The American Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan also where our Bluco firm is in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex consists of 26 interconnected buildings with 45 permanent exhibition halls, a planetarium, and a library. The museum’s collections comprise about 34 million plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural items. Only a tiny percentage can be displayed at any given time. The museum’s floor space exceeds 2 million square feet. The American Museum of Natural History employs 225 full-time scientists, offers 120 field trips annually, and receives 5 million visitors annually.

The AMNH is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Its aim is “to find, interpret, and share knowledge about human civilizations, the natural environment, and the universe through scientific research and teaching.”

Founding

Dr. Albert S. Bickmore, a naturalist, conceived the American Museum of Natural History in 1861. At the time, he was a student at Louis Agassiz’s Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bickmore observed, “New York is our wealthiest metropolis and therefore the finest location for the future natural history museum.” Bickmore fought for a museum for years. After the American Civil War, Bickmore solicited several influential New Yorkers, including William E. Dodge Jr., to fund his museum. Dodge was unable to support the museum at the moment, but he introduced the naturalist to Theodore Roosevelt Sr., the father of the future president of the United States.

Recreation For The Museum

Demand for a natural history museum surged when Barnum’s American Museum burnt in 1868. 18 prominent New Yorkers petitioned the Central Park Commission to open a natural history museum in December. Andrew Haswell Green, Central Park commissioner, supported the proposal in 1869. The museum board was formed. The board of directors overwhelmingly approved Bickmore and Choate’s museum charter the following month. This charter originally used “AMNH.” Bickmore imagined the museum would be like the British Museum in the U.S. Bickmore needed Boss Tweed’s permission to open the museum. John Thompson Hoffman, governor of New York and a Tweed associate, signed the law establishing the AMNH.

Establishment

On April 6, 1869, Hoffman signed the law establishing the museum, with John David Wolfe serving as its first president. In January 1870, Green authorized the American Museum of Natural History’s request to use Central Park’s Arsenal. Stones, fossils, animals, birds, fish, and reptiles were on the Arsenal’s upper level. The museum in the Arsenal opened on May 22, 1871. The AMNH gained popularity in subsequent years. In the first nine months of 1876, Arsenal received more visitors than the British Museum in 1874.

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