The Smithsonian Institution, or simply, the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trust instrumentality and is not formally a part of any of the three branches of the federal government. The institution is named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. It was originally organized as the United States National Museum, but that name ceased to exist administratively in 1967.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia, also known as just Washington or just D.C., is the capital city of the United States. It is located on the east bank of the Potomac River which forms its southwestern and southern border with the U.S. state of Virginia, and shares a land border with the U.S. state of Maryland on its remaining sides. The city was named for George Washington, the first president of the United States and a Founding Father, and the federal district is named after Columbia, a female personification of the nation. As the seat of the U.S. federal government and several international organizations, the city is an important world political capital. It is one of the most visited cities in the U.S., seeing over 20 million visitors in 2016.
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers.
The Anacostia Community Museum is a community museum in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in the United States. It is one of twenty museums under the umbrella of the Smithsonian Institution and was the first federally funded community museum in the United States. The museum, founded in 1967, was created with the intention to bring aspects of the Smithsonian museums, located on the National Mall, to the Anacostia neighborhood, with the hope that community members from the neighborhood would visit the main Smithsonian museums. It became federally funded in 1970 and focuses on the community in and around Anacostia in its exhibitions. This museum also houses a library.
Anacostia is a historic neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Its downtown is located at the intersection of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. It is located east of the Anacostia River, after which the neighborhood is named. Like the other quadrants of Washington, D.C., Southeast encompasses many named neighborhoods, of which Anacostia is the most well known. Anacostia includes all of the Anacostia Historic District that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Often the name Anacostia is incorrectly used to refer to the entire portion of the city that is southeast of the Anacostia River. The Anacostia Business Improvement District is responsible for the development of the area.
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2016, with 7.1 million visitors, it was the eleventh most visited museum in the world and the most visited natural history museum in the world. Opened in 1910, the museum on the National Mall was one of the first Smithsonian buildings constructed exclusively to hold the national collections and research facilities. The main building has an overall area of 1.5 million square feet (140,000 m2) with 325,000 square feet (30,200 m2) of exhibition and public space and houses over 1,000 employees.
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum located in the Upper East Side's Museum Mile in Manhattan, New York City. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Institution and is one of three Smithsonian facilities located in New York City, the other two being the George Gustav Heye Center in Bowling Green and the Archives of American Art New York Research Center in the Flatiron District. It is the only museum in the United States devoted to historical and contemporary design. Its collections and exhibitions explore approximately 240 years of design aesthetic and creativity.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is a Smithsonian Institution museum located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was established in December 2003 and opened its permanent home in September 2016 with a ceremony led by President Barack Obama.
Richard Kurin, an American cultural anthropologist, museum official and author, is the Acting Provost and Under Secretary for Museums and Research at the Smithsonian Institution. He is a key member of the senior team managing the world's largest museum and research complex with 6,500 employees and a $1.4 billion annual budget, caring for more than 139 million specimens, artifacts and artworks, working in 145 countries around the globe, hosting some 30 million visitors a year, and reaching hundreds of millions online and through the Smithsonian's educational programs and media outreach. Kurin is particularly responsible for all of the national museums, scholarly and scientific research centers, and programs spanning science, history, art and culture.
The Banneker-Douglass Museum, formerly known as Mt. Moriah African Methodist Episcopal Church, is a historic church at Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, Maryland. It was constructed in 1875 and remodeled in 1896. It is a 2+1⁄2-story, gable-front brick church executed in the Gothic Revival style. It served as the meeting hall for the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, originally formed in the 1790s, for nearly 100 years. It was leased to the Maryland Commission on African-American History and Culture, becoming the state's official museum for African-American history and culture. In 1984, a 2+1⁄2-story addition was added when the building opened as the Banneker-Douglass Museum.
Smithsonian Libraries (SIL), formerly known as Smithsonian Institution Libraries, is a library system comprising 20 branch libraries serving the various Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers, as well as central support services which include a Book Conservation Laboratory and an Imaging Center. The Libraries serve Smithsonian Institution staff as well as the scholarly community and general public with information and reference support. Its collections number over 1.5 million volumes including 40,000 rare books and 2,000 manuscripts. The Libraries also holds the United States' largest trade literature collection, which includes over 300,000 commercial catalogs dating from the early nineteenth century and representing more than 30,000 companies.
Uncle Beazley is a life-size fiberglass statue of a triceratops by Louis Paul Jonas. It is located near Lemur Island in the National Zoological Park in Northwest Washington, D.C.
John Robert Edward Kinard was an American social activist, pastor, and museum director. He is best known as the director of the Anacostia Museum, a small community museum founded by the Smithsonian Institution in 1967. Kinard was the museum's first director, and remained in the post until his death. The Washington Post said Kinard was "a passionate believer in the idea that the well-being of black people depends on having a record of their past". Noted British archeologist and museologist Sir Kenneth Hudson said Kinard "developed the Anacostia Museum into one of the small number of museums of influence in the world."
Louise Daniel Hutchinson was an American historian. She was the former Director of the Research at the Anacostia Community Museum. Growing up in Washington, D.C., Hutchinson was exposed to the Civil Rights Movement and the importance of community. Hutchinson worked closely with the African American community of Washington, D.C. and staff at the Smithsonian Institution to help build the Anacostia Community Museum. She was a historian of the Anacostia community.
Portia James was an American curator and historian. A specialist in African-American material culture, she worked as the cultural resources manager of the Anacostia Community Museum.
The Smithsonian Gardens, a division of the Smithsonian Institution, is responsible for the "landscapes, interiorscapes, and horticulture-related collections and exhibits", which serve as an outdoor extension of the Smithsonian's museums and learning spaces in Washington, D.C. Established in 1972 as a groundskeeping and horticulture program, Smithsonian Gardens currently manages 180 acres of gardens on the National Mall, 64,000 square feet of greenhouse production space, and the Archives of American Gardens, a research collection of over 60,000 photographs and archival records covering American landscape history from the 1870s to the present.
Michael Atwood Mason is an American folklorist and museum professional. He currently serves as CEO and Executive Director of President Lincoln's Cottage and was, up to February 2021, the Director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Smithsonian Affiliations is a division of the Smithsonian Institution that establishes long-term partnerships with non-Smithsonian museums and educational and cultural organizations, in order to share collections, exhibitions and educational strategies and conduct joint research.
Zora Martin-Felton is an American museum director and curator. She established the education department at the Anacostia Community Museum, which is a museum in the Smithsonian Institution, and worked as the Education Director there. From the 1960s until the 1990s she was the Assistant Director of that museum.
