Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture

Last updated

Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
Burke Museum logo.svg
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, Washington.jpg
Exterior of the Burke Museum
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
Established1899 (1899)
Location4303 Memorial Way Northeast, Seattle, Washington, United States
Coordinates 47°39′38″N122°18′39″W / 47.660570°N 122.310699°W / 47.660570; -122.310699
Type Natural history museum
Accreditation American Alliance of Museums [1]
Collection size16 million
Visitors104,000 (2017) [2]
DirectorGabriela Chavarria [3]
Owner University of Washington
Website www.burkemuseum.org OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture (commonly as Burke Museum) is a natural history museum on the campus of the University of Washington, in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is administered by the UW College of Arts and Sciences. Established in 1899 as the Washington State Museum, the museum traces its origins to a high school naturalist club formed in 1879. The museum is the oldest in Washington state and boasts a collection of more than 16 million artifacts, including the world's largest collection of spread bird wings. The Burke Museum is the official state museum of Washington.

Contents

History

Young Naturalists Society

The roots of the Burke Museum can be traced to a natural history club formed by high school students in the 19th century. The group was formed in December 1879 by students Edmond S. Meany, J. O. Young, P. Brooks Randolph, and Charles Denny. Denny's father, city founder Arthur Denny, was a regent of the Territorial University of Washington and arranged for the group to meet on campus. The Young Naturalists adopted a constitution and bylaws, and the official name "Young Naturalists Society", in 1880. As the founding members graduated high school and matriculated to the university, the membership of the Young Naturalists expanded to include university students. [4]

The Young Naturalists Society clubhouse in Seattle, pictured probably in the late 1800s. YoungNaturalistsClubhouse.jpg
The Young Naturalists Society clubhouse in Seattle, pictured probably in the late 1800s.

In 1882 Orson "Bug" Johnson (Orson Bennett Johnson [5] ) was retained as a biology instructor at the University of Washington, bringing 20,000 animal specimens with him. Johnson immediately involved himself with the Young Naturalists, and the addition of his collection gave the club the largest natural history collection in the Pacific Northwest. Under Johnson's direction, the Young Naturalists began expanding this nucleus of specimens and artifacts, which were stored in a backroom of the Denny home. [6] A permanent structure to house the growing collection was built on the Territorial University's campus in 1886, with the club soliciting donations to fund its construction. Many specimens in the collection were regularly borrowed by university faculty to assist in instruction. [7]

Orson "Bug" Johnson led the Young Naturalists to acquire the largest natural history collection in the Pacific Northwest. Orson Bennett Johnson.png
Orson "Bug" Johnson led the Young Naturalists to acquire the largest natural history collection in the Pacific Northwest.

In the 1890s Edmond Meany returned to teach history at the university. He led a revitalization of the group that he had helped found a decade before, bringing in new members, including women. By this point the society's collection had grown to include more than 60,000 specimens. [8]

Transition to the Washington State Museum

The University of Washington moved its campus from downtown Seattle to its present location in 1895. The portion of the Young Naturalists collection that had been used in university instruction was relocated to the university's Denny Hall while the remainder stayed in the Young Naturalists clubhouse downtown. In 1899 the Washington State Legislature designated the portion of Denny Hall used to house the collection as the Washington State Museum. [9] In 1904 the Young Naturalists voted to donate the rest of their collection to the Washington State Museum and disband. [4]

The 1909 Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition (AYP Expo) brought a boon of construction to the University of Washington's campus. When the fair ended, the Washington State Museum moved into its first dedicated building, the fair's former California Building.

Washington State Museum in the former Forestry Building in 1922. The building was constructed for the AYPE Exposition Washington State Museum, University of Washington campus, Seattle, 1922 (COBB 344).jpeg
Washington State Museum in the former Forestry Building in 1922. The building was constructed for the AYPE Exposition

Persistent leaks in that facility caused it to later relocate to the fair's former Forestry Building which, it was soon discovered, was infested with bark beetles. For four years, from 1923 to 1927, the museum's collections were disbursed around campus. [4]

The situation was finally resolved in 1927 when the museum moved into what had originally been constructed as the Washington State Building for the AYP Expo. [10]

This photograph of the Washington State Building, later the Washington State Museum, was taken probably in 1909. Washington State Building.jpg
This photograph of the Washington State Building, later the Washington State Museum, was taken probably in 1909.

