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Taken for Granite: Yale's Mighty Museums
A special BNH community forum examines areas of convergence and conflict between New Haven's cultural and corporate communities
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Business New Haven
6/9/2003
By: Priscilla Searles
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Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
Designed to appeal to young and old alike, Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History takes visitors through a time warp, tracing the days of saber-toothed cats and the mighty dinosaurs to Egyptian mummies and the not-so-long-ago heyday of Connecticut Indians.
Between 1870 and 1873 Othniel Charles Marsh, nephew of philanthropist George Peabody, led four Yale expeditions to the American West in search of fossils. (Today his most famous finds, the dinosaurs he named - Triceratops, Stegosaurus and Brontosaurus - dominate the Peabody's Great Hall.)
March convinced Peabody to include Yale in the planned distribution of his fortune. Thus the museum of natural history was founded in 1866 with a Peabody gift of $150,000 to be used for the construction of a building and the growth and maintenance of museum collections.
The collection began with a miscellaneous assortment of "natural and artificial curiosities" from around the world. Collected in the 19th century by Benjamin Silliman, Yale professor of chemistry and natural history, finds such as minerals were used in the teaching of geology and mineralogy. This collection became an important source of public entertainment.
The Peabody Museum was opened to the public in 1876. Quickly deemed too small to house the dinosaur bones from Marsh's expeditions, the original structure was demolished in 1917, making way for the Harkness Quadrangle. In World War I the collections were placed in storage, delaying construction of a new building.
The new building was dedicated in December 1925. The two-story high Great Hall was specifically designed to accommodate some of Marsh's dinosaurs. The mounting of the giant Brontosaurus was completed in 1931 after six years of labor. In 1947, Rudolph F. Zallinger concluded three and a half years of painting a 110-foot-long mural, "The Age of Reptiles," on the wall of the Great Hall.
Peabody Museum of Natural History, 170 Whitney Ave., New Haven. Admission $5 adults, $3 children ages 3-15 and seniors. Open 10 a.m. to 5p.m. daily, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Closed major holidays.
Yale University Art Galley
The oldest college art museum in the Western Hemisphere, the Yale University Art Gallery was founded in 1832, when Yale College received more than 100 historical paintings and portraits by and from patriot and artist John Trumbull. Since then the collections have grown to number more than 85,000 objects dating from ancient Egyptian times to the present.
The YUAG collections include Egyptian, Etruscan and Greek art, early Italian panel paintings, European, Asian and African art, impressionist, modernist and contemporary paintings and sculpture as well as changing selections from more than 30,000 master prints, drawings and photographs.
The gallery's collection of American paintings and decorative arts is considered one of the finest in the world.
The museum occupies two adjacent structures. Distinguished American architect Louis I. Kahn designed the main building, completed in 1953. Edgerton Swartwout's Italian Gothic art gallery, opened in 1928, is connected to the newer facility. The Kahn structure is presently undergoing its first major renovation in 50 years.
Yale University Art Galley, 111 Chapel St., New Haven, (203-432-0600). Admission free. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, until 8 p.m. Thursday, 1-6 p.m. Sunday.
Collection of Musical Instruments
Yale's collection of musical instruments was established in 1900 when Morris Steinert, erstwhile founder of the New Haven Symphony, presented to Yale his collection of keyboard instruments. The collection grew slowly for over half a century largely through donations from alumni.
The 1960 acquisition of the Belle Skinner Collection and the Emil Herrmann Collection two years later established the Yale collection as one of the world's most important repositories of musical instruments. In 1961 the collection was moved from its original location under the dome of Woolsey Hall to its own building at 15 Hillhouse Avenue.
Since 1970 the collection has nearly tripled in size, today comprising nearly 1,000 instruments, the majority representing the history of Western art music. The collection includes European and American string and wind instruments, an exhibit of pochettes (dancing masters' fiddles) and "Keyboard Instruments from Four Centuries: 1550-1950," which includes organs, clavichords, harpsichords and pianos. More than half of the 28 instruments currently on display are in fine playing condition.
Collection of Musical Instruments, 15 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven (203-432-0822). Admission $2. Open 1-4 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday. Closed July and August and during Yale recesses.
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
To truly appreciate the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, visit on a sunny day. The building, fabricated of Vermont marble and granite, bronze and glass, was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; the George A. Fuller Construction Co. was general contractor. The translucent marble panes of the exterior are one and one-quarter inches thick. The courtyard sculptures are by Isamu Noguchi, and represent the earth (pyramid), the sun (circle), and chance (cube).
One of the largest buildings in the world devoted entirely to rare books and manuscripts, the Beinecke has room in the central tower for 180,000 volumes and in the underground book stacks for more than 600,000 volumes. It currently houses some 500,000 volumes and several million manuscripts.
The library contains the principal rare books and literary manuscripts of Yale University and serves as a center for research by students, faculty and public readers.
The library contains five major collections: the General Collection of Rare Books and Manuscripts, the Collection of American Literature, the Collection of Western Americana, the German Literature Collection, and the Osborn Collection of English literary and historical manuscripts.
On permanent exhibition in cases on the mezzanine is a Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed from movable type, and Audubon's Birds of America. Special exhibitions are arranged throughout the year.
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, 121 Wall St., New Haven (203-432 2972). Exhibition area open 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays when Yale is in session (closed Saturdays in August).
Yale Center For British Art
The Yale Center for British Art is the last building designed by American architect Louis I. Kahn. It stands across the street from his first major commission, the Yale University Art Gallery.
The British art center houses the most comprehensive collection of British paintings, prints, drawings, rare books and sculpture outside Great Britain. Given to Yale University by Paul Mellon (Yale 1929), the museum's holdings illustrate British life and culture from the 16th century to the present.
The collection surveys the development of British art, life and thought from the Elizabethan period onwards. There is a special emphasis on works from the period between the birth of William Hogarth (1697) and the death of J.M.W. Turner (1851), considered by many to be the "golden age" of British art.
Yale Center For British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven (203-432-2800). Admission free. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday.
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