Download a high resolution photo of Lawrence Small.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Lawrence Small will discuss his vision for the
Smithsonian Institution during a lecture titled “A 21st Century
Smithsonian” April 5 at Vanderbilt.
Small, who was installed as secretary of the Smithsonian in 2000, will
speak at 6 p.m. in Ingram Hall on the Vanderbilt campus. A reception
will precede his lecture at 5 p.m. The event is free and open to the
public and is sponsored by the Chancellor‘s Lecture Series.
As secretary of the Smithsonian, Small leads the world‘s largest museum
and research complex, which includes 18 museums and galleries,
including the National Zoo, and nine research centers.
The Smithsonian Institution is the legacy of James Smithson, a wealthy
English chemist and mineralogist who traveled extensively in Europe in
his lifetime but never came to the United States. When Smithson penned
his will in 1826, he left the bulk of his estate to his nephew, Henry
James Hungerford, and any heirs Hungerford might have. The final
sentence of the will, however, provided that if his nephew died without
heirs, the remains of the estate should be turned over to the United
States “to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian
Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of
knowledge among men.”
When Hungerford died childless in 1835, John Quincy Adams, then a
member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts, resolved
that Smithson‘s wishes would be fulfilled. The Smithsonian Institution
was created by an act of Congress in 1846 with more than $500,000 in
gold sovereigns from Smithson‘s estate, a fortune at the time.
On being named to head the Smithsonian system, Small pledged to lead an
“energetic re-imagination and renewal” of the institution‘s traditions.
During Small‘s tenure as secretary, the Smithsonian has opened the
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia, a
companion facility to the National Air and Space Museum on the National
Mall. Opened in December 2003, the center ultimately will house 400
aircraft and space artifacts, including a Concorde, the Enola Gay, the
Lockheed SR71 and the space shuttle Enterprise.
In September 2004, the Smithsonian opened the National Museum of the
American Indian on the National Mall, the only museum dedicated
exclusively to native cultures.
Small has been committed to renovating and modernizing the
Smithsonian‘s aging buildings. A massive renovation of the Patent
Office Building, the Smithsonian‘s oldest, will be complete in July
2006 when it reopens as the home to the Smithsonian American Art Museum
and the National Portrait Gallery.
Because the Smithsonian is free, it is difficult to gauge the exact
number of visitors to its museums in Washington, D.C., and New York, to
the National Zoo and to the institution‘s many traveling exhibits each
year. However, it is estimated that around 20.4 million people visited
the Smithsonian Institution in 2004.
Small‘s lecture is the final this academic year in the ongoing
Chancellor‘s Lecture Series at Vanderbilt. The series will resume in
the fall. The Chancellor‘s Lecture Series serves to bring to the
university and the wider Nashville community those intellectuals who
are shaping the world today. For more information about the series,
visit www.vanderbilt.edu/chancellor/cls.
Media contact: Kara Furlong, (615) 322-2706
kara.c.furlong@vanderbilt.edu