The story
History
Early efforts
The naturalist Albert S. Bickmore devised the idea for the American Museum of Natural History in 1861. At the time, he was studying in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at Louis Agassiz's Museum of Comparative Zoology. Observing that many European natural history museums were in populous cities, Bickmore wrote in a biography: "Now New York is our city of greatest wealth and therefore probably the best location for the future museum of natural history for our whole land." For several years, Bickmore lobbied for the establishment of a natural history museum in New York. Upon the end of the American Civil War, Bickmore asked numerous prominent New Yorkers, such as William E. Dodge Jr., to sponsor his museum. Although Dodge himself could not fund the museum at the time, he introduced the naturalist to Theodore Roosevelt Sr., the father of future U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt.
Calls for a natural history museum increased after Barnum's American Museum burned down in 1868. Eighteen prominent New Yorkers wrote a letter to the Central Park Commission that December, requesting the creation of a natural history museum in Central Park. Central Park commissioner Andrew Haswell Green indicated his support for the project in January 1869. A board of trustees was created for the museum. The next month, Bickmore and Joseph Hodges Choate drafted a charter for the museum, which the board of trustees approved without any changes. It was in this charter that the "American Museum of Natural History" name was first used. Bickmore said he wanted the museum's name to reflect his "expectation that our museum will ultimately become the leading institution of its kind in our country", similar to the British Museum. Before the museum was established, Bickmore needed to secure approval from Boss Tweed, leader of the powerful and corrupt Tammany Hall political organization. The legislation to establish the American Museum of Natural History had to be signed by John Thompson Hoffman, the governor of New York, who was associated with Tweed.
Creation and new building
Hoffman signed the legislation creating the museum on April 6, 1869, with John David Wolfe as its first president. Subsequently, the chairman of the AMNH's executive committee asked Green if the museum could use the top two stories of Central Park's Arsenal, and Green approved the request in January 1870. Insect specimens were placed on the lower level of the Arsenal, while stones, fossils, mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles were placed on the upper level. The museum opened within the Arsenal on May 22, 1871. The AMNH became popular in the following years. The Arsenal location had 856,773 visitors in the first nine months of 1876 alone, more than the British Museum had recorded for all of 1874.
Meanwhile, the AMNH's directors had identified Manhattan Square (bounded by Eighth Avenue/Central Park West, 81st Street, Ninth Avenue/Columbus Avenue, and 77th Street) as a site for a permanent structure. Several prominent New Yorkers had raised $500,000 to fund the construction of the new building. The city's park commissioners then reserved Manhattan Square as the site of the permanent museum, and another $200,000 was raised for the building fund. Numerous dignitaries and officials, including U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant, attended the museum's groundbreaking ceremony on June 3, 1874.
The museum opened on December 22, 1877, with a ceremony attended by U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes. The old exhibits were removed from the Arsenal in 1878, and the AMNH was debt-free by the next year.
19th century
Originally, the AMNH was accessed by a temporary bridge that crossed a ditch, and it was closed during Sundays. The museum's trustees voted in May 1881 to complete the approaches from Central Park, and work began later that year. The landscape changes were nearly complete by mid-1882, and a bridge over Central Park West opened that November. At this point, the AMNH's Manhattan Square building and the Arsenal could not physically fit any more objects, and the existing facilities, such as the 100-seat lecture hall, were insufficient to accommodate demand. The trustees began discussing the possibility of opening the museum on Sundays in May 1885, and the state legislature approved a bill permitting Sunday operations the next year. Despite advocacy from the working class, the trustees opposed Sunday operations because it would be expensive to do so. At the time, the museum was open to the general public on Wednesdays through Saturdays, and it was open exclusively to members on Mondays and Tuesdays. The museum's collections continued to grow during the 1880s, and it hosted various lectures through the 19th century.
With several departments having been crowded out of the original building, New York state legislators introduced bills to expand the AMNH in early 1887; thousands of teachers endorsed the legislation. City parks engineer Montgomery A. Kellogg was directed to prepare plans for landscaping the site. In March 1888, the trustees approved an entrance pavilion at the center of the 77th Street elevation. The New York City Board of Estimate began soliciting bids from general contractors in late 1889. Many of the objects and specimens in the museum's collection could not be displayed until the annex was opened. The original building was refurbished during 1890, and the museum's library was transferred to the west wing that year. The AMNH's trustees considered opening the museum on Sundays by February 1892 and stopped charging admission that July. The museum began Sunday operations in August, and the southern entrance pavilion opened that November. Even with the new wing, there was still not enough space for the museum's collection. The city's Park Board approved a new lecture hall in January 1893, but the hall was postponed that May in favor of a wing extending east on 77th Street. A contract to furnish the east wing was awarded in June 1894.
