Many of you also recall Harvard, but my childhood fav' was Boston's Museum of Science. Their ultra-real paint-and-clay dioramas, roughly 4 ft x 2 x 3, took you to other worlds: Pueblo village, Hopi snake dance, African watering hole. The black widow was probably 18" across. They value the history of exhibition techniques and put these in a special section dedicated to modeling.
Their best model, though, was the green 1960s T. Rex with banana-sized teeth that stomped its way up the street in my dreams. I last saw him on formal display in December '95, wearing a king-size knitted scarf; one girl said to her boyfriend, "No wonder they froze to death." That T. Rex stood almost three stories on its legs and tail, which eventually posed a problem. The female replacement is balanced leaning forward with her tail in the air, and is a lot more colorful. She doesn't have feathers or quills, but she does get the Christmas scarf, while the old guy now has to stand outside.
Their best model, though, was the green 1960s T. Rex with banana-sized teeth that stomped its way up the street in my dreams. I last saw him on formal display in December '95, wearing a king-size knitted scarf; one girl said to her boyfriend, "No wonder they froze to death." That T. Rex stood almost three stories on its legs and tail, which eventually posed a problem. The female replacement is balanced leaning forward with her tail in the air, and is a lot more colorful. She doesn't have feathers or quills, but she does get the Christmas scarf, while the old guy now has to stand outside.
1
Several people mentioned some famous and big city museums so I'd like to say that some smaller cities have nice natural history museums, too. A friend and I hit the road to South Dakota one summer and stumbled on The Museum of Geology in Rapid City. What a gem! (Pun intended.) South Dakota is awash in dinosaur bones and other fossils and many have found a home in
the museum along with all the beautiful colored rocks you can imagine. If you're ever on your way to Badlands National Park and The Black Hills, this museum is worth a stop.
g
the museum along with all the beautiful colored rocks you can imagine. If you're ever on your way to Badlands National Park and The Black Hills, this museum is worth a stop.
g
2
I lived in the American Museum of Natural History (well, as much as a Crown Heights child could live there considering distance and other responsibilities) It was free (unlike the Hayden Planetarium, which I only saw on school trips when my family did not pay). I remember seeing the room with Northwest art and animal skeletons and images and being in awe. I had not seen anything like that anywhere else and I felt mesmerized, especially by the orca carvings. How was I to know that less than 20 years later, I would live in the land of the orcas and that art?
The whole building and collection was magical to me. Today, I have the Burke Museum, which is nice but small and quite limited. The Royal BC Museum is a better regional treasure and whenever I get the chance, I walk onto the Black Ball and over to there, spending most of the time I'm in Victoria in there. Like I knew and visited the AMNH when I was a child, I know the RBCM quite well, so along with the rotating exhibit (currently they have a fabulous wildlife photography show), I walk through the entire building, stopping at the moment strikes me (but always in the First People's galleries), as their natural history is ours too (international boundary is pretty irrelevant here).
The whole building and collection was magical to me. Today, I have the Burke Museum, which is nice but small and quite limited. The Royal BC Museum is a better regional treasure and whenever I get the chance, I walk onto the Black Ball and over to there, spending most of the time I'm in Victoria in there. Like I knew and visited the AMNH when I was a child, I know the RBCM quite well, so along with the rotating exhibit (currently they have a fabulous wildlife photography show), I walk through the entire building, stopping at the moment strikes me (but always in the First People's galleries), as their natural history is ours too (international boundary is pretty irrelevant here).
3
Thank you, Richard Conniff! Natural History Museums are like temples for Enlightenment values. They stimulate - and reward - intellectual curiosity, and they remind us of the "big picture" of life on this planet. I had the great pleasure to work for the American Museum of Natural History some years ago and it was an unforgettable experience for me. Most of us visit natural history museums as schoolchildren and, as you point out, these experiences can, indeed, spark a lifelong passion. But I actually think these museums are even more exciting for adults, who too often take the world around them for granted. AMNH is an amazing place. Go visit!
1
I had the great pleasure of sharing the richness of the AMNH with my middle school students many times when I taught in Manhattan. I can't imagine a more fertile source of scientific spark for their young imaginations or any other experience capable of generating such personally vivid questions. Hard to believe anyone would fail to recognize the value of such an institution.
5
The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry was a favorite when I was a kid -- I remember touring the U-boat, and playing with the interactive exhibits of electricity and magnetism. I think there was a tic tac toe-playing computer implemented with electromechanical relays -- a terrific demonstration of logic embodied in hardware.
Later, the American Museum of Natural History deepened my appreciation of life sciences and the natural world. The dinosaur exhibits made a huge impression, as did the blue whale. Technology began to seem more like a means than an end in itself.
But it was the original Hayden Planetarium, with a row of scales showing your weight on different planets, and the great Zeiss projector perched in the center of its dome like some giant insect, which blew my little mind. Years later, as a high-school student, I'd take the subway from Brooklyn to spend late afternoons in the Planetarium library, thumbing through back issues of the astronomy magazines for pictures of nebulae and galaxies. Once some rather official-looking personage -- I remember only a blinding white shirt and a look of disdain -- questioned what this scruffy kid was doing in the library. The librarian quietly spoke up for me: "I think he's an astronomer," she said. And I was.
Later, the American Museum of Natural History deepened my appreciation of life sciences and the natural world. The dinosaur exhibits made a huge impression, as did the blue whale. Technology began to seem more like a means than an end in itself.
But it was the original Hayden Planetarium, with a row of scales showing your weight on different planets, and the great Zeiss projector perched in the center of its dome like some giant insect, which blew my little mind. Years later, as a high-school student, I'd take the subway from Brooklyn to spend late afternoons in the Planetarium library, thumbing through back issues of the astronomy magazines for pictures of nebulae and galaxies. Once some rather official-looking personage -- I remember only a blinding white shirt and a look of disdain -- questioned what this scruffy kid was doing in the library. The librarian quietly spoke up for me: "I think he's an astronomer," she said. And I was.
6
I'm a documentary filmmaker and a fan of Museums of Natural History. They are irreplaceable by other media, such as and films or television. There is something impressive and unforgettable about seeing collections of animals, insects, fish, stones and feathers that are real and to scale, to be face to face with something that was once alive, or a realistic facsimile of such. When I go to the Margaret Mead Festival's opening night party, which is held at AMNH in the Hall of Gems and Minerals (itself magnificent and as mesmerizing as any aquarium) we walk through the Hall of Human Origins, I am always awed to see our early hominid ancestors, such as Lucy, who existed over a million years ago, being in the close physical presence of a real skeleton and a life-sized model of an early hominid is an irreplaceable experience. It makes the connection to the past so very real, more than seeing an image on a computer screen. If such museums are forced to close or get rid of their collections, we will lose a tangible part of our natural history. What will become of us?
10
"Natural History" - could save our planet. If given the respect it so truly deserves. Kids love animals. Flowers. Frogs. Trees. And stories about them. Naturally.
We kill their wonder and love immediately - with "Big Science IS Big Money!!" "DNA is SO Exciting!!" Not to a kid it isn't- just the people who write and sell textbooks.
But give me 15 kids, nets and jars, and an afternoon to wade in a pond with tadpoles, and- with wet feet and muddy jars full of wriggly things- in an hour, I'll have them begging to understand... DNA, and biochemistry, and climate, and on and on. Because now it makes sense- to the tadpoles.
The museums generate the same wonder - and reverence. We will die without them.
We kill their wonder and love immediately - with "Big Science IS Big Money!!" "DNA is SO Exciting!!" Not to a kid it isn't- just the people who write and sell textbooks.
But give me 15 kids, nets and jars, and an afternoon to wade in a pond with tadpoles, and- with wet feet and muddy jars full of wriggly things- in an hour, I'll have them begging to understand... DNA, and biochemistry, and climate, and on and on. Because now it makes sense- to the tadpoles.
The museums generate the same wonder - and reverence. We will die without them.
7
There were two natural history museums which were extremely influential into turning me into a naturalist. One would be the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History on the campus of the University of Minnesota – seven blocks from the house in which my mother’s parents lived. From the beginning of my memory (about 75 years ago) my mother would, on our visits to see my grandparents, take me to the Bell Museum where I could be amazed (every time) by the dioramas of Minnesota wildlife. My favorite was and is the moose, standing in the clear water of its natural habitat. I haven’t been there in more than twenty years and the campus environment has changed immensely, and the museum is soon to be moved to a distant campus.
The other museum is the American Museum of Natural History home to Akeley’s elephants (and two shot by Theodore Roosevelt) and its fantastic gem and mineral display. We lived (in my early youth) in Rockville Centre on Long Island so getting there was an adventure. I loved the museum, and much of it looks today just about as it did then.
Unfortunately natural history is now passe and few people seem to be able to do more than differentiate between weeds, grass, and flowers or trees and shrubs. Spending more than four hours a day hunched over a phone or tablet does not encourage anyone to know more about their surroundings. I know, because I was a university professor for 35 years and was eye (and ear) witness to the denaturing of humanity.
The other museum is the American Museum of Natural History home to Akeley’s elephants (and two shot by Theodore Roosevelt) and its fantastic gem and mineral display. We lived (in my early youth) in Rockville Centre on Long Island so getting there was an adventure. I loved the museum, and much of it looks today just about as it did then.
Unfortunately natural history is now passe and few people seem to be able to do more than differentiate between weeds, grass, and flowers or trees and shrubs. Spending more than four hours a day hunched over a phone or tablet does not encourage anyone to know more about their surroundings. I know, because I was a university professor for 35 years and was eye (and ear) witness to the denaturing of humanity.
8
When I was eight years old and in the throes of my fascination with dinosaurs, I dragged a bag of old bones all the way from Duluth, Minnesota to Chicago with hopes of having someone at the Field Museum confirm my suspicions they were from a dinosaur. A road crew had unearthed the bones near our house and I was allowed to take as many as I wanted, which included ribs and teeth, vertebrae, and various leg bones. Our local musuem had a single dinosaur bone in its tiny natural history collection - a Stegosaurus vertebra that looked a lot like the vertebrae I had.
