National Museum of Natural History, District of Columbia

Most early museums were natural history museums, cabinets of curiosity largely of the natural world, not the human world. This was the case with the first Smithsonian museum, known as the United States National Museum, in the Castle, which moved into the expanded museum building next door (now the Arts and Industries Building). When it moved again into this new building, in 1911, it was as the National Museum of Natural History, more aware of what it was.