When the east wing was nearly completed in February 1895, the AMNH's trustees asked state legislators for $200,000 to build a wing extending west on 77th Street. The east wing was still being furnished by August; its ground floor opened that December. The museum's funds and collections continued to grow during this time. A hall of mammals opened within the museum in November 1896. That year, the AMNH received approval to extend the east wing northward along Central Park West, creating an L-shaped structure. Plans for an expanded east wing were approved in June 1897, and a contract was awarded two months later. The museum's director Morris K. Jesup also sponsored worldwide expeditions to obtain objects for the collection. By mid-1898, the west wing, the expanded east wing, and a lecture hall at the center of the museum were underway; however, the project encountered delays due to a lack of city funding. The west and east wings, with several exhibit halls, were nearly complete by late 1899, but the lecture hall had been delayed. A hall dedicated to ancient Mexican art opened that December.
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1900s to 1940s
The museum's 1,350-seat lecture hall opened in October 1900, as did the Native American and Mexican halls in the west wing. During the 1900s, the AMNH sponsored several expeditions to grow its collection, including a trip to Mexico, a trip to collect fauna from the Pacific Northwest, a trip to collect art in China, and an expedition to collect rocks in local caves. One such exhibition yielded a brontosaurus skeleton, which was the centerpiece of the dinosaur hall that opened in February 1905.
In the early 1920s, museum president Henry Fairfield Osborn planned a new entrance for the AMNH, which was to contain a memorial to Theodore Roosevelt. Also around that time, the New York state government formed a commission to study the feasibility of a Roosevelt memorial. After a dispute over whether to put the memorial in Albany or in New York City, the government of New York City offered a site next to the AMNH for consideration. The commission rejected a "conventional Greek mausoleum" design, instead opting to design a triumphal arch and hall in a Roman style. In 1925, the AMNH's trustees hosted an architectural design competition, selecting John Russell Pope to design the memorial hall. Construction began in 1929, and the trustees approved final plans the next year. J. Harry McNally was the general contractor. Roosevelt's cousin, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, dedicated the memorial on January 19, 1936.
1950s to 1990s
The original building was later known as "Wing A". During the 1950s, the top floor was renovated into a library, being redecorated with what Christopher Gray of The New York Times described as "dropped ceilings and the other usual insults". The ten-story Childs Frick Building, which contained the AMNH's fossil collection, was added to the museum in the 1970s.
The architect Kevin Roche and his firm Roche-Dinkeloo have been responsible for the master planning of the museum since the 1990s. Various renovations to both the interior and exterior have been carried out. Renovations to the Dinosaur Hall were undertaken beginning in 1991, and Roche-Dinkeloo designed the eight-story AMNH Library in 1992. The museum's Rose Center for Earth and Space was completed in 2000.
21st century
In 2001, the museum's lecture hall was renamed the Samuel J. and Ethel LeFrak Theater, after Samuel J. LeFrak donated US$8 million to the AMNH. The museum's south facade, spanning 77th Street from Central Park West to Columbus Avenue, was cleaned and repaired, re-emerging in 2009. Steven Reichl, a spokesman for the museum, said that work would include restoring 650 black-cherry window frames and stone repairs. The museum's consultant on the latest renovation was Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., an architectural and engineering firm with headquarters in Northbrook, Illinois. The museum also restored the mural in Roosevelt Memorial Hall in 2010.
In 2026, the AMNH received $2 million to help fund the renovation of the Pacific Birds Hall.
Richard Gilder Center
In 2014, the museum published plans for a $325 million, 195,000 ft2 (18,100 m2) annex, the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, on the Columbus Avenue side. It was named after stockbroker and philanthropist Richard Gilder.
On October 11, 2016, the Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously approved the expansion. Construction of the Gilder Center, which was expected to break ground the next year following design development and Environmental Impact Statement stages, would entail demolition of three museum buildings built between 1874 and 1935. The museum filed plans for the expansion in August 2017, but due to community opposition, construction did not start until June 2019.
