The Field Museum of Natural History, also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. One of the largest museums in the world, it maintains a collection of over 24 million specimens and objects that spans 4.6 billion years of history. These include fossils, minerals, meteorites, plants, animals, human cultural artifacts, and more. The Field Museum’s collections are displayed throughout its permanent exhibitions and on rotating exhibitions that change periodically.
Founded in 1893 by a group of businessmen led by Marshall Field and Samuel Nickerson with the intent to house their scientific collections from the World’s Columbian Exposition two years earlier, the museum opened its doors to the public for the first time on June 2nd 1894. Since then it has undergone several expansions – most notably in 1921 when architect Dankmar Adler added a new wing – and continues to be one of Chicago’s most popular tourist destinations with over two million visitors each year. In addition to its impressive physical space and holdings, The Field Museum is also home to extensive online resources including an interactive website and digital collections.