Gantz Family Collections Center
Building, caring for, and sharing the Field Museum's collections to promote research, learning, and discovery
So much more than meets the (public) eye
Home to more than 40 million items—from the towering, 28-foot-long Titanosaur Patagotitan mayorum to the delicately spiraled shell of the miniscule sea snail Alvania microglypta, only about 1% of our collections are on public display. The rest of these items are helping solve fundamental questions about Earth, its diverse plant and animal life, and its human cultures past and present.
The Gantz Family Collections Center is a unique resource whose impact reaches far beyond the museum walls. The vaults hold unparalleled primary data on the biological, social, and earth sciences for the international scientific community. As the foundation of Field Museum exhibitions, they inspire discovery, wonder, and curiosity in visitors of all ages. As a reference library, the collections help inform the work of students, teachers, naturalists, and citizen-scientists.
Facts
History
Since their establishment, the Field Museum’s collections have helped set the standard for museum collections worldwide. First assembled from items displayed in the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1983, they contain animals, plants, minerals, fossils, and cultural items from around the globe and across millennia.
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Projects
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Repatriation, Tribal Relations, and Provenance Research
Using an emerging approach to collections stewardship, the Gantz Family Collections Center provides Field Museum staff with opportunities to build relationships and collaborations with cultural heritage communities. In partnership with the Center for Repatriation, Tribal Relations, and Provenance Research, Collections Center staff help to reunite cultural items and human remains with lineal descendants and descendant communities in North America and around the world.
