The Peale Museum is a museum of paintings and natural history, located in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It is the oldest museum building in the Western Hemisphere. Locals may refer to it as the American Museum or simply as The Museum. The Peale Museum was created by Charles Willson Peale. The museum is managed by the Baltimore Historical Society. A museum is typically a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education enjoyment, the tangible and intangible evidence of people and their environment. ... The Mona Lisa is perhaps the best-known artistic painting in the Western world. ... Natural history is an umbrella term for what are now usually viewed as a number of distinct scientific disciplines. ... This article is about the city in the US state of Maryland. ... Official language(s) None Capital Annapolis Largest city Baltimore Area - Total - Width - Length - % water - Latitude - Longitude Ranked 42nd32,160 km²145 km400 km2137°53N to 39°43N75°4W to 79°33W Population - Total (2000) - Density Ranked 19th5,296,486165/km² (5th) Elevation - Highest point - Mean - Lowest point... Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 - February 22, 1827) was an American painter, soldier and naturalist. ...

Charles Peale received his inspiration for a public museum in 1783 while illustrating mastodon fossils belonging to Dr. John Morgan. Conceived of the idea for an American museum of natural history, Charles Peale opened a museum to the public in Philadelphia on July 18, 1786. In 1810, Charles retired from his work with the museum, leaving its management and responsibility to his sons. Later in 1814, a museum was established at 225 North Holliday Street by Rembrandt Peale - the second son of Charles Willson Peale. It was then dubbed as "Peale's Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts" and had the early exhibits including portraits of famous Americans (many by the founder) and the complete skeleton of a prehistoric mastodon exhumed by C.W. Peale in 1801. A Mastodon skeleton in museum in Bismarck, North Dakota. ... A fossil Ammonite Fossils are the mineralized remains of animals or plants or other traces such as footprints. ... Philadelphia is a village located in Jefferson County, New York. ... July 18 is the 199th day (200th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 166 days remaining. ... 1786 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Roman-Egyptian funeral portrait of a young boy A portrait is a painting, photograph, or other artistic representation of a person. ...

In 1830, the museum was sold and the exhibits were moved to a space on Calvert Street. In few years, the building became home to the Baltimore's first City Hall, Number 1 Colored Primary School and was rented out to a series of private businesses. By 1928, it had been repeatedly condemned and was in danger of demolition. With the inspiration of historians and journalists, the restoration of the old museum took place with an expense of $80,000. The building was rededicated in 1931 as the Municipal Museum of Baltimore. The Museum had undergone a major renovation from 1979 for two years and was reopened in 1981 as Peale Museum. In 1985, the Peale became part of the City Life Museums system.

Started with a combination of Peale's portraits of Revolutionary War heroes and an assortment of curiosities, the museum's collection, over time, became dominated the displays of animal, mineral, and ethnographic specimens. The museum became a repository for the collection of the American Philosophical Society, including many of the fossils donated by Thomas Jefferson. The centerpiece of Peale's Museum remains the skeleton of the giant mastodon. The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also known as the American War of Independence, was a war fought primarily between Great Britain and revolutionaries within thirteen of her North American colonies. ... Phyla Porifera (sponges) Ctenophora (comb jellies) Cnidaria (coral, jellyfish, anenomes) Placozoa (trichoplax) Subregnum Bilateria (bilateral symmetry) Acoelomorpha (basal) Orthonectida (flatworms, echinoderms, etc. ... This article is about minerals in the geologic sense; for nutrient minerals see dietary mineral; for the band see Mineral (band). ... Ethnography (from the Greek ethnos = nation and graphe = writing) refers to the qualitative description of human social phenomena, based on months or years of fieldwork. ... The American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743 by founding father Benjamin Franklin, continues to operate to this day. ... Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 N.S. – July 4, 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), author of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founders of the United States. ...

The museum occupied parts of two substantial buildings. The Independence Hall housed three rooms — The Quadruped Room displaying 90 specimens of mammals, The Long Room with more than 700 bird specimens situated in mini-dioramas, about 4000 insects in glass cases, numerous minerals and scores of Peale's portraits and a third room showcasing marine specimens. The walls of the museum were surmounted by a large collection of portraits of American politicians and leaders. In biology, specimen is an individual animal or a plant or a microorganism that is used as a representative to study the properties of the whole population of that species. ... Orders Subclass Monotremata Monotremata Subclass Marsupialia Didelphimorphia Paucituberculata Microbiotheria Dasyuromorphia Peramelemorphia Notoryctemorphia Diprotodontia Subclass Placentalia Xenarthra Dermoptera Desmostylia Scandentia Primates Rodentia Lagomorpha Insectivora Chiroptera Pholidota Carnivora Perissodactyla Artiodactyla Cetacea Afrosoricida Macroscelidea Tubulidentata Hyracoidea Proboscidea Sirenia The mammals are the class of vertebrate animals primarily characterized by the presence of mammary... Orders Many - see section below. ... A diorama is a partially three dimensional model of a landscape typically showing historical events, nature scenes, cityscapes, etc. ... Orders Subclass Apterygota Symphypleona - globular springtails Subclass Archaeognatha (jumping bristletails) Subclass Dicondylia Monura - extinct Thysanura (common bristletails) Subclass Pterygota Diaphanopteroidea - extinct Palaeodictyoptera - extinct Megasecoptera - extinct Archodonata - extinct Ephemeroptera (mayflies) Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) Infraclass Neoptera Blattodea (cockroaches) Mantodea (mantids) Isoptera (termites) Zoraptera Grylloblattodea Dermaptera (earwigs) Plecoptera (stoneflies) Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets... Marine is an umbrella term for things relating to the ocean, as with Marine biology, Marine geology, and as a term for a navy, etc. ...

Peale Museum also became the home for many of the Native American artifacts and natural history specimens collected during the Lewis and Clark and other government-sponsored expeditions. Assiniboin Boy, an Atsina Native Americans in the United States (also Indians, American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Peoples, Aboriginal Peoples, Aboriginal Americans, Amerindians, Amerinds, or Original Americans) are those indigenous peoples within the territory that is now encompassed by the continental United States, and their descendants in modern times. ... An artifact (also artefact) is a term coined by Sir Julian Huxley meaning any object or process resulting from human activity. ... The Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-1806) was the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back. ...

External links

• Peale's American Museum information from the Academy of Natural Sciences