Artist Charles Willson Peale was making detailed drawings of fossilized bones when a relative’s off-hand comment sparked an idea in his mind—why not turn his art gallery into a museum of the natural world? People would come. People might even pay! His reputation as a portrait painter was growing;but so was the number of people living under his roof. Charles Willson Peale turned from his career as a successful portrait artist to become the proprietor of America’s first public museum. Then (nearly) all of it disappeared;and (nearly) everyone forgot about it. What was Peale’s Museum? And where did it go?

Unlike the wealthy person’s “cabinet of curiosity” that came before;Charles wanted the museum to be organized by the latest ideas in scientific thinking. He believed useful knowledge should be available to the public;and hoped that his museum might offer Americans a sense of their emerging identity as citizens of a new nation. He dreamed that his museum would become a national;public institution;countering European views of American inferiority. Home to groundbreaking innovations in paleontology;taxidermy;and the role of scientific order;the museum survived yellow fever;multiple moves;and ongoing financial challenges before eventually closing. Today it’s largely forgotten. Yet Peale’s legacy lives on in the very idea of a museum as a space combining education and entertainment