The Field Museum history

Since opening the Museum in 1894, our collection has grown to nearly 40 million artifacts and specimens.

In 1896, Carl Akeley and David Giraud Elliot traveled to Africa, the first expedition there organized by a North American museum.

Akeley’s 1902 series of dioramas depicting the white-tailed deer in spring, summer, fall, and winter, known as the Four Seasons, set the standard for taxidermy and museum habitat groups for decades to come.

While still in its Jackson Park location, the Field Museum (along with the Art Institute ) underwent an important administrative change in 1903.

In 1905, when the Field Columbian Museum became The Field Museum of Natural History, Director Skiff provided the explanation:

The building, designed by architect Peirce Anderson of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, cost $7 million to build and was part of Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago.

Starting with a gift of $250,000 made by Norman Harris in 1911, the museum has also sponsored extensive outreach programs for schoolchildren.

After much deliberation on the site and style of the museum’s new home, construction began in 1915 on a new building at a site near Grant Park.

In 1918, the plans for the Museum were altered to allow the Museum to act as a hospital during World War I. Though the Board of Trustees reluctantly gave in to the agreement, the government cancelled the contract before any recovering soldiers were ever seen at the Field.

In March 1920, crews began the arduous task of moving the museum’s collection to its new home.

In 1921, the Museum moved from its original location in Jackson Park to its present site on Chicago Park District property near downtown.

Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium opened in 1930, joining the Field on Chicago’s lakefront south of Grant Park.

The annual event, developed to share the Museum’s research and growing collections with the public, began in 1951.

The team’s mission: translate the Field Museum’s rigorous science into direct action for conservation and cultural understanding. It started with a small group of researchers, spearheaded by Debra Moskovits, who has served on the Museum’s staff since 1985.

In 1998, the “Museum Campus” was officially completed after crews removed the roadways that bisected the campus and created walkable areas of green space that visitors enjoy now.

In 2000, SUE, the largest T. rex specimen ever discovered, was unveiled to an adoring public that shares our passion for paleontology.

After the museum purchased SUE, staffers spent more than 30,000 hours preparing the skeleton (plus another 20,000 hours building the exhibit). In 2018, SUE was moved from Stanley Field Hall to a private suite in the Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet.