James Smithson Research Paper

The nation’s capital is one of the most fascinating cities in America. Among the various national monuments and government buildings, the National Mall is the hub of the capital’s tourism industry. The National Mall consists of several memorials, museums and libraries. This extensive collection of buildings and centers belong to a prestigious establishment known as The Smithsonian Institution. This institution premiered as a mere tribute to James Smithson’s contribution to the educational world, and is now a renowned institution of nineteen museums and over five research centers dedicated to exposing America’s prized history.
James Smithson was an English scientist who was born in 1765. He was the illegitimate son of an English duke and a common English woman. His father refused him his last name and so he was born James-Louis Macie. It was not until he graduated from Pembroke that he changed his surname to Smithson. Early in his career, he established a title as a prominent amateur chemist and physician (“Smithsonian Institution”). During his educational journey he studied many unorthodox theories and once captured a stranger’s tear for his study on chemical compounds. Smithson had no children and therefore, no successors at the time of his death. In 1826, James Smithson wrote his last will and testament.
In 1903, the institution built a crypt and had Smithson’s remains installed. The remains serve as one of today’s most popular exhibits in The Castle (“Smithsonian History”). Along with The Castle, there are 19 other museums and several other buildings in relation to The Smithsonian Institution. By the end of the 21st century, over 1.3 million artifacts compiled to create the Institution’s vast collections (“Smithsonian Institution”). There is no written rubric to getting an artifact into the Institution, but there is an extensive process to an artifact getting