The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America's Greatest Museum: The Smithsonian [Hardcover]

Nina Burleigh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2003

In her illuminating and dramatic biography The Stranger and the Statesman, Nina Burleigh reveals a little-known slice of social and intellectual history in the life and times of the man responsible for the creation of the United States' principal cultural institution, the Smithsonian.

It was one of the nineteenth century's greatest philanthropic gifts -- and one of its most puzzling mysteries. In 1829, a wealthy English naturalist named James Smithson left his library, mineral collection, and entire fortune to the "United States of America, to found ... an establishment for the increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men" -- even though he had never visited the United States or known any Americans. In this fascinating book, Burleigh pieces together the reclusive benefactor's life, beginning with his origins in the splendidly dissipated eighteenth-century aristocracy as the Paris-born bastard son of the first Duke of Northumberland and a wild adventuress who preserved for her son a fortune through gall and determination.

The book follows Smithson through his university years and his passionate study of minerals across the European continent during the chaos of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Detailed are his imprisonment -- simply for being an Englishman in the wrong place, his experiences in the gambling dens of France, and his lonely and painstaking scientific pursuits.

After Smithson's death, nineteenth-century American politicians were given the task of securing his half-million dollars -- the equivalent today of fifty million -- and then trying to determine how to increase and diffuse knowledge from the muddy, brawling new city of Washington. Burleigh discloses how Smithson's bequest was nearly lost due to fierce battles among many clashing Americans -- Southern slavers, state's rights advocates, nation-builders, corrupt frontiersmen, and Anglophobes who argued over whether a gift from an Englishman should even be accepted. She also reveals the efforts of the unsung heroes, mainly former president John Quincy Adams, whose tireless efforts finally saw Smithson's curious notion realized in 1846, with a castle housing the United States' first and greatest cultural and scientific establishment.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist Burleigh (A Very Private Woman) examines the mysterious life of James Smithson, the Englishman who left a $500,000 bequest that led to the founding of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithson, born in 1765, was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Northumberland, and Burleigh meticulously examines the legal and cultural restrictions placed on illegitimate sons in England. His mother was wealthy enough to put him through Oxford, where he studied geology, and in 1787, he became the youngest member of the prestigious Royal Society. He was fortunate in his choice of scientific mentors, too, having studied with intellectual giants such as James Hutton and Henry Cavendish. But Smithson, though a serious scientist, was a "not terribly original or brilliant" one, stresses Burleigh. After years of traveling across Europe, he died in 1829, leaving his estate to his nephew and orders that, if the nephew died without heirs (as he did), his estate would go to the United States (for reasons still unknown, as Smithson had no connection to America) for the purpose of creating an institution in Washington for diffusing knowledge. Surprisingly, as Burleigh relates, there were those in Congress who wanted no part of Smithson's bequest. Southern leaders, like John Calhoun and Jefferson Davis, who aimed to protect slavery by limiting the federal government's role, wanted to refuse the bequest. Those welcoming the gift were led by Congressman John Quincy Adams, who worked tirelessly to enact the legislation founding the Smithsonian Institution, which was finally passed in 1846. While Burleigh takes us on a diverting historical jaunt, there simply isn't enough factual information about his protagonist to make the story compelling. After 320 pages, James Smithson and his bequest remain shrouded in mystery. 8 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

James Smithson is described as a minor mineralogist, the bastard son of the first duke of Northumberland, and a recluse. He also was the mysterious benefactor of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1829 he left his fortune (the equivalent of $50 million in today's currency), his^B library, and his mineral collection to establish the cultural institution. Burleigh, author of A Very Private Woman (1998), describes Smithson's unconventional life and the conflict in the U.S. after his death, for John Quincy Adams favored creating the institution,^B but^B John Calhoun led the fight against accepting the money from a "foreigner." Joining the feud were states' rights advocates, nationalists, federalists, anglophiles, and xenophobes. Burleigh's research is extensive, and her storytelling ability is captivating. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (September 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060002417
• ISBN-13: 978-0060002411
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #481,047 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nina Burleigh's fifth book, on a notorious murder case in Italy, will be released by Broadway Books on August 2, 2011.
The Fatal Gift of Beauty is the definitive story of the Amanda Knox trial. To research it, she corresponded with the defendants, interviewed Italian authorities and dozens of close friends and family members who had never spoken out before, and lived in Perugia during and after the trial. She and her husband photographer Erik Freeland enrolled their two children in the town school, and had many adventures.
The family was accompanied by Chili, a big-eared black and white mutt they found at a Pemex station in Central Mexico, and whose life story Nina hopes to someday write.
The daughter of author and artist Robert Burleigh and Berta Burleigh, a teacher who emigrated to the USA from Iraq in the 1950s, Nina was born and educated in the Midwest, has traveled throughout the United States and extensively in the Middle East and lived in Italy and France. She covered the Clinton White House for Time and reported and wrote human interest stories at People Magazine from New York. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and occasionally vents on the Huffington Post.
Nina is an award-winning author and journalist, a contributing editor at Elle Magazine, published in the New Yorker, The New York Times, Time, New York and People, among many other journals. She has appeared on Good Morning America, Nightline, various programs on CNN, C-Span, as well as flogged books on NPR and countless radio outlets.Nina has lectured around the United States and in Mexico on writing and books, including her most recent, Unholy Business, a true tale of how modern science is being used to support the curious world of biblical relic trade and forgery. Her book Mirage, published in 2008 by Harper Collins, was selected by the New York Times as an editors' choice and won the Society of Women Educators' Award in 2008.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great story but poorly edited, August 14, 2008

