The First Battle Over The Smithsonian (1846) [Archive Favorite]

This Day

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Trump administration has ramped up its attacks on museums and The Smithsonian. We're recoding a special reaction episode that will appear in our newsletter - sign up now to get it. In the meantime, here's an episode from the archives on the founding of the institution.

It’s August 15th. This day (actually Aug 10th) in 1846, President Polk signed into law a bill establishing the Smithsonian Institution, after almost a decade of squabbling about how the United States would use the money donated to it by Englishman James Smithson.

Jody, NIki, and Kellie discuss the various ways in which the Smithsonian money could have been spent, why it was used the way it was — and whether the currrent institution honors Smithson’s original vision.

Don't forget to sign up for our America250 Watch newsletter, where you'll also get links and lots more historical tidbits.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day, a history show from Radiotopia. Jodi Avergan here, and as you may know, we are in the middle of our usual late summer break, running some of our favorite episodes from the archives.
0:15.2	But I am popping in here with a special intro with a note to say that as it happens, we were thinking about
0:21.8	rerunning our episode about the founding of the Smithsonian this week. And as you most likely know,
0:27.5	President Trump has really ramped up his attacks on that institution. There are plans to do a
0:33.2	full review of museums to make sure that they are in line with this administration's view of American
0:38.4	history. We talked about that view of American history a bit ago in our special about the whole
0:42.8	America 250 kickoff. That was back in July, so go and track down that episode if you haven't heard it.
0:48.7	And then this latest development, as you have likely seen, Trump specifically talked about the
0:53.2	Smithsonian and specifically talked about the Smithsonian and specifically talked about
0:55.6	the portrayal of slavery as being in his eyes too negative. So lots to say about that. And that is our
1:03.9	plan. We are going to run this episode, which you'll hear in a minute, but then we are also popping
1:08.8	away from our late summer vacation to record a special
1:12.0	reaction episode, an emergency podcast, if you will, about these latest developments. This is your
1:17.9	chance to hear Nikki and Kelly, two actual historians talking about this latest attack on history,
1:23.9	and we're going to post that as soon as it's done in the newsletter for our subscribers.
1:28.5	So we're trying to make the newsletter the home for this kind of analysis, our look at America
1:32.9	250, and how the work of history is playing out right here in 2025. So if you want to hear our
1:38.8	thoughts, if you want to get that episode, and if you want to support our efforts, go subscribe to
1:43.7	the newsletter right now,
1:45.4	thisdaypod.com. All right. Does that make sense? That sounds like a plan? Thisdaypod.com,
1:51.0	subscribe to the newsletter, America 250 Watch, our special episode on the latest Smithsonian news.
1:57.1	Do that. And in the meantime, here is our episode about the founding of the Smithsonian recorded last year.
	...

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