Heather Ewing, the author of The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian, was the featured USC Libraries Literary Luncheon speaker on March 12. In this clip, recorded in the Hancock Memorial Museum at USC, she describes the U.S. government's response to a mysterious gift from a reclusive English scientist who'd never visited America.
Upon his death in 1829, Smithson left his fortune of $500,000 to the U.S. government in order to found an institution "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge." According to Ewing, the sum was equivalent to 1/66 of the federal budget. By that measure, Smithson's gift would be equivalent to $4.7 billion, since this year's federal budget is $3.1 trillion.
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