At the Field Museum my mom talked our way up to the second floor to the paleontology department where an older gentleman (a real paleontologist!) carefully studied my collection of bones until, finally, he picked out a tooth, held it up, and declared in a thick German accent: “You’ve got yourself a horse.”
I was of course crushed but I didn't let my disappointment diminish my interest in paleontology. It's lasted my entire life and throughout my career in media and communications. Now retired, I volunteer in the paleontology lab of the Science Museum of Minnesota where I prepare fossils for study, and photograph specimens in the collection. Coincidentally, the curator of paleontology, for whom I work today, began his own career back in the 1950s at the Field Museum under the supervision of Dr. Rainer Zangerl, a Swiss-born paleontologist who spoke with a heavy German accent.
Small world indeed.
At the Field Museum my mom talked our way up to the second floor to the paleontology department where an older gentleman (a real paleontologist!) carefully studied my collection of bones until, finally, he picked out a tooth, held it up, and declared in a thick German accent: “You’ve got yourself a horse.”
I was of course crushed but I didn't let my disappointment diminish my interest in paleontology. It's lasted my entire life and throughout my career in media and communications. Now retired, I volunteer in the paleontology lab of the Science Museum of Minnesota where I prepare fossils for study, and photograph specimens in the collection. Coincidentally, the curator of paleontology, for whom I work today, began his own career back in the 1950s at the Field Museum under the supervision of Dr. Rainer Zangerl, a Swiss-born paleontologist who spoke with a heavy German accent.
Small world indeed.
5
Once again the issue is decent citizenship. As long as the wealthy aren't paying their share of the taxes all of the museums, parks, sanctuaries, public universities etc. etc. simply will not get the money they need to function.
The great nation of my childhood years (I was fascinated with the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History) will be a thing of the past until we drop this supply-side/trickle-down nonsense.
Enough is enough!
The great nation of my childhood years (I was fascinated with the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History) will be a thing of the past until we drop this supply-side/trickle-down nonsense.
Enough is enough!
8
For me it was the Harvard Museum of Natural History, many years ago, when I was fortunate to be given an after-hours private tour by a professor of entomology. I'll never forget the glass flowers, and a back room of drawers of every known insect on earth, the biggest beetle, the biggest butterfly. And in the adjoined Peabody Museum, dark rooms with antiquated dioramas and exotic artifacts, crafts and mysterious totemic objects, the poignant soulfulness of dust and squeaky old wood floors, an ambience that called to mind Victorian explorers back in the time when the world still held so much mystery and discovery. I still prefer this kind of museum atmosphere to the sterile modern exhibits of today. But I have to say, it kills me to think I could have passed E. O. Wilson looking at a drawer of ants, and at the time, wouldn't even have known who he was.
6
Thank you, Richard, for reminding us of the immense value of our natural history museums. It has been a long time since my childhood, but my heart still beats faster each time I approach the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco with its treasures of the past and visions of the future.
The decline of these important gateways to the wonders of the natural world is only one example of how American society and parts of Europe too
appear to be descending into barbarism and perhaps even a new Dark Age.
Every time I read about the loss of something precious because "we need to save money," I think about the bloated military budgets both political parties in Congress pass and Presidents sign year after year with virtually no debate.
In 2015, according to the National Priorities Project, the United States spent 54 % of all federal discretionary spending ($598.5 BILLION) for military purposes.
And what have we gotten in exchange for squandering our nation's wealth into the coffers of the military-industrial complex? The Middle East and parts of Africa in chaos and a record 60 million refugees, many of them pressing against the states of the European Union.
With the frightening instability of a significant part of our world, we need these repositories of our history more than ever. It's not impossible that someday what is left of them may hold the only record of our civilization.
The decline of these important gateways to the wonders of the natural world is only one example of how American society and parts of Europe too
appear to be descending into barbarism and perhaps even a new Dark Age.
Every time I read about the loss of something precious because "we need to save money," I think about the bloated military budgets both political parties in Congress pass and Presidents sign year after year with virtually no debate.
In 2015, according to the National Priorities Project, the United States spent 54 % of all federal discretionary spending ($598.5 BILLION) for military purposes.
And what have we gotten in exchange for squandering our nation's wealth into the coffers of the military-industrial complex? The Middle East and parts of Africa in chaos and a record 60 million refugees, many of them pressing against the states of the European Union.
With the frightening instability of a significant part of our world, we need these repositories of our history more than ever. It's not impossible that someday what is left of them may hold the only record of our civilization.
10
"Dusty" is the exact word a TripAdvisor reviewer used for AMNH. Then to dust I yearn to go, sort of speak.
Yesterday I made perhaps my tenth recent visit to Smithsonian/NMNH. Ocean Hall bored me at first. Almost everything outside the reef tank is a fossil, model, or pale jarred preseve. Then I thought, those jars show kids how the science is really done. And fish taxidermy has that model look anyway, so what would I have done without turning it into an aquarium?
