National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 million visitors in 2023, it was the third most-visited museum in the United States.
Opened in 1910, the museum on the National Mall was one of the first Smithsonian buildings constructed exclusively to hold the national collections and research facilities. The main building has an overall area of with of exhibition and public space and houses over 1,000 employees.
The museum's collections contain over 146 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, the largest natural history collection in the world. It is also home to about 185 professional natural history scientists—the largest group of scientists dedicated to the study of natural and cultural history in the world.
History
1846–1911
The United States National Museum was founded in 1846 as part of the Smithsonian Institution. The museum was initially housed in the Smithsonian Institution Building, which is better known today as the Smithsonian Castle. A formal exhibit hall opened in 1858. The growing collection led to the construction of a new building, the National Museum Building. Covering a then-enormous, it was built in just 15 months at a cost of $310,000. It opened in March 1881.Congress authorized construction of a new building on June 28, 1902. On January 29, 1903, a special committee composed of members of Congress and representatives from the Smithsonian's board of regents published a report asking Congress to fund a much larger structure than originally planned. The regents began considering sites for the new building in March, and by April 12 settled on a site on the north side of B Street NW between 9th and 12th Streets. The D.C. architectural firm of Hornblower & Marshall was chosen to design the structure. Testing of the soil for the foundations was set for July 1903, with construction expected to take three years.
The Natural History Building opened its doors to the public on March 17, 1910, in order to provide the Smithsonian Institution with more space for collections and research. The building was not fully completed until June 1911. The structure cost $3.5 million dollars. The Neoclassical style building was the first structure constructed on the north side of the National Mall as part of the 1901 McMillan Commission plan. In addition to the Smithsonian's natural history collection, it also housed the American history, art, and cultural collections.
1981–2003
Between 1981 and 2003, the National Museum of Natural History had 11 permanent and acting directors. The directors included: Richard S. Fiske ; James C. Tyler ; and Robert S. Hoffmann.Frank Talbot, ichthyologist and former director of the Australian Museum and California Academy of Sciences, served as director from 1989 until 1994. He was the first Australian to ever be appointed to this role.
Two acting directors served before Robert W. Fri was named the museum's director in 1996. One of the largest donations in Smithsonian history was made during Fri's tenure. Kenneth E. Behring donated $20 million in 1997 to modernize the museum. Fri resigned in 2001 after disagreeing with Smithsonian leadership over the reorganization of the museum's scientific research programs.
J. Dennis O'Connor, provost of the Smithsonian Institution was named acting director of the museum on July 25, 2001. Eight months later, O'Conner resigned to become the vice president of research and dean of the graduate school at the University of Maryland. Douglas Erwin, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History, was appointed interim director in June 2002.
2003–2007
In January 2003, the Smithsonian announced that Cristián Samper, a Colombian with an M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, would become the museum's permanent director on March 31, 2003. Samper founded the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute and ran the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute after 2001. Smithsonian officials said Samper's administrative experience proved critical in his appointment. Under Samper's direction, the museum opened the $100 million Behring Hall of Mammals in November 2003, received $60 million in 2004 for the Sant Hall of Oceans, and received a $1 million gift from Tiffany & Co. for the purchase of precious gems for the National Gem Collection.On March 25, 2007, Lawrence M. Small, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and the organization's highest-ranking appointed official, resigned abruptly after public reports of lavish spending.
2007–2012
On March 27, 2007, Samper was appointed Acting Secretary of the Smithsonian. Paul G. Risser, former chancellor of the University of Oklahoma, was named acting director of the Museum of Natural History on March 29.In May 2007, Robert Sullivan, the former associate director in charge of exhibitions at the National Museum of Natural History, charged that Samper and Smithsonian Undersecretary for Science David Evans ordered "last minute" changes in the exhibit "Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely" to tone down the role of human beings in the discussion of global warming, and to make global warming seem more uncertain than originally depicted. Samper denied that he knew of any scientific objections to the changes, and said that no political pressure had been applied to the Smithsonian to make the changes. In November 2007, The Washington Post reported that an interagency group of scientists from the Department of the Interior, NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and National Science Foundation believed that, despite Samper's denial, the museum "acted to avoid criticism from congressional appropriators and global-warming skeptics in the Bush administration". The changes were discussed as early as mid-August 2005, and Dr. Waleed Abdalati, manager of NASA's Cryospheric Sciences Program, noted at the time that "There was some discussion of the political sensitivities of the exhibit."
