American Museum of Natural History Research Library
author: American Museum of Natural History

American Museum of Natural History. Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals.; American Museum of Natural History. Hall of North American Mammals.; Hall of North American Mammals; North American Mammals; North American Mammal Hall; Mammals of North America; North American Hall; North American Hall of Mammals; Hall of Mammals of North America
birth: 1942
death: present
Permanent exhibition. Opened April 8, 1942. Located on Floor 1, Section 13. The Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History features habitat dioramas of mammal species with each diorama depicting a particular time of year and day in specific North American locations (1, 1967). The hall was completed in 1954, 12 years following its opening in 1942. Additional dioramas of smaller species of North American Mammals can be found in the adjacent Hall of Small Mammals. The hall underwent one refurbishment in the 1980s (2, 1981/82, p. 48; 2, 1984/85, p. 52) and a major restoration in 2012 along with the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall (3). More than 25 Museum expeditions contributed to the hall, including the James Perry Wilson Expedition to Wyoming (1938) (4, 2001, p. 26). The original curator for the hall was Harold Anthony; artists for the dioramas included George Adams, Belmore Browne, James L. Clark, Albert E. Butler, James Carmel, Gardell Christensen, Raymond deLucia, Joseph Guerry, George Frederick Mason, George Petersen, Robert Rockwell, Carl Rungius, Charles Tornell, James Perry Wilson, and Paul M. Wright. Major donors and expedition financiers included Harold Clark, Harry P. Davison, Wilton Lloyd Smith, Robert McConnell, Richard K. Mellon, Harvey S. Mudd, and Beverly R. Robinson (6; 7, 2006, p. 167-168) .
The hall succeeds an earlier hall, the Allen Hall of North American Mammals, which displayed mammal specimens in cases. Many of the dioramas in the Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals represent President Theodore Roosevelt's conservation legacy with scenes from national parks, preserves, monuments, and refuges (5). The various locations for the dioramas include Denali National Park, Alaska, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, Devil's Tower National Monument, Wyoming, Box Canyon, Sonora, Mexico, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, and Bear Mountain State Park, New York. At the entrance to the hall are two mini-dioramas depicting ice age scenes of extinct mammals in present-day Alaska and California (6, 1943, p. 97; 5).
In 2012, the Hall of North American Mammals underwent a major restoration with a team of artists recoloring fur, cleaning foreground materials, and restoring background paintings. Text for the dioramas was updated with the latest scientific information about featured species and geographic locations (5).
The complete list of dioramas is as follows:
Ice Age Animals, Alaska (mini-diorama)
Ice Age Animals, California (mini-diorama)
Alaska Moose
Alaska Brown Bear
American Bison and Pronghorn Antelope
Bighorn Sheep
Black Bear
Black-tailed and Antelope Jackrabbit
Canadian Lynx and Snowshoe Hare
Caribou (Grant's Caribou)
Caribou (Osborn Caribou)
Cougar (Mountain Lion)
Coyote
Dall Sheep
Eastern Cottontail Rabbit
Fisher and Porcupine
Gray Fox and Opossum
Grizzly Bear
Jaguar
Mountain Beaver
Mountain Goat
Mule Deer
Muskox
North American Beaver
Raccoon
Spotted Skunk and Ringtail
Striped Skunk
Wapiti
Western Gray Squirrel
Whitetailed Deer
Wolf (5; 7, 2006, p. 167-168)