ABSTRACT
A gallery of art was inherent in the Act of 1846 that established the Smithsonian, for the Act specified that all objects of art and natural history belonging to the United States in Washington, D.C., were to be transferred to the Institution. For about thirty years after the fire, most of the art objects received by the Institution were turned over to the Library of Congress or to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. The Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia helped in some degree to renew an interest in developing the art collections, for although the show's principal emphasis was industrial, the thousands of Americans who visited it must have been impressed by the carefully selected art exhibited by the participating countries. The Cooper Union in New York City was founded in 1859 by the industrialist Peter Cooper as a gesture for social betterment.
