An Exploration of the Field Museum

Field Museum is located on Chicago Lake Michigan shore, the museum opened its current building to the public in 1921. Their collection grew out of items on display in the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Field Museum’s name still honors Marshall Field, who donated $1 million to make the collective dream of a permanent museum a reality. Since opening the Museum in 1894, their collection has grown to nearly 40 million artifacts and specimens. They continue to research the objects in their collections, as well as document previously unknown species, conserve ecosystems in the backyard and across the globe, educate budding scientists, invite cross-cultural conversation, and more all to ensure that the planet thrives for generations to come.

The museum has around 40 million specimens and artifacts in their collection. More than 150 scientists and researchers travel to the far corners of the world in search of new discoveries and clues to what life was like hundreds, thousands, and millions of years ago. Edward Ayer become the museum’s first president, and was the one to call Field to ask for his support to museum. Then Field offered to donate $1 million to the museum. Field’s contribution ensured the success and permanence of a great museum in Chicago. Their donations helped purchase the first collections of what would soon become the Columbian Museum of Chicago.

Animal exhibitions comprise an important part of the museum and allow visitors to track the evolution of species in the world. Animal exhibitions give the broad overview of the evolution of animals on the Earth and how they changed. In this regard, the exhibition of dinosaurs is particularly attractive but the museum also offers the possibility to track the development of the animal world as different species emerged and changes in the course of time, while some disappears and new ones took their place. Such exhibitions give a sense of eternity of life as species emerge and vanish but the life goes on and new species take their place. Animal exhibitions reveal the enormous diversity of species but also visitors learn how important it is to maintain the biodiversity for the survival of the life and the planet. This idea is particularly important today, when biodiversity faces a steep decline because of the climate change, human activities, and other negative factors. However, when one looks at exhibitions of the museum, one can hardly get rid of impression that humans are just another species that emerged, spread worldwide and will disappear one day. At any rate, this was my impression after visiting the museum and looking at exhibitions dedicated to evolution, animals, and humans.

The focus on extinct species is particularly noteworthy because it shows how the life on the planet evolved and how species became extinct. Such exhibitions help to understand reasons of the species’ extinction and how they became extinct. This information may help to understand mechanism of species’ extinction and its effects on other species and the entire planet. The experience of extinct species shows that species are vulnerable to numerous threats and many species have vanished because they were unable to adapt to changes in their environment and new threats that have emerged and threatened them contribute to their extinction. This means that the present problem of the extinction of species is not new for the Earth but the problem is that today the extinction of species and the reduction of biodiversity are as fast as they have never probably been before. This is why the visit to the museum can make visitors think of who is the next in the line to disappear and one can never be certain that humans are not in the line and their time has not come yet.

At the same time, the museum offers the broad overview of how the planet evolved in the course of time. Such exhibitions help to understand the development of the planet in global terms and how the planet changed throughout its history. Exhibitions dedicated to the evolution of the planet uncover how processes that occur on the planet and species inhabiting the planet are interrelated and influence each other. The study of the past of the planet reveals the fact that events that take place on one side of the globe may affect the life of people on the other side. Such exhibitions help to get a broader view of the development of the planet and the life on the planet. Even though the concept of evolution may be questionable and some people do not accept this concept at all, but the change of species and their progress as well as the evolution of the planet, which involved geological and climatic changes along with many other changes, have resulted in the profound change of the Earth. The museum uncovers the distant past of the Earth which looks like absolutely different planet, when visitors look back thousands and millions years ago into the distant past of the planet.

Also, Field Museum has exhibitions dedicated to the rise of mankind and the evolution of humans from first species that were ancestors of contemporary humans to contemporary humans. The evolution of humans is very interesting because it helps to track the origin of humans and how they changed under the impact of their environment and other factors that ultimately led to the transformation of early human-like species to contemporary humans. Frankly, people often have some supremacist attitude and view on themselves, on the mankind as a species. The homini exhibition reveals the evolution of human ancestors and gives insights into the early steps made by prehistoric humans. At the same time, homini exhibition reveals how complex the evolution was and the human ancestry line is not as clear as one may believe. Field Museum has a rich collection of early humans and ancestors of humans. Such collections allow tracking different branches of the development of homini and how different kinds evolved.

