“The Field Museum Launches $250 Million Fundraising Campaign” by S.M. O’Connor

On Thursday, September 13, 2018, The Field Museum of Natural History announced a $250,000,000 fundraising campaign, “Because Earth. The Campaign for the Field Museum.” The Field Museum stated the funds raised will be spent to enable “the institution’s work to document environmental change, make the museum accessible to all audiences, and maintain its historic building on the lakefront.” The trustees had already commitments that total $201,000,000, of which $95,000,000 is for new endowments. The announcement took place last year as part of The Field Museum’s celebrations of the 125^th anniversary of its foundation in the aftermath of Chicago’s first World’s Fair, the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893).

“The Because Earth campaign signals who we are as an institution: a progressive place with a mission to protect our planet and make the wonders of the word accessible to everyone,” stated Dr. Richard Lariviere, President and C.E.O. of The Field Museum. “This campaign will safeguard and support our work, from protecting the Amazon rainforest to updating our exhibitions to make them more welcoming to our visitors regardless of ability, age, and language.”

“Today, fact-based science leadership is more important than ever,” stated “Because Earth” Co-Chairman Marshall Field V. “The Because Earth campaign will enable the Field to fulfill its potential as a global leader is research and science education.”

Mr. Field added, “It’s the most ambitious funding initiative in the Museum’s history, and one to which all of our Trustees have contributed.”

A major goal of this fundraising campaign is to garner $125,000,000 for the endowment (or half the total sum the trustees hope to bring in). “An endowment is important for institutions like the Field Museum because it’s a stable reserve of funding that we’ll rely on for decades to come,” stated Field.

By the time of the announcement, the fundraising campaign had already made a mark on The Field Museum. Citadel founder Kenneth C. Griffin was an early campaign donor. Through the Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund, he underwrote the creation of the “Griffin Dinosaur Experience.” This is comprised of five parts. Firstly, the installation of Máximo, a 122-foot-long replica of a Patagotitan mayorum (pronounced pat-uh-go-tie-tan my-or-um) in Stanley Field Hall. Secondly, the de-installation of the Tyrannosaurus rex SUE in Stanley Field Hall and re-installation (in a different stance that reflects scientific knowledge gained after she was originally installed) in a new gallery in The Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet. Thirdly, the traveling exhibit Antarctic Dinosaurs opened at The Field Museum on Friday, June 15, 2018 and ran through Sunday, January 6, 2019. [It will now go to the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, where it will be on display from Thursday, May 23, 2019 through Sunday, January 5, 2020.] Fourthly, The Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet received enhancements. Fifthly, The Field Museum developed a new dinosaur educational program.

Under a new initiative, The Field Museum had the text of exhibit labels for both Máximo and SUE in Spanish, as well as English. The institution further stated both exhibits “include multi-sensory experiences for museum visitors with different abilities.”

The Field Museum stated, “In addition to enabling the Field to create new exhibitions and revitalize its classic ones, the campaign will support research and conservation programs to help the Field document environmental change and fight for sustainable communities.”

“We are at a crucial point in our history in which we must take action to defend our planet,” stated Dr. Lariviere. “The Field Museum can and will play a major part in this fight, and this campaign will equip us with the resources we need to do so. I’m grateful to our trustees and donors for helping make all this possible. ‘Because Earth is a rallying cry in our community to ensure the Field Museum thrives and makes a difference for years to come.”

The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.