In 1929, Erna Gunther became the museum's director, a post she would hold for more than 25 years. [4]

The museum found itself, once again, displaced in 1957 after its AYP Expo-era building was condemned. [4]

New name and buildings

When Thomas Burke died in 1925, his wife, Caroline McGilvra Burke, sought an appropriate monument for her husband that would "advance the cause of a better mutual understanding between ... the people of the Pacific shores." A collector of Native American artifacts herself, she bequeathed her personal collection to the museum following her death in 1932. The Burke estate offered to help fund a new state museum, with one major stipulation - the structure had to be named after Burke. Some University officials balked at this, as did Erna Gunther. The institution had been known as the Washington State Museum since 1899, and the Burke funds would only go toward a third of the construction costs. Other funds came from a National Science Foundation grant, but the new building was still smaller than one that Erna Gunther recommended. Nevertheless, the new facility was ultimately dedicated on May 3, 1964, with its new director, Walter A. Fairservis, at the helm. [4]

The new building under construction in early 2018 Burke Museum new building under construction, 2018.jpg
The new building under construction in early 2018

In 1996, the museum launched a ten-year plan to move its exhibition space off campus and into a downtown Seattle location. Under the proposal, curators and preservationists would continue to work at the University of Washington while exhibits would be hosted at a new site. The proposal ultimately did not materialize. In 2014, the museum made another push for a new facility, asking the Washington State Legislature for half the $95 million needed to construct a 110,000 square-foot facility to replace its current building. [11] The new Burke Museum building finished construction in 2018, and the old building closed at the end of the year to transfer the collection's 16 million items before its demolition in April 2019. [12] The new museum cost $106 million to construct and opened to the public on October 12, 2019. [13] The new building, designed by UW alum Tom Kundig, features large windows into research areas to showcase parts of the collection that were not previously exhibited. A garden with 60 species of Washington-native plants will be planted around the new building and its adjacent courtyard, designed to host small events. [14] The new museum also has a small cafe, Off the Rez, that serves Native American cuisine. [15]

Main entrance to the new Burke Museum building in January 2020. Burke Museum Main Entrance - 21 January 2020.jpg
Main entrance to the new Burke Museum building in January 2020.

Collections

Totem poles outside the Burke Museum Burke Museum totem poles 01.jpg
Totem poles outside the Burke Museum

The museum houses more than 16 million artifacts and specimens in its anthropology, biology, and geology research divisions. According to the museum, its ornithology division includes the largest collection of spread bird wings in the world, while the museum's collection of frozen bird tissues is the world's second largest. The Mammalogy Collection, which is managed by University of Washington professor and Burke Museum curator Sharlene Santana, contains more than 55,000 mammal specimens, and is regarded as the 10th largest collection of mammals in a North American university. [16] The museum states that its collection of Northwest Coast ethnographic material is the fifth largest collection of Native American art in the world, numbering 10,000 objects, among which are "the important early Swan, Eells, Emmons, and Waters collections, as well as the unmatched Blackman-Hall and Ottenberg contemporary silkscreen print collections, and the Steinman contemporary Northwest Coast sculpture collection." [17] The museum's Northwest Coast image research database includes "the Holm/Wright collection of images of Northwest Coast art from 200 museums and private collections, the Harris collection of Northwest Coast silver jewelry images, and de Menil photographs of Northwest Coast totem poles, as well as the George MacDonald Archive of historical Northwest Coast photographs." [17]

Exhibits

Past long-term exhibits

Prior to its temporary closure in 2018, the museum displayed three long-term exhibits: "Life and Times of Washington State", "Pacific Voices", and "Treasures of the Burke". "Life and Times of Washington State" was a natural history exhibit on the 545-million-year evolution of the Northwest region. Features of this exhibit included large-scale fossils such as an Allosaurus skeleton cast and a giant ground sloth fossil found during the construction of Sea-Tac International Airport. There were also displays that explained the geologic history of the area and its influence on the terrain and climate. [18]