Presentation challenges intrigue me. How much reading vs. specimens? How interactive? How serious or simplistic?
There's a wall of nearly 100 trilobytes and such with names and places. "You gonna read all that?" one boy whined. "Just the interesting ones," said his little sister, who kept the family waiting. Then there are plenty of short HD videos, and you can watch Earth all but burn on a high-tech projector sphere (no Texas hide-em here with climate change).
The Hall of Dinosaurs was showing its age, though the dioramas were first-class for the '60s. It reopens in 2019. Watch out for National Rex, almost as complete as Sue, which NMNH was outbid for.
Yesterday I made perhaps my tenth recent visit to Smithsonian/NMNH. Ocean Hall bored me at first. Almost everything outside the reef tank is a fossil, model, or pale jarred preseve. Then I thought, those jars show kids how the science is really done. And fish taxidermy has that model look anyway, so what would I have done without turning it into an aquarium?
Presentation challenges intrigue me. How much reading vs. specimens? How interactive? How serious or simplistic?
There's a wall of nearly 100 trilobytes and such with names and places. "You gonna read all that?" one boy whined. "Just the interesting ones," said his little sister, who kept the family waiting. Then there are plenty of short HD videos, and you can watch Earth all but burn on a high-tech projector sphere (no Texas hide-em here with climate change).
The Hall of Dinosaurs was showing its age, though the dioramas were first-class for the '60s. It reopens in 2019. Watch out for National Rex, almost as complete as Sue, which NMNH was outbid for.
2
Excellent article. I might add that the wish to "update" the natural history museum to be more entertaining simply reinforces the anti-intellectual superficial way of looking at the natural world. I've witnessed people very excited about examining beetles in a simple case -- far more excited in a meaningful way than running around pushing buttons for special computerized effects. The Grant Museum in London is a great example of a natural history museum that has great appeal. I draw there often, and witness people really engaged with the specimens. I've even seen creative writing classes held there, and art displayed relating to the collections. Which is all to say it's very stimulating to the public as well as important as a research tool. "Old" type displays in natural history museums leave more to the imagination.
13
yes
1
It all starts at the top...kind of. While the current and past Presidents' supported science, knowledge, and research, the current Congress (in charge of the purse strings for such activities) is an entirely different story. Both the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology in the House, and the Committee on Environment and Public Works in the Senate, are chaired by men who essentially do not believe in science, unless it supports some weird, modern-day flat earth approach to science and knowledge. Both Committees' have oversight authority over the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as the National Science Foundation. That is a scary reality that threatens society as we know it.
17
My interest in science began as a child at the American Museum of Natural History. My mom used to take me there when I was a child. I loved the whole museum, but especially the insect rooms with their vast diversity of preserved specimens from around the world. My interest became an obsession to know more, and I ultimately studied to become an entomologist.
I used to wonder how the dark ages could ever have happened. After a relentless rise in human interest in and understanding of the world around them, people descended into a dark period where knowledge retracted, superstition took greater hold, the few rose in wealth and power above the masses, and science took a long holiday. Now, I wonder if we're not on the cusp of a second dark age.
Today, education seems to be focused on technology, and a growing acceptance and belief of man apart from nature.
The rich living communities within our world disappear as our environment is paved over, air conditioned, and sanitized, and more and more, it seems to matter to people less and less. Just as we oblivious to the plumbing hidden behind walls (until it fails, that is), we don't seem to care about the functioning, or the disappearance of the natural world around us. Well, until if fails, that is.
Like it or not, we are part of the natural world, and when it fails, so do we.
I used to wonder how the dark ages could ever have happened. After a relentless rise in human interest in and understanding of the world around them, people descended into a dark period where knowledge retracted, superstition took greater hold, the few rose in wealth and power above the masses, and science took a long holiday. Now, I wonder if we're not on the cusp of a second dark age.
Today, education seems to be focused on technology, and a growing acceptance and belief of man apart from nature.
The rich living communities within our world disappear as our environment is paved over, air conditioned, and sanitized, and more and more, it seems to matter to people less and less. Just as we oblivious to the plumbing hidden behind walls (until it fails, that is), we don't seem to care about the functioning, or the disappearance of the natural world around us. Well, until if fails, that is.
Like it or not, we are part of the natural world, and when it fails, so do we.
11
In contrast to the closing of museums of natural history in the United States (reflecting a closing of the American mind) stands the 2009 opening of the Darwin Centre, a significant new addition to London's Museum of Natural History.
This facility combines research laboratories, educational offerings, and specimen collections. In fact, the last of these provided one of my most memorable museum experiences: a guided tour (which anyone can reserve) of specimens including bottles filled with plants and animals by Darwin himself! What a moving connection to one of our greatest intellectual ancestors such a collection provides, not to mention the scientific importance of his and other researchers' findings.
It's hard to imagine the building of a "Darwin Center" in the U.S. as a matter of pride rather than protest, and this contrast does not speak well of our country. Yet with all our scientific resources, we have the potential for a new burst of enlightenment, if we only have the will and the culture to encourage it.
