Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences to Close Museum After 200 Years

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, the oldest natural history museum in the Americas, will permanently close its public exhibition space on Benjamin Franklin Parkway this month. The decision ends nearly two centuries of public access to a collection that includes the first dinosaur skeleton ever mounted for display and a vast array of dioramas that have defined Philadelphia school field trips for generations.[1][2][3]

The closure, announced by Drexel University, is driven by a combination of declining attendance and mounting financial deficits. The museum has struggled to recover its pre-pandemic visitor numbers, and the cost of maintaining the aging facility and its 19 million specimens has become unsustainable. Drexel, which affiliated with the Academy in 2011, stated that the institution will now pivot entirely to its core mission of scientific research.[1][2][4]

“This was an incredibly difficult decision, but it is the only path forward to ensure the long-term preservation of the Academy’s world-class collections and its vital research enterprise,” Drexel University President John Fry said in a statement. The university emphasized that the Academy itself is not dissolving; rather, it is shedding its public-facing museum operations to focus on environmental science, biodiversity, and climate research.[1][3]

The Academy was founded in 1812 by a group of amateur naturalists and opened its doors to the public in 1828. It moved to its current location on Logan Square in 1876. Over its 214-year history, it has amassed a collection of 19 million specimens, including plants, insects, fish, and fossils, many of which were collected during landmark expeditions in the 19th and early 20th centuries.[2][5]

The museum's most famous exhibit, the skeleton of Hadrosaurus foulkii, was discovered in Haddonfield, New Jersey, in 1858 and became the first dinosaur skeleton displayed anywhere in the world when it was mounted at the Academy in 1868. The fate of this and other iconic exhibits, such as the historic wildlife dioramas created in the 1920s and 1930s, remains uncertain as the institution transitions to a research-only model.[1][3][5]

The closure will result in the loss of approximately 40 jobs, primarily in visitor services, education, and exhibit design. Drexel has stated it will provide severance packages and outplacement support for affected employees. The research staff, curators, and scientists who manage the collections will be retained as the Academy integrates more deeply into the university's academic structure.[1][4]

The announcement has drawn dismay from Philadelphia's cultural and educational communities. For decades, the Academy has been a staple of the city's museum district, alongside the Franklin Institute and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Its closure removes a primary venue for early childhood science education in the region, leaving a gap in accessible natural history programming.[2][6]

While the public museum will close, the Academy's collections will remain accessible to researchers and scholars worldwide. Drexel plans to digitize more of the collection and create smaller, rotating exhibits that can be displayed in other university buildings or loaned to partner institutions. The final day for the public to visit the museum on the Parkway will be September 30.[1][3]