FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

museum in Chicago, Ill., established in 1893 as the Columbian Museum with a gift from Marshall Field (from whom it derived its present name in 1905). On his death in 1906, Field bequeathed generous sustaining funds and a sum to erect a new museum building (completed in 1921) to house exhibits, research collections, and a library primarily devoted to anthropology, botany, geology, and zoology. The American naturalist Carl Akeley, a member of the staff from 1895 to 1909, invented new methods of taxidermy and began the practice of displaying stuffed animals in dioramas, or painted scenes of their natural habitats. The Field Museum's research library contains more than 250,000 volumes.