By 

skeptic "interestedreader" (philadelphia, pa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America's Greatest Museum: The Smithsonian (Paperback)

Interesting read. But to get to the point, the editing job left much to be desired. It becomes a bit tedious to re-read descriptions of people that look to be a cut and paste job (ie. rather than just mentioning names of people who are well known by now in the book, we get a phrase of how they were described when their name was first mentioned, and this is repeated almost eachtime the person is mentioned). Also, certain phrases within sentences are repeated verbatim (just like the name issue mentioned above). Did anyone read this book before it went to print?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Noble's Cast-Off Gets Royal Treatment, November 15, 2003

By 

Bennett Windheim (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America's Greatest Museum: The Smithsonian (Hardcover)

For any author, writing on the subject of "The Stranger and the Statesman" would seem to be a daunting task. After all, how do you create a compelling narrative around a central character about whom scant details exist? Nina Burleigh succeeds in this brilliantly by examining her subject in a larger context, that of Europe and a nascent America over the course of nearly a hundred years. By vividly portraying the world James Smithson was borne into, travelled through and left behind - from its physicality to its politics and social mores (her description of Bath during the social season is a horror and a revelation!) Burleigh draws us into a story that's rich in texture and scope, and that makes Smithson himself appear less enigmatic than he might in less skillful hands. This is not a biography so much as a superbly researched historical investigation by a talented journalist who also happens to have a cinematic eye. From the very first scene depicting Alexander Graham Bell and his coterie exhuming the English benefactor's bones, the whole thing plays out like a Merchant/Ivory production.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As Many Nooks And Crannies As The Museum...., November 25, 2003

By 

Bruce Loveitt (Ogdensburg, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America's Greatest Museum: The Smithsonian (Hardcover)

I found this book to be a bit of a slow-starter. Smithson is pretty well absent for the first 50 pages, as the author goes into quite a bit of detail concerning the mating habits and inheritance rights of the British aristocracy. The information on inheritance is relevant, as it ties into the tale of Smithson's bequest. The amorous adventures, though certainly fun to read about, don't seem essential to the story. But have no fear - eventually Ms. Burleigh settles down to business and we learn about James Smithson, assorted oddball scientists, John Quincy Adams, 19th century Washington D.C., etc. We also learn the unsurprising fact that they had some sleazy politicians back then (Smithson's gift of $500,000, equal today, perhaps, to $50 million, "disappeared" and was only replaced by the Treasury after John Quincy Adams screamed bloody-murder), and we also learn the depressing fact that Congressmen were just as provincial, and as ignorant concerning scientific matters, 160 years ago as they are today. The mind boggles that many politicians didn't want to take the money for fear the establishment of the Smithsonian would increase the power of the Federal government. Some Anglophobes, still smarting from two wars with the British, didn't want to taint American tastebuds with the financial crumbs (admittedly, a healthy portion of crumbs) tossed our way by an Englishman. Just as interesting was the fact that even those who were glad to get the money didn't know what to do with it. After all, Smithson wanted the money to be used to "increase and diffuse Knowledge among men." How do you go about doing that....exactly? It was not inevitable that the Smithsonian would become highly involved with research and expeditions...some people just wanted it to be a library, and some people just wanted it to be a museum. John Quincy Adams, despite being dour and a bit of a "downer," personality-wise, comes across in these pages as a hero. When Washington was still full of muddy roads, mosquitoes, and politicians who liked to spit, swear, booze it up, and even bring their hunting dogs to the floor of the House, Adams pushed for high culture and learning. Alexander Graham Bell also comes through with high marks: in 1903, when Smithson's body was in danger of falling into the Mediterranean (the British cemetery in Genoa was gradually falling into the sea due to blasting from a nearby marble quarry), Bell made the trip to Italy, hacked his way through Italian bureaucracy, and brought Smithson's remains to America. The section dealing with Smithson as scientist is also fascinating. Although not a great or original thinker, Smithson amassed quite a collection of minerals and did the laborious work of subjecting all of his accumulated material to painstaking chemical analysis. He was a member of the Royal Society and knew some interesting, if odd, fellow scientists. Ms. Burleigh relishes telling us about the aristocrat-scientist Henry Cavendish, who "was shy and bashful to a degree bordering on disease" (according to a contemporary), who hated women, and who, although fabulously wealthy, always attended Royal Society dinners with just enough money to pay for his dinner - and not a shilling more. We also meet the extremely eccentric geologist William Buckland, who "claimed to have eaten his way through the whole of the animal kingdom, declaring at first that moles were nastiest." Ms. Burleigh also enjoys telling us that at one time Royal Society members vowed to eat only fish and pudding at their meetings. The reason? They were trying to help out Edmond Halley (of comet fame) - who had no teeth. This book is a well-balanced mixture of the light and the enlightening, and of science, politics and personalities. If you have any interest in either the Royal Society or in the history of the Smithsonian, I am sure you will enjoy a stroll through the pages of this book.