American Museum of Natural History
Painting Actuality: the Diorama Art of James Perry Wilson (1889-1976)
Projects by NYU Students in Museum Studies working with Anthropological Photographs
Albert Smith Bickmore, one-time student of Harvard zoologist Louis Agassiz, suceeded in his proposal to create a natural history museum in New York City, winning the support of William E. Dodge, Jr., Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., Joseph Choate, and J. Pierpont Morgan. The Governor of New York, John Thompson Hoffman, signs a bill officially creating the American Museum of Natural History in 1869.
The Roosevelt Museum of Natural History opened its doors in 1867. Among its first specimens was the skull of a seal that had washed up in New York Harbor, begged from its owner by the museum's founder, 8 year old Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
In 1882, after being elected to the New York State Legislature, Roosevelt donated the bulk of the Roosevelt Museum of Natural History to the Smithsonian Institution.
In 1913, Theodore Roosevelt took his last major trek into the wilderness-this time to the Amazon on an expedition sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History. He and his companions traveled more than 1000 miles on the previously uncharted Rio da Duvida (River of Doubt), collecting 3000 specimens. (See: PBS notes to accompany TR: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt)
