State funding for the Bishop Museum - Legislative Reference Bureau

BACKGROUND
The Srnithson~an also has research facilities located in 9 states and the
Republic of Panama, including the:
(I) Archives of American Art;
(2) Conservation and Research Center of the National Zoo;
(3) Smithsonian Environmental Research Center:
(4) Smithsonian lnstitution Marine Station at Link Port;
15) Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; and
(6) Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
History. The Smithsonian was created by an Act of Congress in 1846 to
carry out the terms of the will of British scholar and scientist James
Smithson. Smithson, who had never visited the United States, left the bulk
of his estate to his nephew and any heirs the nephew might have, providing
that if his nephew died childless, the money should go 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."'*
His nephew died in 1835 without children, and Smithson's fortune,
equivalent to more than $500,000, was brought to America in 1838.
Receipt of the bequest set off a long debate in Congress over whether
the nation could iegally accept the funds and the accompanying trust and
what a "Smithsonian Institution" should be. Various groups in Congress
proposed that the Smithsonian should be a national university, an agricultural
school, a normal school, a school for the blind, a national library, a botanical
garden, a national observatory, a chemical laboratory, a popular publishing
house, or a national museum of arts and sciences. The two most influential