"Pacific Voices" was a cultural exhibit that told the stories or traditions of 19 different Native American and Pacific Rim cultures through art, artifacts, ceremonial objects, and audio/visual documentaries. [19]

Temporary exhibits

The Burke also hosts a schedule of different exhibits throughout the year in its temporary gallery. These changing exhibits include traveling exhibits organized by other institutions and original exhibits curated by Burke staff. In November 2022 the Burke will host "Body Language: Reawakening Cultural Tattooing of the Northwest." [20]

Present long-term exhibits

The museum reopened in its new building on October 12, 2019, with several new exhibits: [13] "Culture is Living", "Northwest Native Art", "Amazing Life", "Our Material World", and "Fossils Uncovered". Each gallery focuses on a particular category of Washington State natural history and culture. [21] In "Culture is Living", patrons can engage with objects past and present and hear from community across the Pacific. [22] "Fossils Uncovered" includes one of the best-preserved T. rex skulls in the world, as well as numerous other fossils. [23]

Publications

The museum publishes a scientific journal, Burke Museum Contributions in Anthropology and Natural History, established in 1986. [24] [25]

Museum governance

Governing body

The museum is administered through the University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences; [26] the University of Washington Board of Regents serves as the museum's governing body.

BMA

The Burke Museum Association (BMA) is an organization made up of the Burke's Board of Trustees and an advisory council. Their mission is to actively support the Burke Museum by increasing public visibility, raising public and private funds to support programming and future expansion, and providing strong ties to the community.

Funding

In 2009, the museum had an annual budget of about $5 million, half of which came from an appropriation from the state of Washington. The budget did not include substantial in-kind support provided by the University of Washington as owner of the Burke property. Other sources of funding include interest from its endowment (10 percent), foundation grants and individual donations (27 percent), and admission fees and gift shop sales (13 percent). [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Washington</span> Public university in Seattle, Washington, US

The University of Washington is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Century 21 Exposition</span> Worlds fair held in Seattle, Washington

The Century 21 Exposition was a world's fair held April 21, 1962, to October 21, 1962, in Seattle, Washington, United States. Nearly 10 million people attended the fair during its six-month run.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition</span> 1909 exposition in Seattle, Washington

The Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition, acronym AYP or AYPE, was a world's fair held in Seattle in 1909 publicizing the development of the Pacific Northwest. It was originally planned for 1907 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Klondike Gold Rush, but the organizers learned of the Jamestown Exposition being held that same year and rescheduled.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Field Museum of Natural History</span> Natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois

The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational and scientific programs, and its extensive scientific specimen and artifact collections. The permanent exhibitions, which attract up to 2 million visitors annually, include fossils, current cultures from around the world, and interactive programming demonstrating today's urgent conservation needs. The museum is named in honor of its first major benefactor, Marshall Field, the department-store magnate. The museum and its collections originated from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and the artifacts displayed at the fair.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Museum of Natural History</span> Natural history museum in Manhattan, New York

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 20 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain about 32 million specimens of plants, animals, fungi, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum occupies more than 2,500,000 sq ft (232,258 m2). AMNH has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Museum of Natural History</span> Natural history museum in Washington, D.C.

The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 million visitors in 2023, it was the second most-visited museum in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florida Museum of Natural History</span> Natural history museum in Florida, United States

The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) is Florida's official state-sponsored and chartered natural history museum. Its main facilities are located at 3215 Hull Road on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History</span>

The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is the officially designated natural history museum for the State of Oklahoma, located on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. The museum was founded in 1899 by an act of the Oklahoma Territorial Legislature. Its current building was completed in 1999 under the leadership of Michael A. Mares, who was director from 1983-2003 and from 2008-2018. The museum contains more than 10 million objects and specimens in 12 collections. The current building is a 198,000-square-foot facility with almost 50,000 square feet of public space, with five permanent and two temporary galleries and exhibits that provide an in-depth tour of Oklahoma's natural and cultural history. The remainder of the facility is dedicated to housing museum collections, laboratories, libraries, and offices. It is one of the world's largest university-based natural history museums.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Kansas Natural History Museum</span> United States historic place

