Museums - American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History was established in 1869 and is one of the world’s preeminent institutions for scientific research and education, with collections of more than thirty-two million specimens and artifacts. The museum’s zoology and paleontology collections, as well as its planetarium, are vivid memories for those who grew up in New York City.
The museum’s Division of Anthropology is dedicated to the study of human culture and biology. It was established in 1873, four years after the founding of the museum. Members of the division carry out ethnological research in Asia; Africa; and North, Central, and South America. Studies include such global topics as warfare and the origins of the state. One of the Anthropology Division’s most important missions is the preservation of and access to the archaeological, ethnological, and physical anthropology collections, assembled from around the world by museum personnel from the time of the museum’s founding to the present day. The collections include more than 500,000 objects from cultures in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Greater North Pacific region. They are irreplaceable cultural documents that provide a window into the lives of the people who produced them, and they are resources to be used again and again as new questions are asked about the human experience.
The North American ethnographic collection is one of the most comprehensive and well documented in the world, containing various types of artifacts from every Native American cultural region in North America. The Plains ethnological objects are the most significant of the holdings. They were obtained chiefly through the field work of some of the greatest figures in American anthropology. They are well documented both in the Anthropology Division records and in published monographs. The collection represents an extremely important scholarly resource as well as an irreplaceable national treasure to be preserved for future generations. The entire collection with over 49,000 objects is available online at anthro.amnh.org.
The African ethnographic collection dates to 1869, the year the museum was founded. The earliest material was donated by or bought from missionaries. Some material was obtained from European museums, auction houses, or received as gifts. At the end of the nineteenth century many explorers and travelers brought objects from Africa that were acquired by the museum. The African collection is extensive in terms of geographic coverage. It includes North Africa, West Africa, and Madagascar, although its greatest concentration of material is from central and southern Africa. The entire collection with over 37,000 objects is also available online. The museum’s library catalogue can be accessed at libcat.amnh.org.