The Academy of Natural Sciences has permanently closed its museum doors after 200 years of serving the Philadelphia community. The museum struggled to stay afloat for years because of rising costs and fewer visitors after the pandemic. The decision was also influenced by struggles with declining enrollment at Drexel University, the academy’s owner.
While dioramas, fossils, and exhibits will be closed, research will continue. The academy holds more than 19 million specimens, ranging from the fossilized tusk of a mastodon to local magnolia leaves.
Although research will continue, it is undeniable that the museum became a key part of the academy’s identity. The museum solidified itself as Philadelphia’s premier natural history museum, appearing on several notable tours around our city. Besides tourism, the museum produced millions of fond memories from field trips, birthday parties, and spontaneous visits alike. During its last month, in the Outside-In Discovery Center, an exhibit focused on live specimens, each wall was adorned with notes. All of these notes said goodbye to the beloved museum in their own unique way.
“This is my first time here,” one note read. “It is beyond saddening that it will be my last.”
I resonated with this sadness. Even though I had begged my parents to go with me as a child, until I heard of their closing, I had not thought about the place, let alone gone, in years.
This feeling of loss was shared by many. While I walked the halls, surrounded by insects, arachnids, and mammals of all kinds, I was glad to know that so many people felt the same connection to the academy as I did: stories of families visiting over multiple generations, a man proposing to his wife in Dinosaur Hall, father-and-son bonding time, and so much more.
“The scenes of bobcats with small birds in their mouths or confrontations between different ungulates had been the academy’s way of creating stories about how these animals ended up this way.”
ALEX FENTON ’28
As I said goodbye to the sticky-note-covered room, a pink note plastered on an artificial tree stump caught my eye.
“If the youth can’t connect with wildlife, they won’t protect it,” it read.
The scenes of bobcats with small birds in their mouths or confrontations between different ungulates had been the academy’s way of creating stories about how these animals ended up this way.
Despite this, interest in the natural world and its history is waning, and the closing of the museum represents yet another devastating loss to the field. An article in Scientific American by Jennifer Frazer notes that interest in natural history has steadily declined since World War II. This shift has been influenced by the growing popularity of the hard sciences, which have become more important with the presence of nuclear weapons and modern medicine. As a result of this cultural shift, more biology students are choosing to specialize in a field like biochemistry or cellular biology, while the natural sciences are left to the wayside.
Whether or not the natural sciences will continue to exist, the building holds history. After all, the academy houses specimens from as far back as Louis and Clark’s expedition, and the museum was the first of its kind to display a mounted dinosaur skeleton to the public.
Although the museum permanently closed on September 30th, an article from NBC 10 Philadelphia notes that certain city council members are hoping to set aside special funds for the museum, which could involve a possible reopening. If not, it is likely that the building will be sold privately, considering that Drexel has already had the property evaluated.
While walking down the staircase under a plesiosaur skeleton, I wondered how many times I had visited the museum and how many dinosaur miniatures at the gift shop I had begged my mother to buy. Once outside, I took one final look. The Deinonychus statue still caught my eye, just as it did when I first visited, years ago.
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