The University of Kansas Natural History Museum is part of the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute, a KU designated research center dedicated to the study of the life of the planet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Diego Natural History Museum</span> Natural history museum in California

The San Diego Natural History Museum is a museum located in Balboa Park in San Diego, California. It was founded in 1874 as the San Diego Society of Natural History. It is the second oldest scientific institution west of the Mississippi and the oldest in Southern California. The present location of the museum was dedicated on January 14, 1933. A major addition to the museum was dedicated in April 2001, doubling exhibit space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bell Museum of Natural History</span> Natural history museum of the University of Minnesota

The Bell Museum, formerly known as the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History, is located at the University of Minnesota's Saint Paul campus. The museum's current location on the Saint Paul campus opened in 2018. The Minnesota wildlife dioramas showcase animal specimens from around the world. The museum also houses the digital Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Planetarium. The museum is part of the university's College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. The museum's former location on University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus closed in January 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Natural and Cultural History</span> History museum in Eugene, Oregon

The University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History is a natural history museum on the University of Oregon campus, in Eugene, Oregon, United States of America. The museum headquarters and public spaces are located at 1680 East 15th Avenue in a building inspired by the design of Pacific Northwest Native longhouses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Iowa Museum of Natural History</span> Natural history museum in Iowa, US

The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum on the University of Iowa campus in Iowa City, Iowa. The museum was founded in 1858 by instruction of the Iowa General Assembly as the Cabinet of Natural History. It is housed within Macbride Hall, located in the Pentacrest area of the university campus. The museum's collections contain around 140,000 objects, including approximately 31,000 birds, eggs, and nests, 5,000 mammal specimens, 41,000 insects, 44,000 other invertebrates, 6,000 archaeological specimens, and historical documents and images from the museum's history. The museum includes several galleries on Iowa's geological and cultural history, biological diversity, and environmental science, spanning four floors. Major research collections include the Kallam Collection of prehistoric stone tools, the Talbot and Jones Bird Collections, the Frank Russell Collection of Inuit and Native Arctic artifacts, and the Philippine Collection of ethnographic materials from the 1904 World's Fair.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Michigan Museum of Natural History</span> United States historic place

The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History (UMMNH) is a natural history museum of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wesley Wehr</span> American artist and paleobotanist

Wesley Conrad Wehr was an American paleontologist and artist best known for his studies of Cenozoic fossil floras in western North America, the Stonerose Interpretive Center, and as a part of the Northwest School of art. Wehr published two books with University of Washington Press that chronicled his friendships with artists and scientists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Campus of the University of Washington</span>

The Campus of the University of Washington is located in the University District of Seattle. Campus buildings are categorized by the major street or vicinity on which they are located on campus. In 2011, Slate magazine and Travel+Leisure described the Seattle campus as one of the most beautiful university campuses in the United States.

<i>Corylopsis reedae</i> Extinct species of flowering plant

Corylopsis reedae is an extinct species of flowering plant in the family Hamamelidaceae known from fossil leaves found in the early Eocene Klondike Mountain Formation deposits of northern Washington state. C. readae is one of the oldest occurrences of the winter-hazel genus Corylopsis, which includes between seven and thirty species, all found in Asia. Fossils from two other occurrences are of similar age to C. readae, with Paleocene specimens from Greenland being placed in the form taxon Corylopsiphyllum and an Eocene Alaskan fossil being included in Corylopsis without species placement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleontology in Washington (state)</span>

Paleontology in Washington encompasses paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Washington. Washington has a rich fossil record spanning almost the entire geologic column. Its fossil record shows an unusually great diversity of preservational types including carbonization, petrifaction, permineralization, molds, and cast. Early Paleozoic Washington would come to be home to creatures like archaeocyathids, brachiopods, bryozoans, cephalopods, corals, and trilobites. While some Mesozoic fossils are known, few dinosaur remains have been found in the state. Only about two-thirds of the state's land mass had come together by the time the Mesozoic ended. In the Cenozoic the state's sea began to withdraw towards the west, while local terrestrial environments were home to a rich variety of trees and insects. Vertebrates would come to include the horse Hipparion, bison, camels, caribou, oreodonts. Later, during the Ice Age, the northern third of the state was covered in glaciers while creatures like bison, caribou, woolly mammoths, mastodons, and rhinoceros roamed elsewhere in the state. The Pleistocene Columbian Mammoth, Mammuthus columbi is the Washington state fossil.

