The American Museum of Natural History 

 Its Work, Membership, and Publications 



The American Museum of Natural History was founded and incorporated in 

 1869 for the purpose of establishing a Museum and Library of Natural History; 

 of encouraging and developing the study of Natural Science; of advancing the 

 general knowledge of kindred subjects, and to that end, of furnishing popular 

 instruction. 



The Museum building is erected and largely maintained by New York City, 

 funds derived from issues of corporate stock providing for the construction of sec- 

 tions from time to time and also for cases, while an annual appropriation is made 

 for heating, lighting, the repair of the building and its general care and super- 

 vision. 



The Museum is open free to the public every day in the year ; on week days 

 from 9 A.M. to 5 p.m., on Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. 



The Museum not only maintains exhibits in anthropology and natural history, 

 including the famous habitat groups, designed especially to interest and instruct 

 the public, but also its library of 70,000 volumes on natural history, ethnology 

 and travel is used by the public as a reference library. 



The educational work of the Museum is carried on also by numerous lectures 

 to children, special series of lectures to the blind, provided for by the Thorne 

 Memorial Fund, and the issue to public schools of collections and lantern slides 

 illustrating various branches of nature study. There are in addition special series 

 of evening lectures for Members in the fall and spring of each year, and on Satur- 

 day mornings lectures for the children of Members. Among those who have 

 appeared in these lecture courses are Admiral Peary, Dean Worcester, Sir John 

 Murray, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the Prince of Monaco, and Theodore Roosevelt. 

 The following are the statistics for the year 1916 : 



Visitors at the Museum 847,675 



Attendance at Lectures 96,353 



Lantern Slides Sent out for Use in Schools 38,918 



School Children Peached by Nature Study Collections . . . 1,118,000 



Membership 



For the purchase or collection of specimens and their preparation, for research, 

 publication, and additions to the library, the Museum is dependent on its endow- 

 ment fund and its friends. The latter contribute either by direct subscriptions 

 or through the fund derived from the dues of Members, and this Membership 

 Fund is of particular importance from the fact that it may be devoted to such 

 purposes as the Trustees may deem most important, including the publication of 

 the Journal. There are now more than four thousand Members of the Museum 

 who are contributing to this work. If you believe that the Museum is doing a use- 

 ful service to science and to education, the Trustees invite you to lend your sup- 

 port by becoming a Member. 



