American Museum Of Natural History Essay

Museums serve as a way to connect with the public on a large scale, and the knowledge held within exhibits can be a fruitful experience for those who choose to visit these institutions. Experiencing all that a museum has to offer, no matter how well intentioned, can at times be confusing and overwhelming to the individuals visiting the site. The Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian dedicates itself to Native Americans in North and South America, and worked tirelessly with varying tribes to create a new standard. Some visitors and scholars found their work to be successful in design and approach while others found it to be lacking in execution. This institution does not approach Native American history in a familiar fashion; however it does cover an expansive period of time, and produces a great amount of detail while generating powerful emotions.

Never before have I seen a museum as grand as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. From its architecture to its massive art collection, The Met has a little bit of everything and one is sure to find something that captures his or her interest. Considering that The Met is the United States' largest art museum, it is easy to get lost within its many corridors and wings. My visit to The Met took place during the last week of July. Despite the almost unbearable heat and humidity that hung in the air, visiting museums under these climate conditions is a welcome respite from a suffocating, yet bright summer afternoon.

Quoted by Handler and Gable, critic Ada Louise Huxtable declares the newly constructed reproduction of Colonial Williamsburg as “too clean,” arguing that it “does not include the filth and stench that would have been commonplace.” (Source E) This sanitation of the truth completely misrepresents history, and the educational value greatly suffers. Conversely, the National Museum of the American Indian hopes to avoid this lack of judgment by dedicating itself to the “preservation, study, and exhibition of the life, languages, literature, history, and Arts of Native Americans.” (Source C) The main goal of the museum is to “span all major cultural areas” (C) and educate the public about and preserve the rich history of such a vast culture. The authenticity and significance of artifacts are important to representing culture and history, and the ability of these artifacts to educate should be a key factor of the selection process.

One summer my parents informed my brother Ben and I we were going on a trip to Yellowstone National Park. I had never been so excited for anything in my life. I had a passion and love for nature, and being that Yellowstone had some of the most beautiful and interesting geological features on Earth, I knew I would have a blast. They said we would be going in a few weeks, and I literally couldn’t wait. I kept asking questions upon questions, and finally, my dad just got annoyed. “Go research it, Juliette.” He said. “The internet will know more than I do.” I took his advice and went to research Yellowstone.

“Newberry Library: Lewis and Clark Exhibit.” Newberry Library: Lewis and Clark Exhibit, publications.newberry.org/lewisandclark/brilliantplan/gifts/weyekin.html. Accessed 1 Apr. 2017.

One of the greatest journeys in American history is the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Under President Thomas Jefferson’s orders, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark went on an 8,000 mile journey westward. The lands Lewis, Clark, and their men explored were purchased from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Over the next three years the two men would discover new plants, animals, landmarks, negotiate with Indian Tribes, and clear the way for Americans to settle in the west. I chose to do my research paper over Lewis and Clark, because it is important to appreciate the amount of knowledge they gave to all of America. I find Lewis and Clark’s numerous discoveries fascinating, because animals like the ground hog, which is so common to us today, were unheard of back in their time. Lewis and Clark helped people see the west side of North America in a new light, and helped prepare settlers for the west by teaching them things unfathomable at the time.

The museum’s exhibits contain hundreds of thousands of artifacts and historically significant items typical of what one finds in many science and history museums. But, what I found most interesting was the Shipwreck display, which brought to life a romantic vision of the swashbuckling times of yore that I read about when I was young.

National Geographic is generally read by middle-aged married males, averaging at around 47 years of age, with a high level of education and a high-end job. Socioeconomically, the readers tend to be in the middle-class bracket, with a household value of over $200,000 and a good-sized income. The reader’s general interests are tied into history, nature, anthropology, and archeology and they have a strong interest in learning more about the worlds’ new developments and discoveries as well as maintaining educational growth, and they are definitely scared of

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles offers a surface level depiction of Mesoamerican civilization and culture. It excludes essential information and instead gives a shallow representation that offers implications of a barbaric civilization.

The first chapter of the book discusses the way we can use fossil records to study the biological world. Fossils are one of the major lines of evidence we use to understand ourselves. Surprisingly, we are able to discover them with a high amount of precision and predictability. In particular, field paleontologists have it easier than it has ever been before due to the current information age. The physical hunt for important fossils, however, is much like it has always been. Three factors limiting the number of useful fossil sites include rock age, type (whether or not it can preserve fossils), and number of exposed rocks. So, it takes a bit of luck to reliably find fossils. Thankfully, rock

As the city of Chicago prepped for the 1893 World’s Fair Columbian Exposition, a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World, people all over the world brought artifacts to the city. To keep these artifacts in the city long after the Exposition ended, Edward Ayer and Marshall Field established the Columbian Museum. Built using Field’s money, Columbian Museum would go on to house world artifacts as well as function as a research institution. As time passed, the museum eventually changed names to the Field Museum of Natural History and moved buildings to its much larger current location on Museum Campus. Today, the Field Museum continues to be an innovating research institution and stable of the Chicagoland community.

The Alabama Natural History Museum represents a unique aspect of Alabama’s history that is often overlooked. Alabama’s rich geological and archeological history has created the ecosystem we know today, yet is rarely explored by the common Alabama citizen. Regardless,

I chose this museum because it is located in one the city’s oldest parks on the southeastern edge of downtown and allows us to visually experience what life was like in North Texas during the 19th and early 20th century. It is situated along a charming redbrick Main Street, and has 38 exquisitely restored building that are fully furnished buildings, some of which include-- a log cabin, a Greek Revival style mansion, a school house, a shotgun house and a farmstead that dates back to 1840 through 1910, and invite us to scrutinize the past through self-guided tours and winsome living history presentations. Added to the atmosphere are live farm animals and a host of reiterating events, costumed docents, that range from mock gunfights to historical replications.It makes us step back in time at this wonderfully bizarre, victorian-era park.

Native North Americans did not use wheels; sailing ships were unknown to them; they had no large domesticated animals such as horses, cows, or oxen; their use of metals was restricted to copper. However, the absence of these European conveniences mattered less to native North Americans than their own cultural adaptations to the natural environment local to each tribe and to the social environment among neighboring peoples. That great similarity—adaptation to natural and social environments—underlay all the cultural diversity among native North Americans.

The Natural History museum bears quite an intriguing heritage. The building is situated on a piece of land that used to be an agricultural fairground from 1872 until 1910. In the 1890s, a local attorney and Sunday school teacher, William Miller Bowen, became increasingly alarmed by the growing numbers of saloons, gambling events, and other vices that existed around the area. Years later, in 1909, he led the fight to convince the State, County, and City to develop the park as a cultural center. The plan proposed that the State would build an exposition building for California products, and the County would build a historical and