The Manitoba Museum, previously the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature, is a human and natural history museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as well as the province's largest, not-for-profit centre for heritage and science education.
Located close to City Hall, the museum was designed in 1965 by Herbert Henry Gatenby Moody of Moody and Moore. Including its Planetarium and Science Gallery exhibit, the museum focuses on collecting, researching, and sharing Manitoba's human and natural heritage, culture, and environment.
The Hudson's Bay Company donated its historic three-centuries-old collection (and supporting funds) to the museum in 1994, becoming the largest corporate donation ever received by the museum. The Institute for Stained Glass in Canada has documented the stained glass at the museum.
History
Background
In 1879, the Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba officially began to collect and preserve its heritage at some unknown location. In the early 1890s, E. Thompson Seton wrote about the Manitoba Museum, which was reportedly housed in the basement of Winnipeg's City Hall. Though, as of 1900, there was no public museum in Winnipeg, there were significant private collectors: from 1911 to the early 1920s, material from their collections was exhibited in the Exposition Building of the former Winnipeg Industrial Bureau at Main Street and Water. The present museum holds some of these collections although most were dispersed.
In 1932, the Natural History Society of Manitoba, the Winnipeg Board of Trade, and the Auditorium Commission founded the Manitoba Museum Association. Soon thereafter, the Manitoba Museum officially opened its doors on 15 December 1932 in the newly built Winnipeg Civic Auditorium (now the Archives of Manitoba Building) on Memorial Boulevard alongside the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG). The museum remained in that location with the WAG until 1967.
Critical support for outreach programs and exhibits came from the Carnegie Corporation and Junior League. Professors at the University of Manitoba, formerly the Manitoba Agriculture College, played significant roles in the museum's development. The museum was run by volunteer honorary curators, with assistance from other dedicated volunteers and a small staff.
As the museum grew in acquisitions and attendance, the need for an expanded facility became critical. So, in 1954, the Board began planning a new institution, which would reflect the values of the time, consulting extensively with the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium. Funding came in large part from federal project sources designed to create new Canadian cultural facilities for the 1967 Canadian Centennial commemoration.
Establishment
In 1964, a proposal for a museum and planetarium was submitted to the Manitoba government headed by Premier Duff Roblin. The proposal stated that:Manitoba needs a Modern Museum of Man and Nature. Not a collection of stuffed birds, antiquated firearms or dusty rocks – but a living history of man and his environment, tracing the evolution of Manitoba's resources, industry and culture, past and present, and pointing the way, through research, to the future. To inform, instruct and educate by interpreting nature to man and their effect on each other in the function of a Modern Museum of Man and Nature.In 1965, provincial legislation dissolved the unincorporated Manitoba Museum Association and incorporated two new organizations—the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature and the Manitoba Planetarium—which were included in the plans to build a new Centennial Centre. With H. David Hemphill as its managing director (1970–88), paid curatorial positions were created and the former volunteer curators were appointed to the Museum Advisory Council. Most of the invaluable collections were transferred to the new corporation; during 1968–69, while the new building was being completed, the collections were put in storage. The ultimate cost of the original construction of the museum would total CA$3,548,700.
Lieutenant Governor Richard Bowles opened the planetarium on 15 May 1968, and the new museum facilities—the Orientation and Grasslands galleries—were officially opened on 15 July 1970 by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II to commemorate the province's centennial celebration. The collection of the previous Manitoba Museum would provide the basis for this museum.