The Museum of Science and Industry, a sprawling Chicago institution fashioned from the delight of an 8-year-old boy, celebrates its 75th birthday Thursday as America’s oldest museum devoted to science and technology.
Often voted the most popular museum in the city, especially by kids, it was acclaimed by Life magazine eight years ago as one of the 15 great museums of the world. Since it opened June 19, 1933, the museum says, 175 million visitors have passed through.
Through Sunday it won’t charge for admission, and children 11 and younger will be admitted free for the next 75 days, through Sept. 1.
Although the institution is undergoing an 11-year makeover, the timeless quality of many of the museum’s star attractions has brought back generations of repeat visitors. Parents and grandparents want their young ones to experience the same exhibits that thrilled them as children, from the coal mine to the Apollo 8 space capsule.
Retail titan Julius Rosenwald of Sears, Roebuck & Co. saw that kind of excitement in his son, William, when they visited the Deutsches Science Museum in Munich in 1911. The boy was mesmerized by its interactive exhibits, which required him to push buttons and pull levers to determine the outcomes of science demonstrations.
“William loved it so much, especially the coal mine built right inside the museum, that he wanted to spend their entire vacation there,” said Science and Industry exhibit developer Lindsey MacAllister.
Rosenwald began suggesting such a museum for Chicago, one that would showcase the development of American industrial technology and scientific discovery. In 1926 he pledged $3 million to put one together. By the time it was finished, a year after his death, it would cost him and his heirs more than $11 million.
Housed in the 1893 Columbian Exposition’s only surviving pavilion, its grand opening was timed with the opening of the 1933 Century of Progress world’s fair.
Since then the museum has not escaped criticism. Thirty years ago it was blasted as resembling a permanent trade show that rented out floor space to corporations “for exhibits little more than advertising.”
Museum president David Mosena acknowledges that was once true, but said the museum now exerts full control over its exhibits.
As part of the renovations now under way, 90 percent of the museum’s exhibits will have been replaced or refurbished by the end of 2011, Mosena said.
“A museum of science and industry has to keep up with changes in technology and with new science as it evolves,” he said. “We are constantly changing and evolving, but we’ve never redone so much of the museum in such a short time span before.”
Part of the museum’s attraction is the building itself, a graceful but massive Beaux Arts edifice used as the Fine Arts Palace for the 1893 fair. Though it was framed in steel and boasted thick brick walls, it fell into disrepair and was nearly demolished before civic leaders decided to transform it into the museum.
Its outer plaster decorations were permanently replicated in milled and carved Indiana limestone, but the inside was finished in 1930s Art Moderne. The simple, sweeping straight lines and graceful curves provided an apt backdrop for science and technology exhibits.
Rosenwald is now an all-but-forgotten figure, but in his time he was a national celebrity both for his extraordinary wealth and for his thoughtful generosity.
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When some government money promised for the museum did not materialize thanks to the Great Depression, the great philanthropist dug deeper into his own resources, even though the economic malaise was also decimating his wealth.
“Rosenwald doesn’t get much notice anymore, but he is one of the great figures in the city’s history,” Mosena said. “One of the reasons he isn’t well-remembered is that he ducked recognition for his generosity, asking his name be kept off the buildings.”
Rosenwald spent two years arguing against the idea of calling his project “The Rosenwald Industrial Museum.” He said he had noticed that many potential donors felt the Field Museum must be so well backed by Marshall Field’s family that their money was not needed. Rosenwald did not want his family saddled with financial obligations to the science museum after he died.
As it turned out, he died 17 months before the museum opened. Only part of the interior had been finished, but the centerpiece exhibit, the coal mine, was a public sensation, bringing in more than 300,000 visitors by the end of the year despite competition with the 1933 world’s fair.
The model is realistic enough that Mosena says some visitors still ask whether the museum was built over a mining site.
As the museum filled in during the next few years, it often outdrew all other museums in the city, many years claiming 4 million visitors.
They came to see exhibits that are still a draw today: the “whispering gallery” and the displays of human fetuses and sectioned human bodies, added in the 1930s; the Colleen Moore fairy castle that came in the 1940s; the captured World War II German submarine and chick hatchery, both arriving in 1954.
In the 1960s and ’70s, the museum began relying more on corporate sponsors to fully fund and launch exhibits of their own design with minimal oversight, leading to charges it was becoming a “trade fair.”
“It was true that was happening for a time, but that stopped long before I came here,” said Mosena, who took the museum reins in 1997. “We have our own design departments.”
Though industry, technology and science have changed almost beyond imagination since Rosenwald’s time, Mosena said the museum has kept pace.
“I think Rosenwald would love the museum if he could see it now. It is even a more hands-on place than the museum he and his son visited in Germany, remaining true to the principles and vision he laid out for it,” Mosena said.
“I think he would be very pleased to discover how loved and respected his museum is to this day.”
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The price of admission
In celebration of its 75th anniversary, the Museum of Science and Industry is charging no admission fees from Thursday through Sunday. Getting into the museum normally is costlier.
Usual fees: Except for posted free days, general admission is $13 for adults; $12 for seniors; and $9 for children ages 3-11. Parking costs $14, for a total of $58 for a family of four.
Extras cost more: If the same family attends an Omnimax movie and visits the “The Glass Experience” special exhibit, the cost climbs to $112. Touring the U-505 submarine would add another $20, bringing the total to $132, not counting stops at the cafeteria or gift shop.
Catch a break: Those costs can be reduced if visitors take advantage of the 31 posted free days remaining this year or become members. Families will get a break for the rest of the summer, too, as the museum will allow children in free through Sept. 1 as part of its anniversary observance.
Find out more: For more information, including free birthday activities through Sunday, visit www.msichicago.org or call 773-684-1414.