In the summer of 1786, an advertisement heralding the appearance of a revolutionary new institution appeared in the Pennsylvania Packet: “MR. PEALE, ever desirous to please and entertain the Public, will make a part of his House a Repository for Natural Curiosities—The Public he hopes will thereby be gratified in the sight of many of the Wonderful Works of Nature which are now closeted but seldom seen. The several articles will be classed and arranged according to their several species; and for greater ease to the Curious, on each piece will be inscribed the place from whence it came, and the name of the Donor, unless forbid, with such other information as may be necessary.…”

Portrait painter, soldier, politician, Charles Willson Peale had been living for two years with this idea, conceived in the upsurge of patriotic fervor which followed the Revolutionary War. Natural history was a new science. It promised a full understanding of oneself, one’s country, and the world. Excitingly presented, it would attract crowds and foster a rebirth of civilization in free America. This was the first museum of science with a program of popular education, and not until the founding of the American Museum of Natural History in 1869 would we have another like it—”a school of useful knowledge,” in Peale’s words, “to amuse and in the same moment to instruct the adult as well as the youth of each sex and age.”

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