Peabody Museum of Salem

The Peabody Museum of Salem (1915–1992), formerly the Peabody Academy of Science (1865–1915), was a museum and antiquarian society based in Salem, Massachusetts. The academy was organized in part as a successor to the East India Marine Society (founded 1799), which had become moribund but held a large collection of maritime materials in a museum collection at the East India Marine Hall, built in 1825 on Essex Street. The Peabody Museum was merged with the Essex Institute to form the Peabody Essex Museum in 1992. The East India Marine Hall, now embedded within the latter's modern structure, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965 in recognition of this heritage, which represents the nation's oldest continuously-operating museum collection.

History

The Peabody Academy of Science (1868–1915), successor to the East India Marine Society, "was organized in 1868, having received funds ... from George Peabody of London ... for the 'promotion of science and useful knowledge in the county of Essex.'" It was incorporated by "Asa Gray, of Cambridge, William C. Endicott, of Salem, George Peabody Russell, of Salem, Othniel C. Marsh, of New Haven, ... Henry Wheatland, of Salem, Abner C. Goodell, junior, of Salem, James R. Nichols, of Haverhill, ... Henry C. Perkins, of Newburyport, and S. Endicott Peabody.

Peabody Museum

The Peabody Museum can refer to:

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, with particular focus on the ethnography and archaeology of the Americas. The Museum is caretaker to over 1.2 million objects, some 900 linear feet of documents, 2,000 maps and site plans, and approximately 500,000 photographs. The Museum is located at Divinity Avenue on the Harvard University campus. The Museum is one of the four Harvard Museums of Science & Culture open to the public.

History

The Museum was established as a gift from George Peabody, a native of South Danvers (now Peabody), a wealthy American financier and philanthropist on On October 8, 1866. Peabody committed $150,000 to be used, according to the terms of the trust, to establish the position of Peabody Professor-Curator, to purchase artifacts, and to construct a building to house its collections. Peabody directed his trustees to organize the construction of "a suitable fireproof museum building, upon land to be given for that purpose, free of cost or rental, by the President and Fellows of Harvard College." The Museum opened its first exhibition consisting of a small number of prehistoric artifacts from the Merrimack Valley in Harvard University's Boylston Hall in 1867. In 1877, the long-awaited museum building was completed and ready for occupancy. The building that houses the Peabody was expanded in 1888 and again in 1913.