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 Museum 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 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 (34 m) 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 2001, The interdisciplinary Environmental Science Facility was constructed. It houses collections space for the museum and laboratory space for several curators.
Read more about this topic: Peabody Museum Of Natural History
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