On May 4, 2023, the Gilder Center opened, and the museum had 1.5 million visitors over the next three months. In 2025, the AMNH began providing free "Discoverer" memberships to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients.
Native remains
In late 2023, the museum announced that it would stop displaying human remains from its collection. Despite the 1990 passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), as late as 2023, the AMNH held an estimated 1,900 Native American remains that had not been repatriated.
In January 2024, the museum closed a number of displays and the AMNH's Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains halls, or about 10,000 square feet. The museum agreed to repatriate the remains that July.
Original structure
The original Victorian Gothic building was designed by Calvert Vaux and J. Wrey Mould, both already closely identified with the architecture of Central Park. Vaux and Mould's original plan was intended to complement the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the opposite side of Central Park. The original building, as constructed, was at the center of the 77th Street frontage and measured 199 by 66 feet (61 by 20 m) across; it featured a gallery measuring 112 feet (34 m) long200 ft (61 m) tall. This gallery contained a raised basement, three stories of exhibits, Venetian Gothic arches, and an attic with dormers and a slate roof. The rear of the gallery included two towers: one containing a stairwell and the other containing curators' rooms. The original structure still exists but is hidden from view by the many buildings in the complex that today occupy most of Manhattan Square. The museum remains accessible through its 77th Street foyer, which has since been renamed the Grand Gallery.
The full plan called for twelve pavilions similar in design to the original building. Eight pavilions would have been arranged as the sides of a square, while the remaining four would be perpendicular to each other in the interior of the square. There were to be eight towers along the perimeter of the square, as well as a 120 ft-wide (37 m) dome in the center, at the intersection of the four interior pavilions. In each pavilion, there was to be a ground floor; the second floor was to contain a gallery; the third floor was to exhibit specimens; and the fourth floor was to be used for research. Upon the intended completion of the master plan, the museum would measure 850 ft (260 m) from north to south and 650 ft (200 m) from west to east, including projections from the square. The finished structure, with a ground area of over 18 acres (7.3 ha), would have been the largest building in North America, as well as the largest museum building in the world. The master plan was never fully realized; by 2015, the museum consisted of 25 separate buildings that were poorly connected.
The original building was soon eclipsed by the west and east wings of the southern frontage, designed by J. Cleaveland Cady as a brownstone neo-Romanesque structure. It extends 700 ft (210 m) along West 77th Street, with corner towers 150 ft (46 m) tall. Its pink brownstone and granite, similar to that found at Grindstone Island in the St. Lawrence River, came from quarries at Picton Island, New York. The southern wing contains several halls ranging in size from 60 by 110 feet (18 m × 34 m) to 30 ft × 125 ft (9.1 m × 38.1 m). At the ends of either wings are rounded turret-like towers.
Human origins and cultural halls
Stout Hall of Asian Peoples
The Stout Hall of Asian Peoples is a one-story hall on the museum's second floor in between the Hall of Asian Mammals and Birds of the World. It is named for Gardner D. Stout, a former president of the museum, and was primarily organized by Walter A. Fairservis, a longtime museum archaeologist. Opened in 1980, Stout Hall is the museum's largest anthropological hall and contains artifacts acquired by the museum between 1869 and the mid-1970s. Many famous expeditions sponsored by the museum are associated with the artifacts in the hall, including the Roy Chapman Andrews expeditions in Central Asia and the Vernay-Hopwood Chindwin expedition.
Stout Hall has two sections: Ancient Eurasia, a small section devoted to the evolution of human civilization in Eurasia, and Traditional Asia, a much larger section containing cultural artifacts from across the Asian continent. The latter section is organized to geographically correspond with two major trade routes of the Silk Road. Like many of the museum's exhibition halls, the artifacts in Stout Hall are presented in a variety of ways including exhibits, miniature dioramas, and five full-scale dioramas. Notable exhibits in the Ancient Eurasian section include reproductions from the archaeological sites of Teshik-Tash and Çatalhöyük, as well as a full size replica of a Hammurabi Stele. The Traditional Asia section contains areas devoted to major Asian countries, such as Japan, China, Tibet, and India, while also including a vast array of smaller Asian tribes including the Ainu, Semai, and Yakut.
