Institutional Exchanges

Under the Natural History Society the museum established significant connections with institutions across North America and around the world. These relationships often led to institutional exchanges whereby the museum would send local specimens to another museum or society in exchange for specimens or artefacts from that institution. These exchanges gave the museum collections of artefacts they would not otherwise have been able to acquire. They also solidified the museum’s importance at the time as both a collector of international artefacts and purveyor of scientific specimens.