| The American Museum of Natural History is a | | | | unlocked hours before the museum was closed. The |
| landmark on the Upper West Side, Manhattan, New | | | | Star of India and other gems were later recovered |
| York, USA. The museum has a scientific staff of more | | | | from a locker in a Miami bus station, but the Eagle |
| than 200, and sponsors over 100 special field | | | | Diamond was never found; it may have been recut or |
| expeditions each year.[1] | | | | lost.[citation needed] |
| History | | | | Famous names associated with the museum include |
| The Museum was founded in 1869 and until | | | | the paleontologist and geologist Henry Fairfield Osborn, |
| construction of the first building of the current complex | | | | president for many years; the dinosaur-hunter of the |
| was completed, was housed in the old Arsenal building | | | | Gobi Desert, Roy Chapman Andrews (one of the |
| in Central Park. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., the father of | | | | inspirations for Indiana Jones); George Gaylord |
| the 26th U.S. President, was one of the founders with | | | | Simpson; biologist Ernst Mayr; pioneer cultural |
| William E. Dodge, Jr., Joseph Choate, and J. Pierpont | | | | anthropologists Franz Boas and Margaret Mead; and |
| Morgan. The founding of the Museum realized the | | | | ornithologist Robert Cushman Murphy. J. P. Morgan |
| dream of naturalist Dr. Albert S. Bickmore. Bickmore, a | | | | was also among the famous benefactors of the |
| one-time student of Harvard zoologist Louis Agassiz, | | | | Museum. |
| lobbied tirelessly for years for the establishment of a | | | | Library |
| natural history museum in New York. His proposal, | | | | From its founding in 1869, the Library of the American |
| backed by his powerful sponsors, won the support of | | | | Museum of Natural History has grown into one of the |
| the Governor of New York, John Thompson Hoffman, | | | | world's great natural history collections. In its early |
| who signed a bill officially creating the American | | | | years, the Library expanded its collection mostly |
| Museum of Natural History on April 6, 1869. | | | | through such gifts as the John C. Jay conchological |
| In 1874, ground was broken for the first building, now | | | | library, the Carson Brevoort library on fihses and |
| hidden from view by the many buildings in the complex | | | | general zoology, the ornithological library of Daniel |
| that today occupy most of Manhattan Square. The | | | | Giraud Elliot, the Harry Edwards entomological library, |
| original neo-Gothic building(1874–1877), by | | | | the Hugh Jewett collection of voyages and travel and |
| Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, who were | | | | the Jules Marcou geology collection. In 1903 the |
| collaborating with Frederick Law Olmsted in structures | | | | American Ethnological Society deposited its library in |
| for Central Park, was soon eclipsed by the South | | | | the Museum and in 1905 the New York Academy of |
| range of the museum, by J. Cleaveland Cady, a robust | | | | Sciences followed suit by transferring its collection of |
| exercise in rusticated brownstone neo-Romanesque, | | | | 10,000 volumes. Today, the Library's collections contain |
| influenced by H. H. Richardson. A triumphal Roman | | | | over 450,000 volumes of monographs, serials, |
| entrance on Central Park West, (see illustration), the | | | | pamphlets and reprints, microforms, and original |
| New York State Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt | | | | illustrations, as well as film, photographic, archives and |
| completed by John Russell Pope in 1936, is an | | | | manuscripts, fine art, memorabilia and rare book |
| overscaled Beaux-Arts monument. It leads to a vast | | | | collections. The Library collects materials covering such |
| Roman basilica, where a cast of a skeleton of a | | | | subjects as mammalogy, geology, anthropology, |
| rearing Barosaurus defending her young from an | | | | entomology, herpetology, ichthyology, paleontology, |
| Allosaurus is not lost in the general monumentality. | | | | ethology, ornithology, mineralogy, invertebrates, |
| On October 29, 1964, the Star of India, along with | | | | systematics, ecology, oceanography, conchology, |
| several other precious gems including the Eagle | | | | exploration and travel, history of science, museology, |
| Diamond and the de Long Ruby, was stolen from the | | | | bibliography, and peripheral biological sciences. The |
| museum by several thieves. The group of burglars, | | | | collection is rich in retrospective materials - some going |
| which included Jack Murphy, gained entrance by | | | | back to the 15th century - that are difficult to find |
| climbing through a bathroom window they had | | | | elsewhere. |