This facility combines research laboratories, educational offerings, and specimen collections. In fact, the last of these provided one of my most memorable museum experiences: a guided tour (which anyone can reserve) of specimens including bottles filled with plants and animals by Darwin himself! What a moving connection to one of our greatest intellectual ancestors such a collection provides, not to mention the scientific importance of his and other researchers' findings.
It's hard to imagine the building of a "Darwin Center" in the U.S. as a matter of pride rather than protest, and this contrast does not speak well of our country. Yet with all our scientific resources, we have the potential for a new burst of enlightenment, if we only have the will and the culture to encourage it.
9
Sadly, however, under Margret Thatcher, the British Museum of Natural History (BM), now simply The Natural History Museum, made savage cuts in scientific research and curatorial staff. Unfortunately, the field of systematics and biodiversity studies in Darwin's homeland has never really fully recovered.
4
Thanks to Richard Conniff for highlighting SUCH an important issue. I don't think either the American or the European publics realize how much vitally important research and conservation work is being lost or put at risk by the steady pulling of funds out of the natural history disciplines and their most obvious homes, our great natural history museums. This has to stop now, or we shall stand condemned by our grandchildren for having sold the rest of the creation - our most precious inheritance - down the river.
2
I am able to write about paleontology and archaeology in large degree because of natural history museums and their researchers. Without them, everything I learn would be in books (another great resource!) https://mostlymammoths.wordpress.com/2015/10/16/a-personal-fossil-journe...
My first visit many years ago to the great Museum National D'Histoire Naturelle in Paris was just after major renovation, and I was blown away by the magnificent pageant of animals on the ground floor. Sadly, even this jewel of a Museum has been under-funded by the French Government for many years now, and it no longer occupies quite the central place in scientific natural history that it had two centuries ago under the great Georges Cuvier. What a place, though; what a collection; and what a national and world treasure!
1
The Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum in Tring, Hertfordshire in the UK contains one of the strangest collections of stuffed animals ever collected by one man. As I wrote in Discover Magazine, In the museum one can find a dusty white-striped beige-brown quagga—a subspecies of zebra hunted to extinction in South Africa more than a century ago—as well as a blue-speckled scaly coelacanth, an ancient fish thought extinct until one was hauled up off the eastern coast of South Africa in 1938. Duck-billed platypuses jostle with all kinds of marsupials, including koalas and bandicoots and a greater gliding possum, which looks like a squirrel that has been flayed and ironed. One display case is filled only with different breeds of dog, among them a Great Dane and a dachshund with considerably longer legs than those seen on its descendants. See http://discovermagazine.com/2004/jun/reviews
4
My dad was an associate at the Field Museum, and used to take me with him sometimes to the upstairs research areas. It was spooky, mysterious, and awe-inspiring. Now, decades later, I'm an associate there myself and from time to time (when I'm in town) I get to go up there on my own. I've even gotten to bring my daughter, and got to show her the room where the beetles clean the specimens for taxidermy (gross in a very good way!).
We need to support our natural history museums. The Field nearly had to get rid of its scientific staff recently, and is still operating in crisis mode. This is one of the world's great museums. Museum research isn't just about mounting specimens and managing collections--museum scientists do cutting-edge work in genetics, systematics, anthropology, and a host of other fields. More than that, museums preserve a nature that is increasingly under threat, and make it available for researchers and the public. In a few years or decades natural history museums may provide the only opportunities for studying currently endangered (if not already extinct) organisms. If you aren't a member of your local natural history museum, please become one today!
We need to support our natural history museums. The Field nearly had to get rid of its scientific staff recently, and is still operating in crisis mode. This is one of the world's great museums. Museum research isn't just about mounting specimens and managing collections--museum scientists do cutting-edge work in genetics, systematics, anthropology, and a host of other fields. More than that, museums preserve a nature that is increasingly under threat, and make it available for researchers and the public. In a few years or decades natural history museums may provide the only opportunities for studying currently endangered (if not already extinct) organisms. If you aren't a member of your local natural history museum, please become one today!
5
15 comments? It is 2:19 pm, 2 APR. This was posted 1APR. Vital subject and 15 comments?......... I've worked as a environmental educator with a cross-section of kids and they all love natural history and the outdoors--if they are exposed and find out that it is not to be feared, as they have been led to believe. Maybe it is time for extensive public programs that take our kids out into wild places, away from screens and walls. Or we can continue to let the 1% drive us over the environmental cliff. Scientists have to decide if they can tell what they know to be true about our numbers and get in the fray like Paul Ehrlich, or keep their rich donors/chancellors. They can't serve two masters. Ephemeral reserves and museums, no matter how good, aren't enuf.
3
Another important thoughtful piece from Richard Coniff. Natural History Museums -particularly for our increasingly urbanized population -may be the first "screen free" introduction for rising generations to the wonders of the out-of-doors, to science, and to history. I never walk into the Museum of Comparative Zoology without feeling the ghosts of the Agassiz -father and son- breathing over my shoulder. I have no doubt whatever that my months working at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley put me on the road to becoming an ecologist. To stand in the hall of the Natural History Museum in London is to stand within history itself. These institutions and their bretheren throughout the world are a priceless heritage -and a priceless door to the future. Thank goodness they have an advocate as articulate as Richard Conniff to speak up for them!