References

  1. ↑ "Accredited Museums". aam-us.org. American Alliance of Museum. Archived from the original on March 14, 2016. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  2. 1 2 Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture Annual Report July 2008 - June 2009 (PDF). University of Washington. 2009. pp. 41–42. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 3, 2016. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  3. ↑ Leadership > College of Arts and Sciences > Executive Director Gabriela Chavarria
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Stein, Allan. "Burke Museum (Seattle)". historylink.org. HistoryInk. Retrieved January 18, 2015.
  5. ↑ Hatch, M.H. (1950). "An account of the life of Orson Bennett Johnson". In Hatch, Melville Harrison (ed.). Studies honoring Trevor Kincaid. University of Washington Press.
  6. ↑ Frykman, George (1998). Seattle's Historian and Promoter: The Life of Edmond Stephen Meany. WSU Press. pp. 8–9. ISBN   0874221684.
  7. ↑ Wills, Antoinette (2014). University of Washington (Campus History). Arcadia. p. 23. ISBN   978-1467131827.
  8. ↑ "Orson Bennett Johnson, the Young Naturalists, and the Birth of a Museum". washington.edu. Archived from the original on January 18, 2015. Retrieved January 18, 2015.
  9. ↑ "About Us". burkemuseum.org. Burke Museum. Archived from the original on November 2, 2015. Retrieved January 18, 2015.
  10. ↑ Dorpat, Paul (October 4, 2013). "Washington State Building, Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, ca. 1909". Seattle Times . Retrieved January 19, 2015.
  11. ↑ Jing, Zezshou (October 2, 2014). "Burke Museum raises funds for planned expansion". The Daily. Archived from the original on January 21, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  12. ↑ Kiley, Brendan (February 14, 2019). "How not to run anyone over with a dinosaur: The Burke Museum moves into its new digs". The Seattle Times. Retrieved April 6, 2019.
  13. 1 2 "New Burke Museum Opens October 12, 2019" (Press release). Burke Museum. July 25, 2019. Retrieved August 8, 2019.
  14. ↑ Berger, Knute (September 27, 2019). "Everything about the Pacific Northwest is on display at the new Burke Museum. Even the scientists". Crosscut.com . Retrieved September 27, 2019.
  15. ↑ de Luna, Ruby (October 9, 2019). "A Native-inspired café opens at Burke Museum. There will be frybread". KUOW. Retrieved October 12, 2019.
  16. ↑ "Mammalogy". Burke Museum. Retrieved May 12, 2021.
  17. 1 2 Ethnology Collections Database: About the collection Archived January 17, 2008, at the Wayback Machine ." Burke Museum.
  18. ↑ "Exhibits". Burke Museum. Archived from the original on October 21, 2018. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  19. ↑ Raghavan, Sumathi (November 2, 2018). "Pacific Voices legacy lives on at the New Burke". Burke Museum. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  20. ↑ "Body Language: Reawakening Cultural Tattooing of the Northwest". Burke Museum. Retrieved August 10, 2022.
  21. ↑ "Exhibits". Burke Museum. Retrieved August 10, 2022.
  22. ↑ "Culture is Living". Burke Museum. Retrieved August 10, 2022.
  23. ↑ "Fossils Uncovered". Burke Museum. Retrieved August 10, 2022.
  24. ↑ "Burke Museum Contributions in Anthropology and Natural History" (PDF). Retrieved December 23, 2023.
  25. ↑ "Burke Museum contributions in anthropology and natural history". WorldCat. Retrieved December 23, 2023.
  26. ↑ King, Marsha (May 18, 1996). "Growing Pains -- The Burke Museum Wants To Show Off More Goodies In Bigger Digs Downtown". The Seattle Times. Retrieved August 28, 2012.

47°39′39.5″N122°18′35.2″W / 47.660972°N 122.309778°W / 47.660972; -122.309778

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.