“Tibet, High Land of Monk and Nomad”: Field Museum Opens New Exhibition

Abstract

One of the world's four most celebrated natural history museums, Field Museum in Chicago, has only recently completed and opened to the public a new permanent exhibition called “Tibet, High Land of Monk and Nomad.”Founded in 1893, Field Museum grew from a nest egg of materials from the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago the same year. Almost immediately, founder Marshall Field began sending out expeditions to enrich the Museum's nucleus of display materials. As early as 1908, Dr. Berthold Laufer led the Mrs. T. B. Blackstone Expedition to the remote Himalayan theocracy of Tibet. During the expedition, which went to both China and Tibet between 1908 and 1910, Dr. Laufer collected some 10,000 specimens for Field Museum, principally ethnological in nature. A large number of the Chinese materials were brought together in a special Civilization of China exhibition which opened four years ago.