5
Philadelphia's Wagner Free Institute of Science is a hidden treasure in the history of American science.
https://www.facebook.com/Wagner-Free-Institute-of-Science-35431076392/?f...
https://www.facebook.com/Wagner-Free-Institute-of-Science-35431076392/?f...
4
My sister in law worked at Wagner as a curator. It is a museum of a museum, unchanged since the 19th century. They have Audubon's Quadrupeds of North America on the walls.
The Academy of Natural Sciences Museum in Philly has magnificent dinosaur skeletons, living butterflies, and one of the few intact sets of Audubon's Birds of North America in the original double elephant bindings. Every day at 3:15 a librarian opens the display case and turns one page. It's a unique opportunity to see two hand colored mid-19th century Audubon prints in one day.
The Academy of Natural Sciences Museum in Philly has magnificent dinosaur skeletons, living butterflies, and one of the few intact sets of Audubon's Birds of North America in the original double elephant bindings. Every day at 3:15 a librarian opens the display case and turns one page. It's a unique opportunity to see two hand colored mid-19th century Audubon prints in one day.
3
Thank you for conveying these important thoughts on the value of natural history museums. It is often to hard to communicate to others that this ought not be a political issue. Rather it is an educational issue.
By denying our young people the opportunity to visit these special places and to let their minds wander in a creative way, we are acting in a manner much like the Islamic State and the Taliban. Treating those who do not hew to "the orthodoxy" is simply un-American.
By denying our young people the opportunity to visit these special places and to let their minds wander in a creative way, we are acting in a manner much like the Islamic State and the Taliban. Treating those who do not hew to "the orthodoxy" is simply un-American.
25
Chicago Field Museum stands in memory from long ago as an amazing eye opener for a 10 year old from Tennessee. This thoughtful article presents yet another data point in the dumbing down of our US culture. I hope these things are cyclic. Certainly the Dark Ages followed periods of great human intellectual advancement. And the Renaissance followed as well.
15
Intellectually we are quick to posit that we are an animal, grouped with other primates, but we see gods in our mirrors, not something that is part of nature. The more estranged we become from nature, especially the wild and undomesticated, the more we don't care about it. We don't care about natural history museums. We don't care about the mass extinctions of species that our numbers are causing. Above all else we want safety, comfort and shiny plastic things. We are losing our balance. populationmatters.org
8
I think you make an excellent point, and hit it right on the head. People feel they are apart from nature. And we seem to be moving further and further away from being integrated into it. Children seem to be finding zoos boring because the animals don't talk and interact with them as they should - like they do in movies and on line. And Natural History museums are dusty of they are laden with text (zzzzz), and devoid of explosions and lasers to hold our interest.
As a species, we seem to be moving further and further from being part of the natural world, now seeming to surround us in small tree pits and flower pots in many cities. The rich living communities within our world disappear as our environment is paved over, air conditioned, and sanitized. Just was we don't care about the plumbing hidden behind walls (until it fails, that is), why would we care about the disappearance of the natural world around us? Well, until if fails, that is.
As a species, we seem to be moving further and further from being part of the natural world, now seeming to surround us in small tree pits and flower pots in many cities. The rich living communities within our world disappear as our environment is paved over, air conditioned, and sanitized. Just was we don't care about the plumbing hidden behind walls (until it fails, that is), why would we care about the disappearance of the natural world around us? Well, until if fails, that is.
I have been a member of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago since I was a teenager.
On Thursday March 31, I hosted and led my two grandsons, daughter, son-in-law, three generations of cousins and my son-in-law's mother in a day long visit to the Field Museum. There were nine of us in all three kids, three adults and three seniors including me. We focused on the current special exhibits the Terra Cotta Warriors of the First Emperor and Ancient Greece from Agamemnon to Alexander the Great. But I took them to Sue, What is an Animal? and Native America. I joked about giving them the family rate for my tour guide duties.
I go to Member's Night whenever I can. Attend lectures at the Museum. And since I was a teen I have been blessed to be welcomed by and spoken to the curators and given access to the collections in my primary areas of amateur interests- reptiles, birds and dinosaurs. The Field has become more high tech and interactive over the years.
Whenever I am in New York or D.C. I visit the American Museum of Natural History and U.S. National Museum of Natural History. America has three of the four world class comprehensive natural history museums -FMNH, AMNH, USMNH. The 4th is the British Museum. The four museums mostly complement each other in their research interests and collections.
On Thursday March 31, I hosted and led my two grandsons, daughter, son-in-law, three generations of cousins and my son-in-law's mother in a day long visit to the Field Museum. There were nine of us in all three kids, three adults and three seniors including me. We focused on the current special exhibits the Terra Cotta Warriors of the First Emperor and Ancient Greece from Agamemnon to Alexander the Great. But I took them to Sue, What is an Animal? and Native America. I joked about giving them the family rate for my tour guide duties.
