Alabama Museum of Natural History facts for kids
View of the Grand Gallery of Smith Hall looking North.
|
|
| Established | 1831 |
|---|---|
| Location | Tuscaloosa, Alabama United States |
The Alabama Museum of Natural History is a special place in Tuscaloosa. It's Alabama's official natural history museum, found inside a building called Smith Hall at the University of Alabama. This museum is the oldest one in the state, first opening its doors in 1831.
When you visit, you can explore Alabama's amazing natural world from long, long ago. Imagine seeing things from the time of Dinosaurs, the "Coal Age" when giant plants grew, and even the "Ice Age" when huge glaciers covered parts of the Earth! The museum has many different collections. These include items about rocks and land (geology), animals (zoology), minerals, old fossils (paleontology), different cultures (ethnology), history, and even old photos.
One of the coolest things to see is in the Grand Gallery Exhibition Hall. There, you'll find a life-sized model of a Basilosaurus cetoides. This was a giant whale that lived during the Eocene epoch, millions of years ago. It's so important that it's been named Alabama's official State Fossil!
Other interesting exhibits include the skull of an American mastodon. This ancient elephant-like creature's skull was found in the Tombigbee River near Demopolis. You can also see the famous Hodges meteorite. This space rock actually hit a woman when it fell to Earth near Sylacauga on November 30, 1954! The museum also organizes special trips and research projects throughout the year, a tradition that started in 1979.
How the Museum Started
The building where the Alabama Museum of Natural History is located, Smith Hall, is named after a very important person: Eugene Allen Smith. He became the state geologist in 1873. For almost 40 years, he worked hard exploring, mapping, and collecting scientific items from all over Alabama.
The first stone for Smith Hall was placed on May 28, 1907. The building was finished in the fall of 1909 and officially opened on May 5, 1910.
Eugene A. Smith asked Herbert Huntington Smith (who was not related to him) to be the museum's curator. A curator is someone who manages a museum's collections. Herbert H. Smith led the museum from 1910 until he passed away in 1919. During this time, the museum was very busy collecting new items. They got many natural history objects by finding them, trading with other places, and receiving donations. They were especially interested in fossil and modern shells from Alabama. They collected many old shells and traded them with other museums and scientists.
Both Eugene and Herbert Smith were very generous. They sent specimens to researchers in Alabama and other states. This helped many scientific papers be written about Alabama's natural history. The museum also made its exhibits better and gave sets of identified natural history objects to schools across Alabama.
Herbert Smith's wife, Amelia “Daisy” Woolworth Smith, was also a collector and worked for the museum. However, her work wasn't widely known at the time because it was considered unusual for women to have such public roles. After her husband's sudden death, Daisy Smith took over as acting curator. This made her one of the few women to lead a natural history museum in the early 1900s. She worked to finish her late husband's projects about shells, getting help from other experts like Calvin Goodrich.
What Does Smith Hall Look Like?
Smith Hall has a three-story main part, which was built specifically for the Alabama Museum of Natural History. On each side, it has two-story wings. The north wing used to be for the Department of Biology, and the south wing was for the Department of Geology. Today, the Department of Geology uses both wings.
The way Smith Hall is designed is similar to some other big natural history museums built around the same time, in the early 1900s. You can see this style in museums in Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C..
The building is designed in a style called Beaux-Arts, which is a type of Classical Revival style. On the outside, you'll see a row of eight large Ionic columns. These columns stand on a raised ground floor, like a platform. The main entrance is on the ground level, through a stone doorway with a triangular top (called a pediment).
Right inside the entrance, there's a large central hall. A grand staircase made of Alabama marble and iron takes center stage. This staircase leads up to the Grand Gallery Exhibition Hall on the second floor. The Grand Gallery has a circle of huge Corinthian columns. These columns support a decorative band (an entablature) and a molding (a cornice) near the ceiling. The ceiling above is curved like a barrel, and it has skylights that let natural light fill the room.
See also
In Spanish: Museo de Historia Natural de Alabama para niños
