Newly Restored Theodore Roosevelt Memorial at the American Museum of Natural History

On October 27, 2012, the American Museum of Natural History reopened the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, in celebration of Roosevelt’s love of nature and passion for the American conservation movement. Born and bred in the city of New York, Theodore Roosevelt was governor of New York State, Vice President of the United States before becoming the 26th and youngest President of the United States. He was known for his progressive policies and ecological conservationism. 

At the center of the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall is a new bronze sculpture of Theodore Roosevelt, depicted as he looked during a famous 1903 camping trip to Yosemite with naturalist John Muir. The hall has four exhibition areas that highlight artifacts from the Museum’s collections depicting Roosevelt as the Young Naturalist with an early passion for nature; the Firsthand Observerwhose experience as a rancher in the North Dakota Badlands impressed him with the threat of extinction to animals such as the American bison; the Conservation President who took unprecedented action and placed some 230 million acres under federal protection; and the Lifelong Explorer whose post-presidency expeditions took him to an arduous exploration of Brazil’s River of Doubt in 1914.