However, after visiting the museum, I have got the feeling that humans are probably quite successful as species but they are not much different from others and the exceptionality of humans is rather a social construct, a myth promoted by the human culture, but this myth disappears and may be ruined in a way by human science. A look at exhibitions that show early humans allows getting a view on ancestors of the contemporary human kind. The existence of humans or species that preceded humans makes Darwin’s theory and theories of his proponents quite plausible, especially if one looks right into the eyes of a prehistoric man or another ancestor of the human race.

By the way, the exhibits dedicated to racism, including science-based racism are particularly noteworthy. The exhibition uncovers different aspects of racism and how different tools are used to spread racist ideas to the extent that science may also serves purposes of racism. In this regard, racism has a scientific basis that makes it particularly challenging to overcome. In such a way, the museum uncovers the full extent to which racism may influence human activities and different aspects of their life, including art, science, education, and culture. The problem of racism is not only a cultural issue but it is also a scientific problem that leads to the development of serious challenges and issues related to the discrimination of minority groups by the majority. The visit to the museum helps to understand how racism works and how racist ideas emerge, especially when all tools aim at the promotion of the idea of racial inequality and the difference between people belonging to different racial groups.

In such a context, the anthropology exhibition is particularly noteworthy because it gives insights into the life of people in different parts of the world, such as Tahiti, for example. The acquaintance with diverse cultures and life of people living in different parts of the world expands visitors’ worldview and increases the interest to anthropology as a science. Anthropology exhibitions also uncover how the life of people differs and what are values of people living in different parts of the world.

The museum also dedicates a lot of spaces to cultural halls, which contribute to the cultural enrichment of visitors, who learn a lot of new information about different cultures of different epochs. For example, I was particularly impressed by the culture of antiquity which was quite different from the contemporary culture but which actually laid foundation to many important concepts and ideas which have survived to the present moment. Cultural halls are very inspiring and interesting to me because they uncover diverse cultures that exist now or existed in the past. The acquaintance with diverse cultures helps to get a broader view on culture and people that have a different cultural background. At this point, I can refer to my personal experience since the acquaintance with new cultures and their diversity make me think of my own cultural background and attitude of people with a different cultural background. The difference is quite interesting and if people cannot understand motives of actions of some people or their rituals. While visiting a museum, one can learn that people might have very strange beliefs and rituals but that does not make them any worse or better.

At the same time, Field Museum uncovers the world of ancient Americas to visitors that helps to get insight into the life of first settlers and inhabitants of the continent as well as rich culture of Native Americans, which inhabited the territory of the US, Canada, and other parts of North and South Americas. This was a true discovery for me since the ancient world of Americas turns out to be much richer than I expected since people living in America developed civilizations which had a very high level of development with the development of religion, culture, economy, and technology. In this regard, the spiritual life of people inhabiting America before the arrival of European settlers was rich and they create a complex system of beliefs and their worldview often developed the idea of the unity of man and nature. The system of beliefs of Americans inhabiting the continent varied substantially throughout North and South America, but their views were original, authentic and worth learning.

On the other hand, the museum offers exhibitions dedicated not only to the historical past but also to scientific studies in different fields. In this regard, the study in the field of DNA was particularly interesting to me since the exhibition contained not only findings in the field of DNA but also ways of the application of the knowledge and scientific findings to real life situations. For example, the exhibition shows how the DNA analysis helped to track the relation between ancestors of contemporary humans. Such scientific findings are very important and help to understand how science can contribute to the better understanding of our world and ourselves.

Thus, the visit to Field Museum was a very fruitful experience and uncovered different worlds which remain hidden from the average people concerned with their daily routine. The museum uncovers the universe of the distant past, the evolution of the Earth, different species, and humans. Field Museum also gives insight into the past of the mankind and helps to track the evolution and development of humans and different civilizations throughout the world. The museum also uncovers the diversity of cultures that existed in the past and still exist in the contemporary world. Also Field Museum reveals the close correlation between science and studies conducted in different fields. The museum uncovers many interesting facts and broadens visitors’ eyesight substantially. This is why Field Museum is an important cultural and scientific venue.

Works Cited:

Field Museum. (2018). Official Website. https://www.fieldmuseum.org/

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]
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