Field Museum
SUE the T. rex, Máximo the titanosaur, meteorites, cultural collections, and working laboratories reveal how a research museum builds knowledge.
Artwork inspired by Ivan Albright
The Field is most useful when its millions of specimens are read as evidence. Start in Evolving Planet with SUE and the deep-time sequence, then contrast those fossils with a living-system gallery or the Grainger Science Hub, where current researchers explain how collections support questions about climate, evolution, and conservation.
The museum also holds cultural objects gathered under very different historical conditions. Read provenance and community-authorship labels closely, especially in halls about the Americas and Pacific. Stanley Field Hall gives immediate spectacle, but quieter plant models, gems, meteorites, and Rice Native Gardens make a stronger second half than trying to complete every major hall.
- Founded
- 1893
- Famous resident
- SUE the T. rex
- Research scale
- Tens of millions of specimens
Quick guide
- Build deep time
- Follow the evolutionary sequence before focusing on individual dinosaurs; it explains why each fossil matters.
- Meet the scientists
- Check the Grainger Science Hub schedule for researchers discussing current collection work.
How to make Field Museum count
- Build deep time
- Follow the evolutionary sequence before focusing on individual dinosaurs; it explains why each fossil matters.
- Meet the scientists
- Check the Grainger Science Hub schedule for researchers discussing current collection work.
- Question the label
- Notice who collected, classified, and interprets cultural material, and whether source communities speak in the display.
- Step outside
- Use the Rice Native Gardens to connect indoor biodiversity displays with plants functioning on the lakefront.
Good to know
Open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last admission at 4 p.m. The museum closes on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Paid Museum Campus parking is shared with Soldier Field and can become expensive or constrained during games and lakefront events. CTA rail plus bus 146 is often easier.
Notice these
- SUE’s real fossil skeleton
- Máximo in Stanley Field Hall
- Visible collections research