I go to Member's Night whenever I can. Attend lectures at the Museum. And since I was a teen I have been blessed to be welcomed by and spoken to the curators and given access to the collections in my primary areas of amateur interests- reptiles, birds and dinosaurs. The Field has become more high tech and interactive over the years.
Whenever I am in New York or D.C. I visit the American Museum of Natural History and U.S. National Museum of Natural History. America has three of the four world class comprehensive natural history museums -FMNH, AMNH, USMNH. The 4th is the British Museum. The four museums mostly complement each other in their research interests and collections.
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Richard asked for our favorite museum experiences. Mine is easy - as a 5yr old looking up at the Barasaurus in the American Museum of Natural History rotunda for the first time. It inspired me to be a zoologist and I never looked back. I ultimately ended up working there as a teenager and as a postdoc. As a kid growing up in Queens it was my outlet to the natural world. Those early visits helped me become the professor of biology and curator of natural history at LSU.
9
Thank you for the thoughtful article, Richard. I live in Illinois but have worked for the American Museum of Natural History and on planetariums. Readers should know that Gov. Rauner's effects have also been aversive on education funding in the state too. Yesterday there was a very large protest by Chicago Teachers' Union members and others about what the state cuts are doing to Chicago schools. And it even goes further. There are at least two state colleges that are likely to close because of Rauner's union busting tactics.
I might add that I have had professional encounters with the museum official quoted from Houston. I was taken aback when I was on an informal science education panel a number of years ago when she suggested that science museums not present climate change science in planetariums. I guess I was only surprised until she took me aside afterwards and told me that it was because of the funding from the Texas oil sponsors of her museum.
When museums change their program to meet the goals of their sponsors or are shut down because of other governmental agendas, then it's the truth and science that suffer in the short term. But, as all of us scientists live thinking about much longer time frames, it's future generations and fellow species that will suffer the most.
I might add that I have had professional encounters with the museum official quoted from Houston. I was taken aback when I was on an informal science education panel a number of years ago when she suggested that science museums not present climate change science in planetariums. I guess I was only surprised until she took me aside afterwards and told me that it was because of the funding from the Texas oil sponsors of her museum.
When museums change their program to meet the goals of their sponsors or are shut down because of other governmental agendas, then it's the truth and science that suffer in the short term. But, as all of us scientists live thinking about much longer time frames, it's future generations and fellow species that will suffer the most.
37
The right wing businessman currently mishandling the Governor's office in Illinois is doing to that state what Brownback is doing to Kansas - ruining it in the name of an ideology that makes no sense but appeases his wealthy supporters. Shame on both of them.
2
As a teenager in the 1950's living in the NYC area, I visited the American Museum of Natural History frequently. I was fascinated especially by the Hall of North American Mammals, which introduced me to many of the great mammals of North America that live in distant wild places, far from my suburban habitat. Each animal was posed in a carefully reconstructed scene from a real natural area, with the painted backdrop and the natural materials in the foreground blended so expertly that it was hard to see where they merged. You could also rent an audio tour that included the sounds of running water and the animal's calls--a wolf pack in Minnesota, a Coyote howling by the Merced River in California. I immersed myself in each tableau, completely captivated by the recreated reality, which connected me directly to the great natural world beyond my urban surroundings. It was among the seminal experiences of my life, which has been enormously enriched by my love of the natural world. Natural History Museums touch the lives of so many young
people, opening doors to science and to love of the natural world that they might otherwise never find. In the words of Thornton Wilder: "Every good thing stands moment by moment on the edge of danger, and must be fought for." We must fight to protect these great institutions against the forces of ignorance and greed.
people, opening doors to science and to love of the natural world that they might otherwise never find. In the words of Thornton Wilder: "Every good thing stands moment by moment on the edge of danger, and must be fought for." We must fight to protect these great institutions against the forces of ignorance and greed.
14
Richard asked for our favorite museum experiences. Mine is easy - as a 5yr old looking up at the Barasaurus in the American Museum of Natural History rotunda for the first time. It inspired me to be a zoologist and I never looked back. I ultimately ended up working there as a teenager and as a postdoc. As a kid growing up in Queens it was my outlet to the natural world. Those early visits helped me become the professor of biology and curator of natural history at LSU.
22
I did work on Amazonian birds years and years ago, published many papers on them, and haven't been back since. I was able to visit the bird collection at the AMNH and I visited my old friends in the cabinets. Was a very emotional moment. Then I exited the main collection by walking into the wrong room, which locks behind you and with a broken elevator. The radiator made the sealed room about 120 F and I had to wait a miserable two hours before my phone had enough charge to call one of the curatorial assistants who said "I know exactly where you are." Collections are where diversity slaps you in the face.
