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American Museum of Natural History
Park West at 79th Street
New York, NY 10024-5192
(212) 769-5100
When the American Museum of Natural History opened to the public on April 6, 1869, a few hundred mounted birds and mammals were on view. Today, it is home to vast collections of insects, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, anthropological artifacts, and more fossil mammals and dinosaurs than any other museum in the world. It has more than 200 working scientists and welcomes millions of visitors each year.
Founded by young Harvard graduate, Albert Bickmore, the museum swiftly outgrew the Arsenal Building in Central Park. On June 2, 1874, President Ulysses S. Grant laid the cornerstone for the museum's permanent home in what would become known as Museum Park. The site now houses 23 buildings, including the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial on Central Park West and the Hayden Planetarium, which will reopen in 2000 as part of the new Rose Center for Earth and Space.
Within these walls and far, far beyond them, the American Museum of Natural History has pioneered scientific research and discovery, a process characterized by scientists of great vision and nerve. One was Henry Fairfield Osborn, whose fossil hunters raced west in the 1890s. Roy Chapman Andrew's famous Central Asiatic Expeditions found dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Dessert in 1935. Another legendary museum figure was scientist, explorer, writer and teacher, Margaret Mead, whose dedication to exploring history of life and what it means to be human exemplifies the Museum's ongoing purpose.