Although the exhibit was due to open in October 2005, the Post reported that Samper ordered a six-month delay to allow for even further changes. The newspaper also reported that it had obtained a memo drafted by Samper shortly after October 15, 2005, in which Samper said the museum should not "replicate" work by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A few weeks later, a NOAA climate researcher advised a superior that the delay was due to "the debate within the administration and the science community over the existence and cause of global warming". During the delay, Samper asked high-level officials in other government agencies and departments to review the script for the exhibit, ordered his museum staff to make additional changes, and rearranged the sequence of the exhibit panels so that the discussion of climate change was not immediately encountered by museum visitors. Shortly before the exhibit opened in April 2006, officials at NOAA and the United States Department of Commerce expressed to their superiors their opinion that the exhibit had been changed to accommodate political concerns. In an interview with The Washington Post in November 2007, Samper said he felt the exhibit displayed a scientific certainty that did not exist, and expressed his belief that the museum should present evidence on both sides and let the public make up its own mind.
The issue became more heated after the press reported that Samper gave permission for the museum to accept a $5 million donation from American Petroleum Institute that would support the museum's soon-to-be-opened Hall of Oceans. Two members of the Smithsonian Institution's Board of Regents questioned whether the donation was a conflict of interest. Before the board could consider the donation, the donor withdrew the offer.
Risser resigned as acting director of the museum on January 22, 2008, in order to return to his position at the University of Oklahoma. No new acting director was named at that time. Six weeks later, the Smithsonian regents chose Georgia Tech president G. Wayne Clough as the new Secretary. Samper stepped down to return to his position as Director of the National Museum of Natural History.
In June 2008, the Victoria and Roger Sant family donated $15 million to endow the new Ocean Hall at the museum. The museum celebrated the 50th anniversary of its acquisition of the Hope Diamond in August 2009 by giving the gemstone its own exhibit and a new setting. In March 2010, the museum opened its $21 million human evolution hall.
In January 2012, Samper said he was stepping down from the National Museum of Natural History to become president and chief executive officer of the Wildlife Conservation Society. Two months later, the museum announced it had received a $35 million gift to renovate its dinosaur hall, and a month later the Sant family donated another $10 million to endow the director's position. On July 25, 2012, Kirk Johnson, vice president of research and collections at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, was named Samper's successor effective October 29, 2012. By 2013, as Sant Director, Johnson oversaw a museum with 460 employees and a $68 million budget. A four-year was released in 2021. The museum's Mall building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.
Research and collections
Research in the museum is divided into seven departments: anthropology, botany, entomology, invertebrate zoology, mineral sciences, paleobiology, vertebrate zoology.The NMNH represents 90% of the Smithsonian Institution's collections and forms one of the largest, most comprehensive natural history collection in the world. The Smithsonian gives an approximate number for artifacts and specimens of 146 million. More specifically, the collections include 30 million insects, 4.5 million plants preserved in the Museum's herbarium, and 7 million fish stored in liquid-filled jars. The National Collection of Amphibians and Reptiles has more than tripled from 190,000 specimen records 1970 to over 580,000 specimen records in 2020. Of the 2 million cultural artifacts, 400,000 are photographs housed in the National Anthropological Archives. Through off-site active loan and exchange programs, the museum's collections can be accessed. As a result, 3.5 million specimens are out on loan every year. The rest of the collections not on display are stored in the non-public research areas of the museum and at the Museum Support Center, located in Suitland, Maryland. Other facilities include a marine science center in Ft. Pierce, Florida and field stations in Belize, Alaska, and Kenya.
The museum is estimated to hold more than 5000 Native American remains that have not been repatriated. Some of these may belong to the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
One collection of nearly a million specimens of birds, reptiles, and mammals kept at the museum has been maintained by the Biological Survey unit of the U.S. Geological Survey. This division had started in 1885 as an economic ornithology unit of the Agriculture Department. Clarence Birdseye and Clinton Hart Merriam had worked in this organization. As of February 2018, the unit's funding is planned to be cut, and it is not clear what would happen to the collection.