Hall of African Peoples
The Hall of African Peoples is behind Akeley Hall of African Mammals and underneath Sanford Hall of North American Birds. It is organized by the four major ecosystems found in Africa: River Valley, Grasslands, Forest-Woodland, and Desert. Each section presents artifacts and exhibits of the peoples native to the ecosystems throughout Africa. The hall contains three dioramas and notable exhibits include a large collection of spiritual costumes on display in the Forest-Woodland section. Uniting the sections of the hall is a multi-faceted comparison of African societies based on hunting and gathering, cultivation, and animal domestication. Each type of society is presented in a historical, political, spiritual, and ecological context. A small section of African diaspora spread by the slave trade is also included. Tribes and civilizations featured include:
River Valley: Ancient Egyptians, Nubians, Kuba, Lozi
Grasslands: Pokot, Shilluk, Barawa
Forest-Woodland: Yoruba, Kofyar, Mbuti
Desert: Ait Atta, Tuareg
Hall of Mexico and Central America
The Hall of Mexico and Central America is a one-story hall on the museum's second floor behind Birds of the World and before the Hall of South American Peoples. It presents archaeological artifacts from a broad range of pre-Columbian civilizations that once existed across Mesoamerica, including the Maya, Olmec, Zapotec, and Aztec. Because the great majority of the written records of these civilizations did not survive the Spanish conquest, the overarching aim of the hall is to piece together what it is possible to know about them from the artifacts alone.
The museum has displayed pre-Columbian artifacts since its opening, only a short time after the discovery of the civilizations by archaeologists, with its first hall dedicated to the subject opening in 1899. As the museum's collection grew, the hall underwent major renovations in 1944 and again in 1970 when it re-opened in its current form. Notable artifacts on display include the Kunz Axe and a full-scale replica of Tomb 104 from the Monte Albán archaeological site, originally displayed at the 1939 World's Fair.
South American Peoples
The Hall of South American Peoples is a one-story hall on the northwestern corner of the second floor, next to the Hall of Mexico and Central America. The hall was first opened on the third floor in 1904, and exhibited archaeological objects, including mummies, from Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, and the West Indies. In 1931, the hall was expanded and relocated to the second floor under the direction of curators Ronald Olson and W.C. Bennett. The new hall included a recreation of a Chilean copper mine, and later, a temporary hall titled the Men of the Montaña, which featured Peruvian cultural artifacts from the Cashibo, and Panoan peoples. In 1989, the Hall was renovated and reopened as a permanent exhibition, focusing on the technology and artistry of the ancient Andean and traditional Amazonian cultures, led by curators Craig Morris, Junius Bird, and Robert Carneiro. The Hall contains roughly 2,300 objects from various ancient South American cultures, including the Moche, Chávin, Chancay, Paracas, Nazca, and Inca. A number of the artifacts on display come from the Roosevelt Collections, which were collected by Theodore Roosevelt on expeditions to South America in the early 20th century and donated to the museum.
Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples
The Hall of Pacific Peoples is on the southwestern corner of the third floor, accessed through the Hall of Plains Indians. The cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead had founded the Hall of Pacific Peoples in 1971. From the time Mead began curatorial work on the hall in 1945, she conceived an exhibit environment that would emulate sights and sounds from the Pacific regions on display. After Mead's death in 1978, the hall reopened in December 1984 as the Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples. The new hall, designed by Eugene Burgmann, maintained the blue-themed ocean and sky ambiance of the original hall. The hall was once again closed in 1997 and reopened in 2001 with an updated design that retained the geocultural "alcoves" first installed with the 1984 remodel.
The Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples contains artifacts from New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Micronesia, Melanesia and other Pacific islands. Mead had collected 250 of the 1,500 items in the hall. Some of these were probably selected from the 3,284 items she collected for the American Museum of Natural History during fieldwork in New Guinea and other Pacific island locations, 1928–1939. Others, such as the theatrical set from a puppet play in Bali, were chosen from among the approximately 600 items that Mead and her anthropologist husband Gregory Bateson had sent to the American Museum of Natural History while they were conducting fieldwork in Bali, 1936–1938. The exhibits in the Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples also include a fiberglass cast of an Easter Island moai statue and capes made of honeycreeper feathers.
