many Americans are already familiar with the Smithsonian, but others will encounter it for the first time. Because it may be difficult for new audiences to travel over great distances to visit us, the Smithsonian must go to them. And there is one way in particular to do that. Fewer than two percent of the 141 million objects in the Smithsonian’s keeping can be on display at any one time. So, the Institution will lend its objects to any museum in the United States that can responsibly receive and care for them, and that will benefit from having the Smithsonian as a partner. This “affiliations” program began in 1997, and the goal now is to bolster the effort, as well as the traveling exhibits and education programs, until the Institution develops a presence within every state.

CARING FOR THE CARETAKER

The overall goal is to have the Smithsonian become, more literally than ever, America’s museum. The public’s experience of the Smithsonian, through exhibits, publications, web sites, educational activities, restaurants, gift shops, and other means, should be at absolutely the highest levels of quality and satisfaction. But, in this goal, the Smithsonian is compromised. Many of the buildings are in poor physical condition, not worthy of the treasures they contain. Problems are hidden behind curtains and plastic sheets, but the reality is inescapable and cannot be concealed: the buildings simply have become too shabby, and the shabbiness is not acceptable.

The situation is urgent, and has been discussed before the Congressional subcommittee responsible for reviewing and approving the Smithsonian’s annual federal appropriation. Of particular concern are the landmark buildings on the Mall—Natural History, American History, Air and Space, the Arts and Industries Building, and the Smithsonian Castle itself. The buildings are worn with age, but also because they’re so popular. The Air and Space Museum and the Museum of Natural History are the two most visited museums in the world. The small branch of the Museum of the American Indian in New York City’s historic Custom House has only 15,000 square feet of exhibit space, and yet it draws 600,000 visitors a year.

The waves and waves of visitors take a toll, but, obviously, we don’t want their numbers reduced by so much as one. As noted earlier, some 90 percent of our visitors are American. The figures reflect a reality of great consequence: one of the key ways Americans encounter the varied strands that combine to make their national identity is through the Smithsonian.

So when visitors enter the buildings of the Smithsonian, they should swell with pride. It’s the same pride they should feel when they enter the Capitol, the Supreme Court, the National Archives, the Library of Congress, or any of the other public buildings and dedicated monuments that stand in Washington as the architectural and cultural symbols of the nation’s spirit, purpose, and achievement.

FINDING THE FUNDS

The physical premises of the Smithsonian should shine, and we’re committed to raising whatever amount of additional public and private funds is needed to make that happen. The start of this new century is the appropriate moment to give the museums new life, to restore these monuments, and to commit to maintain them permanently in their condition of reclaimed glory. It’s instructive to look at the sums currently appro-priated by the Congress for repairs and restoration at the Smithsonian. Take eight Smithsonian buildings— the Castle, the Arts and Industries Building, the Freer Gallery, the Hirshhorn, the Air and Space Museum, the American History Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the below-ground Quadrangle, in which are located the Sackler Gallery, the Museum of African Art, and the Ripley Center. For the past three years, the average annual amount available for repair and restoration from Congress, per square foot of space in those buildings, has been just under $2.00.

To a group of other treasured and irreplaceable buildings, including the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, the Capitol, and the House and Senate Office Buildings, over that same three-year period, Congress has made available an average of about $3.30 a square foot. The National Gallery of Art and the Kennedy Center, two independent affiliate institutions of the Smithsonian, also have had higher Congressional support: for the Gallery, a bit under $5.00 a square foot; and for the Kennedy Center about $11.00 a square foot.

The Smithsonian has asked for less, and Congress, meaning to be generous, has responded by giving the Smithsonian the less it said was enough. The funds needed now, by the way, are small amounts when placed in the context of the $1.8 trillion federal budget for the current fiscal year. We’re seeking from the Congress an additional $100 million a year in repair and restoration funds for each of the next five years. That amount, in conjunction with an equal amount of privately raised support, would fix the problem for a long, long time to come. In this period of immense and unparalleled public and private prosperity, the Smithsonian needs, and well deserves, some tender, loving care!

If this effort proves successful and the Smithsonian can provide appropriate homes for the vast record of democratic America it is charged with keeping, the results will be visible up and down a long stretch of the Mall. The monuments that bound the great avenue at each end, the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, look newly risen. The expanse between them will have magnificent buildings that belong in their company.

The Smithsonian buildings and the exhibits and programs within them (and dispersed across America), which present to the world the story of America and its people and the record of their encounters with the world, should be polished and perfect, as befits the high place of our nation. We pledge to be the architects of a Smithsonian that, for intellectual eloquence, emotional excitement, and quality of presentation, is second to no other cultural and educational enterprise in the world.

The Smithsonian Institution once had to pass from the 19th century into the 20th. It has now crossed another temporal boundary of great symbolic importance. We’re all still new to the 21st century, but the Institution is already finding its bearings. It’s kept steady by over 150 years of experience, and it’s kept adventurous by the spirit of curiosity and daring that has coursed through it ceaselessly from the beginning.

Lawrence M. Small (CC ‘00) is the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He served previously, for eight years, as president and chief operating officer of Fannie Mae and, for 27 years, in various executive capacities at Citicorp/Citibank, including vice chairman and chairman of the executive committee of the boards of directors..

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