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Special Feature
Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History Marks 150 Years
In 1866 the Yale Peabody Museum of
Natural History was founded with a gift
of $150,000 from international financier
George Peabody. This gift would fund
the care and growth of the University’s
collection of natural and ethnographical
objects, as well as the construction of a
museum building in which to house it.
Peabody’s nephew, O. C. Marsh, Professor
of Paleontology, was appointed the
museum’s first director. Using his own
personal inheritance, Marsh proceeded
to amass large collections of vertebrate
skeletons, vertebrate and invertebrate
fossils, fossil footprints, and archaeological
and ethnological artifacts for
the museum.
Since then, the collection has
grown to more than 13 million objects
representing the history of Earth, its
life, and its cultures. Now under the
dynamic leadership of director David K.
Skelly, the Frank R. Oastler Professor of
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale
School of Forestry and Environmental
Studies, the Peabody Museum is ready
for the next chapter in its story. This
year the museum is inaugurating the
David Friend Hall of Gems, increasing its
engagement with Yale students through
teaching from the collection, continuing
its pre-K–12 educational initiatives,
and expanding its collaborations with
campus partners.
The Peabody Museum and the Yale
University Art Gallery have a long history
of collection sharing, as sometimes
there is overlap in objects that are considered
fine art and those considered
anthropological specimens. Egyptian
objects from the Gallery’s collection
are currently on view at the Peabody
Museum in the display “Daily Life
in Ancient Egypt,” which highlights
research conducted by Yale faculty and
scholars. Some of the Peabody Museum’s
outstanding ancient American objects—
including its renowned Aztec calendar
stone from the 15th to early 16th
century—are on view in the Gallery’s
recently reinstalled Cornelia Cogswell
Rossi Foundation Gallery of Art of the
Ancient Americas.
The Gallery’s upcoming exhibition
Yosemite: Exploring the Incomparable
Valley takes advantage of the Peabody
Museum’s wealth of natural specimens
to present a cross-disciplinary approach
to Albert Bierstadt’s Yosemite Valley,
Glacier Point Trail (ca. 1873; see pages 8–9).
View of the Aztec
Relief of the Five Ages
(a.d. 1400–1521),
lent by Yale Peabody
Museum of Natural
History, installed
in the Gallery’s
Cornelia Cogswell
Rossi Foundation
Gallery of Art of the
Ancient Americas.
Courtesy Division
of Anthropology,
Peabody Museum of
Natural History (YPM.
ANT.09231)
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