Northwest Coast Hall
The Northwest Coast Hall is a one-story hall on the museum's ground floor behind the Grand Gallery and in between Warburg and Spitzer Halls. it is the museum's oldest hall, having been established in 1899 by anthropologist Franz Boas as the Jesup North Pacific Hall. The hall now contains artifacts and exhibits of the tribes of the North Pacific Coast cultural region (Southern Alaska, Northern Washington, and a portion of British Columbia). Featured prominently in the hall are four "House Posts" from the Kwakwaka'wakw nation and murals by William S. Taylor depicting native life. As of 2022, there are 9,000 items in total, including 78 totem poles, as well as a Haida canoe suspended from the ceiling (relocated from the Grand Gallery in 2020). The artifacts are accompanied by text in numerous Native American languages.
Artifacts in the hall originated from three main sources. The earliest of these was a gift of Haida artifacts collected by John Wesley Powell and donated by future trustee Heber R. Bishop in 1882. This was followed by the museum's purchase of two collections of Tlingit artifacts collected by Lt. George T. Emmons in 1888 and 1894. The remainder of the hall's artifacts were collected during the famed Jesup North Pacific Expedition between 1897 and 1902. Led by Boas and financed by museum president Morris Ketchum Jesup, the expedition was the first for the museum's Division of Anthropology and is now considered the "foremost expedition in American anthropology". Many famous ethnologists took part, including George Hunt, who secured the Kwakwaka'wakw House Posts in the hall. Other tribes featured in the hall include Coastal Salish, Nuu-chah-nulth, Tsimshian, and Nuxalk.
At the time of its opening, the Northwest Coast Hall was one of four halls dedicated to the native peoples of United States and Canada. It was originally organized in two sections, the first being a general area pertaining to all peoples of the region and the second a specialized area divided by tribe. This was a point of contention for Boas who wanted all artifacts in the hall to be associated with the proper tribe (much like it is currently organized), eventually leading to the dissolution of Boas's relationship with the museum. In May 2022, the hall reopened after a five-year, $19 million renovation, with more than 1,000 artifacts on view. The new display includes work from contemporary artists such as Greg Colfax KlaWayHee and Robert Davidson.
Hall of Plains Indians
The Hall of Plains Indians is on the south side of the third floor, near the western end of the museum. This hall opened in February 1967. The primary focus of this hall is the North American Great Plains peoples as they were at the middle of the 19th century, including depictions of Blackfeet (see also: Blackfoot Confederacy), Hidatsa, and Dakota cultures. Of particular interest is a Folsom point discovered in 1926 New Mexico, providing evidence of early American colonization of the Americas.
Hall of Eastern Woodlands Indians
The Hall of Eastern Woodlands Indians is next to the Hall of Plains Indians, on the south side of the third floor. This hall opened in May 1966. It details the lives and technology of traditional Native American peoples in the woodland environments of eastern North America. These include Cree, Mohegan, Ojibwe, and Iroquois cultures. The exhibit features examples of indigenous basketry, pottery, farming techniques, food preparation, metal jewelry, musical instruments, and textiles. Other highlights include a model of a Menominee birchbark canoe and various traditional lodgings such as an Ojibwa domed wigwam, an Iroquois longhouse, a Creek council house, and other eastern woodland dwelling styles. As of January 2024, the Hall of Eastern Woodlands Indians, along with the Hall of the Plains Indians, is closed to ensure compliance with new NAGPRA regulations.
Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins
The Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, formerly The Hall of Human Biology and Evolution, is on the south side of the first floor, near the western end of the museum. It opened under its current name on February 10, 2007. When it first opened in 1921, the hall was known as the "Hall of the Age of Man", the only major exhibition in the United States to present an in-depth investigation of human evolution. The displays traced the story of Homo sapiens, illuminated the path of human evolution and examined the origins of human creativity.
Many of the displays from the original hall can still be viewed in the present expanded format. These include life-size dioramas of human predecessors Australopithecus afarensis, Homo ergaster, Neanderthal, and Cro-Magnon, showing each species demonstrating the behaviors and capabilities that scientists believe they were capable of. Also displayed are full-sized casts of important fossils, including the 3.2-million-year-old Lucy skeleton and the 1.7-million-year-old Turkana Boy, and Homo erectus specimens including a cast of Peking Man. The hall also features replicas of ice age art found in the Dordogne region of southwestern France. The limestone carvings of horses were made nearly 26,000 years ago and are considered to represent some of the earliest artistic expression of humans.
From Wikipedia’s article on American Museum of Natural History, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5