Exhibition Guide

Looking out with a level, no-nonsense gaze, Dr. James Smith (1771–1841) is remembered as the “Jenner of America.” Shortly after the English scientist Edward Jenner discovered a means of vaccinating the public against the dreaded smallpox virus in 1796, Smith introduced a vaccine to the citizens of Maryland. Dr. Smith helped found the Baltimore General Dispensary and was its attending physician from 1801 to 1807. He opened a private vaccine institute in Baltimore in 1802 and later became the vaccine agent for Maryland. Subsequently, he was appointed United States vaccine agent, a position that he held until the office was abolished in 1822.

This portrait may have been painted for inclusion in a gallery of famous Americans at Peale’s Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts. The oldest purpose-built museum building in the Western Hemisphere, the Peale Museum opened in 1814 and still stands in North Holliday Street, although its remaining collections were moved to the Maryland Historical Society in 1997.