American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City.[5] Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 20 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain about 32 million specimens[6] of plants, animals, fungi, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum occupies more than 2,500,000 sq ft (232,258 m2). AMNH has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year,[7] and averages about five million visits annually.[8]
This article is about the museum in New York City. For the museum in Washington, D.C., see National Museum of Natural History.Established
April 6, 1869[1]
200 Central Park West
New York, N.Y. 10024
United States
5 million (2018)[2]
Lisa Gugenheim
New York City Bus:
M7, M10, M11, M79
New York City Subway:
trains at 81st Street–Museum of Natural History
train at 79th Street
1874
June 24, 1976
August 24, 1967
The AMNH is a private 501(c)(3) organization.[5] The naturalist Albert S. Bickmore devised the idea for the American Museum of Natural History in 1861, and, after several years of advocacy, the museum opened within Central Park's Arsenal on May 22, 1871. The museum's first purpose-built structure in Theodore Roosevelt Park was designed by Calvert Vaux and J. Wrey Mould and opened on December 22, 1877. Numerous wings have been added over the years, including the main entrance pavilion (named for Theodore Roosevelt) in 1936 and the Rose Center for Earth and Space in 2000.
Biodiversity and environmental halls[edit]
Hall of Biodiversity[edit]
The Hall of Biodiversity is underneath the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall.[157] It opened in May 1998. The hall primarily contains exhibits and objects highlighting the concept of biodiversity, the interactions between living organisms, and the negative impacts of extinction on biodiversity.[193][194] The hall includes a 2,500 sq ft (230 m2) diorama depicting the Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve rainforest with over 160 animal and plant species.[194][195] The diorama shows the rainforest in three states: pristine, altered by human activity, and destroyed by human activity.[193][194] Another attraction in the hall is "The Spectrum of Habitats", a video wall displaying footage of nine ecosystems. There is a "Transformation Wall", containing information and stories detailing changes to biodiversity, and a "Solutions Wall", containing suggestions on how to increase biodiversity.[194]
A Yakut shaman performs a healing rite in this diorama
A range of costumes worn by women in Islamic Asia
Assorted faceted and polished minerals
The Research Library is open to staff and public visitors, and is on the fourth floor of the museum.[297] The Library collects materials covering such subjects as mammalogy, earth and planetary science, astronomy and astrophysics, anthropology, entomology, herpetology, ichthyology, paleontology, ethology, ornithology, mineralogy, invertebrates, systematics, ecology, oceanography, conchology, exploration and travel, history of science, museology, bibliography, genomics, and peripheral biological sciences. The collection has many retrospective materials, some going back to the 15th century, that are difficult to find elsewhere.[298]
In its early years, the Library expanded its collection mostly through such gifts as John Clarkson Jay's conchological library,[299][300] Carson Brevoort's library on fishes and general zoology,[300][301] Daniel Giraud Elliot's ornithological library,[300][301] S. Lowell Elliot's collection of books and pamphlets on various subjects,[302] Harry Edwards's entomological library,[301][303] the Hugh Jewett collection of voyages and travel,[55] and Jules Marcou's geology collection.[303][304] In the 1900s, the library continued to grow with donations from figures and organizations such as Egbert Viele, the American Ethnological Society, Joel Asaph Allen, Hermon Carey Bumpus, and Henry Fairfield Osborn.[305]
The new Library was designed by the firm Roche-Dinkeloo in 1992. The space is 55,000 sq ft (5,100 m2) and includes five different "conservation zones", including the 50-person reading room, public offices, and temperature- and humidity-controlled rooms.[306] Today, the Library's collections contain over 550,000 volumes of monographs, serials, pamphlets, reprints, microforms, and original illustrations, as well as film, photographic, archives and manuscripts, fine art, memorabilia and rare book collections.
Special collections include:
Notable people[edit]
Presidents[edit]
The museum's first three presidents were all cofounders.[16][17] John David Wolfe served from 1869 until his death in 1872;[328] he was followed by Robert L. Stuart, who resigned in 1881.[329][330] The third president, Morris K. Jesup, was president for over 25 years, serving until his death in 1908.[331] Upon his death, Jesup bequeathed $1 million to the museum.[332]
The fourth president, Henry Fairfield Osborn, appointed on the death of Jesup, consolidated the museum's expansion and developed it further.[331] Under Osborn, the museum embraced a growing eugenics movement.[333] Osborn's friend, noted eugenicist Madison Grant, a member of the museum's executive committee, was the author of the 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race. He also was a funder and shaper of the 1921 Second International Congress of Eugenics, held at the museum.[334] Davenport presided also the 1932 Third International Eugenics Congress.[335]
After Osborn resigned in 1933, F. Trubee Davison became the AMNH's fifth president.[336][337] Davison stepped down in 1951, and Alexander M. White was elected as the museum's president.[338] Gardner D. Stout then served as president from 1968 to 1975, when Robert Guestier Goelet was elected in his place.[339] Goelet served until 1987, when he was placed on the board of trustees. He was succeeded by George D. Langdon Jr., the first president in the museum's history to receive a salary; all previous presidents had served without pay.[340]
Ellen V. Futter became the museum's first female president in 1993.[341][342] Futter announced in June 2022 that she planned to step down when the Gilder Center opened in March 2023.[343] Sean M. Decatur was named as Futter's successor in December 2022 and became the first African American president of the museum on April 3, 2023.[3][344]
Other associated names[edit]
Famous names associated with the museum include the dinosaur-hunter of the Gobi Desert, Roy Chapman Andrews (one of the inspirations for Indiana Jones);[345] photographer Yvette Borup Andrews; George Gaylord Simpson; biologist Ernst Mayr; pioneer cultural anthropologists Franz Boas and Margaret Mead; explorer and geographer Alexander H. Rice Jr.; and ornithologist Robert Cushman Murphy.
Surroundings[edit]
The museum is at 79th Street and Central Park West. There is a direct entrance into the museum from the New York City Subway's 81st Street–Museum of Natural History station, served by the B and C trains.[346]
On a pedestal outside the museum's Columbus Avenue entrance is a stainless steel time capsule, which was created after a design competition that was won by Santiago Calatrava. The capsule was sealed at the beginning of 2000, to mark the beginning of the 3rd millennium. It takes the form of a folded saddle-shaped volume, symmetrical on multiple axes, that explores formal properties of folded spherical frames. Calatrava described it as "a flower". The capsule is to be opened in the year 3000.[347]
The museum is in a 17-acre (69,000 m2) city park known as Theodore Roosevelt Park that extends from Central Park West to Columbus Avenue, and from West 77th to 81st Streets and that contains park benches, gardens and lawns, and also a dog run.[348] On the west side of the park, between 80th and 81st Streets near Columbus Avenue, is the Nobel Monument honoring Nobel Prize winners from the United States.[349][350]
Controversy[edit]
On May 13, 2024, Lorenzo Prendini, a curator of the museum specializing in entomology, was arrested by police in Istanbul Airport on suspicion of smuggling animals from Turkey after 1,500 arachnid specimen and samples were discovered on his luggage. Prendini said he had permits from the Turkish government to collect the items as part of his research.[351]
The museum is featured in many works of art and popular culture, including: