The History of the Field Museum: Natural Wonders and Natural Science

Since before I even came to the Field Museum as an intern, I’ve been interested in the museum’s history. Due to the World’s Fair exhibit that popped up this last year, it’s become common knowledge among visitors and locals that the structure of the Field Museum had it’s origins rooted in the World’s Columbian Exposition-or the Chicago World’s Fair-that was held in 1893 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ landing on American soil (no, he did not discover America). The Columbian Exposition came during a turbulent time; it was the turn of the century, American industrial morale was dwindling, but the air off of Lake Michigan, clouded with steam from the cargo trains and factories that had made Chicago a bustling bud of a metropolis, was filled with electricity. Not necessarily because Thomas Edison and the great Nikola Tesla were going head to head promoting their groundbreaking designs for light bulbs and electric currents (Tesla eventually won out with his alternating current, inspiring Edison to patent his light bulb, which he forbade the use of at the World’s Fair completely), but because such grandeur and the promise of exotic specimens from across the world lit a spark in the hearts of the thousands of Americans that came to Chicago for the greatest event of the century.

(http://haygenealogy.com/hay/1893fair/1893fair-night3.jpg)

In 1893, the building that the Field Museum first occupied was known as the Palace of Fine Arts. However, the Field’s collections outgrew the space that the building had to offer in the matter of a decade, forcing the Field’s specimens and staff to look for other options. Thus, in the first decade of the 20th century, plans for a new museum were set in motion. While several wealthy Chicagoans donated to the cause, the biggest benefactors were the Field family-namely Stanley Field-who donated a whopping two million dollars to the construction of a new home for the midwest’s most successful museum of natural history. And if two million dollars sounds like a puny amount to build a new museum with, the modern equivalent in USD is about fifty million smackers. The new museum was constructed almost completely in marble and still stands in its central location off of Grant Park. The great room that sits central to the museum is a gorgeous,  white, World’s Fair inspired structure aptly titled Stanley Field Hall.

(http://onmilwaukee.com/images/articles/fi/fieldmuseumchicago/fieldmuseumchicago_fullsize_story1.jpg?20100217012829)

Today, the museum houses over ten million specimens, and under 1% of those are actually on display. The museum’s archives and collections house billions of years of our universe’s history within its walls, serving as a constant reminder that the existence of such a conglomeration of specimens, as well as their discovery, and the basic foundation of human existence, is unprecedented and nothing short of miraculous. Most importantly, as our collections keep expanding to fill our building, our senses of wonder and discovery expand as well. And that, readers, is what inspired science at the turn of the last century, and the century before that since the dawn of the human race, and what will continue to inspire us for the rest of our existence.