5
I'm overdue for another visit to the Harvard Museum of Natural History, which I see as a Cabinet of Wonders. It's big enough to dazzle but not so large as to overwhelm. A recent highlight is the model of Tiktaalik roseae, one of the first fish to crawl out of the water nearly 400 million years ago. My favorite item is the foot-long dragonfly wing -- truly a wonder! But specimens of the extinct Carolina parakeet, Tasmanian tiger and Xerces Blue Butterfly all give reminders of the havoc we have caused in the natural world.
13
Gov Bruce Rauner (R) closed the Illinois State Museum in order to halt ground breaking research on human devolution, a new hominid species called Homo Trumpiens. Scientists fear this new sociopathic species may be an existential threat to all species because of genetic mutations that are being spread by agressive multiple mate interbreeding with Homo Sapiens.
Genetic aberations discovered in Homo Trumpiens create a preference for economic and nuclear war in gene sequences normally associated with the social cooperation that has been the hallmark of Homo Sapiens.
Scientists were studying a possible solution to the threat posed by Homo Trumpiens when the museum was closed. They have found that education blocks the expression of the Trumpiens genetic anomaly in successive generations.
Requests for DNA samples from Governor Rauner for genetic testing were denied by his office. The Governor later announced "necessary cuts to education to address our budget crisis".
Genetic aberations discovered in Homo Trumpiens create a preference for economic and nuclear war in gene sequences normally associated with the social cooperation that has been the hallmark of Homo Sapiens.
Scientists were studying a possible solution to the threat posed by Homo Trumpiens when the museum was closed. They have found that education blocks the expression of the Trumpiens genetic anomaly in successive generations.
Requests for DNA samples from Governor Rauner for genetic testing were denied by his office. The Governor later announced "necessary cuts to education to address our budget crisis".
17
I agree with Eric Grimm: the closing of the Illinois Museum seems to be nothing more than vandalism. While it is comparatively genteel, as it does not involve bombs and loss of life, the mindset that closes natural history museums reminds me of the willful destruction that ISIS is wreaking on the monuments of the ancient world. Anything that might teach or remind people of worlds and ideas beyond a narrow set of beliefs must be destroyed or at least damaged. It's dispiriting.
Some of the Illinois collection was moved to another museum where it can still be used, but defaulting the rest into storage means that opportunities for research are delayed or foreclosed and opportunities for the public to learn and enjoy simply come to an end. It's hard to comment on this without being a downer, but it is hard to see an upside -- unless the information galvanizes people into action. Support your local natural history museum by visiting, donating, and appreciating what they do.
Crucially, don't vote people into office who are disdainful toward education and suspicious of learning.
Some of the Illinois collection was moved to another museum where it can still be used, but defaulting the rest into storage means that opportunities for research are delayed or foreclosed and opportunities for the public to learn and enjoy simply come to an end. It's hard to comment on this without being a downer, but it is hard to see an upside -- unless the information galvanizes people into action. Support your local natural history museum by visiting, donating, and appreciating what they do.
Crucially, don't vote people into office who are disdainful toward education and suspicious of learning.
47
Then that means not voting members of the G.O.P. into office. While there are members of the party who are fine, educated people who became members while the G.O.P. was not yet the territory of Tea Party fanatics and Christian Fundamentalists, many of those around my age are victims of tunnel vision, or think that educated people are troublemakers and "nerds" who should mind their own business. Science? An evil thing, as it concerns evolution, genetics, and other such horrors which contradict the neat little world preached by the local pastors. So, what is better than to restrict access to museums of natural history, to cast a smoke screen over the damage done to biodiversity? I've watched children's eyes light up when they see all of those strange and wonderful exhibits - and afterwards, those same children literally bursting with questions, wanting to know! This innate curiosity in children and even adults should be crushed, replaced by know-nothing, malleable minds that will unquestioningly absorb whatever propaganda the politicians choose to foist on them.
15
Also, heartfelt admiration and thanks to Richard Conniff for his years of writing on the history of natural history.
4
I did not vote for nor do I support our Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner who closed the Illinois Natural Museum. An arrogant ignorant multimillionaire businessman with no political experience who is incapable of governing in a state where Democrats control both houses of the legislature and every other elected state wide office. Businessman are incapable of adhering to democratic principles and norms in order to govern fairly and effectively. Rick Scott in Florida and Rick Snyder in Michigan are Trumped up warnings of looming doom.
4
I've been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA, the Museum of Natural History, museums in Europe, the Smithsonian, the Cloisters, etc. In every case and with every visit I've learned something new or seen something that I didn't see before. I will always remember my visit as a first grader to the Museum of Natural History in NYC. My favorite part was seeing the whale (a sperm whale or blue whale?). I don't remember much more of the visit but that. The whale was so big and I was so little. I was entranced by it. There was room on this earth for something as big as that whale and a small six year old. From that point on nature fascinated me more than anything else. I like going to art museums too but that visit to the Museum of Natural History was the start of it. I still have the magnifying glass I purchased there.
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When her friend the ichthyologist , J L B Smith examined the carcase the world discovered a living example of a fossil fish that had been thought extinct for 65 million years.
We can experience the thrill of seeing this evolutionary link between fish and land animals at the American Museum of Natural History.