Peabody Museum of Natural History

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This article is about the Peabody Museum at Yale. For the Peabody Museum at Harvard University see Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

The exterior of the Peabody Museum

The Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University was founded by the philanthropist George Peabody in 1866 at the behest of his nephew Othniel Charles Marsh, the early paleontologist. Most famous for its Great Hall of Dinosaurs, which includes a mounted juvenile Apatosaurus and the 110-foot long mural, The Age of Reptiles; it also has permanent exhibits dedicated to human and mammal evolution; wildlife dioramas, Egyptian artifacts; and the birds, minerals and Native Americans of Connecticut.

The bronze Torosaurus statue in front of the museum

The Peabody Museum is located at 170 Whitney Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, and is run by almost one hundred staff members. While the original building was demolished in 1917, it moved to its current location in 1925, and has since expanded to occupy the Peabody Museum, the attached Bingham and Kline Laboratories, parts of three additional buildings, and a field station at the Long Island Sound.It also owns land called Horse Island in the Thimble Islands that is not opened to the public, but used for experiments. Space is used for storage, work, and classrooms. A new Environmental Science Facility is planned, which will host one-half of the museum's 11 million specimens.

The Peabody has several world-important collections. Perhaps the most notable is the Hiram Bingham Collection of Incan artifacts from Machu Picchu, named for the famous Yale archaeologist who discovered this Peruvian ruin. Also notable is the William Robertson Coe Ornithology Library, one of the best in the United States.

1 Exhibits
2 Staff
3 History
4 Popular Culture
5 External links

[edit] Exhibits

Permanent exhibits include:

The Great Hall of Dinosaurs with the skeleton of an Apatosaurus .
- The Age of Reptiles Mural is a 110-foot long depiction of dinosaurs in their natural habitats. It was painted by Rudolph F. Zallinger, and is located in the Great Hall of Dinosaurs.
Fossil Fragments: The Riddle of Human Origins is a new exhibit dedicated to human evolution.
The Birds of Connecticut Hall has 722 specimens, representing more than 300 of the 382 documented species in the state of Connecticut.
There are a total of eleven dioramas on the plant and vertebrate ecology of Connecticut. They were designed by J. Perry Wilson, F. Lee Jaques, and Ralph C. Morrill.
The Hall of Mammalian Evolution.
An extensive collection of minerals, primarily from Connecticut.
Native American artifacts from Connecticut.
The Hall of Ancient Egyptian Artifacts.

[edit] Staff

The current director of the Peabody Museum is Michael J. Donoghue, the Curator of Botany and a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

The Peabody Museum has a total of ten curators, representing Anthropology, Botany, Entomology, Invertebrate Zoology, Invertebrate Paleontology, Vertebrate Zoology (which includes Herpetology, Ichthyology, Mammalogy, and Ornithology), Paleobotany, Vertebrate Paleontology, Mineralogy, Meteorites, and Historical Scientific Instruments.

There are almost 100 full and part-time staff, including curators, assistant curators, curators emeriti, curatorial affiliates, and volunteers. Curators and assistant curators are also faculty members in related departments.

[edit] History

Othniel Charles Marsh was an undergraduate and later the Professor of Paleontology at Yale University. His education was paid for by his wealthy uncle George Peabody, who began to donate much of his accumulated wealth to various educational institutions at the end of his life. At the request of his nephew, he founded Yale's Musem of Natural History in 1866 with a gift of $150,000.

Yale's collection at the time was mostly minerals, collected by the geologist and mineralogist Benjamin Silliman. Marsh was one of the museum's first three curators, and when Peabody died in 1869 he used his inheritance to fund expeditions which greatly increased the museum's collections. His primary interest was dinosaurs, and during the infamous period in paleontological history known as the Bone Wars, he discovered a total of 56 new species of dinosaur and shipped literally tons of fossils back from the American Southwest. His finds also included fossils of vertebrates and invertebrates, trackways of prehistoric animals, and archaeological and ethnological artifacts.

The museum officially opened to the public in 1876. In 1917, it was demolished and replaced by the Harkness Quadrangle dormitory. Due to World War I, most of the collections were put in storage until December, 1925, when the current building was dedicated. The new building had a great, 2-story hall designed specifically to hold Marsh's dinosaurs.

Some other significant events include:

In 1931, the mounting of Marsh's Apatosaurus was finished, after 6 years of work.
In 1947, Rudolph F. Zallinger finished painting dinosaurs in their natural habitats in his 110-foot long mural The Age of Reptiles, after 3-1/2 years of work.
In 1959, Bingham Laboratory was completed.
In 1963, Kline Laboratory was completed.
In 1972, the Birds of Connecticut Hall opened.
In 1997, plans were made for a new Environmental Science Facility.

[edit] Popular Culture

The museum was featured in The Simpsons episode Burns, Baby Burns. In the episode Mr. Burns has a relationship with Lily Bancroft and produce an illegitimate son played by Rodney Dangerfield. He flashes back to 1914 when he went to Yale University. They make love in the museum, specifically in an exhibit featuring eskimos. Although there is not an eskimo exhibit in the museum, it is very similar to the permanent diorama exhibits on the third floor.