Nestled among the cramped row houses, vacant lots and spray-painted walls of North Philadelphia lies an unlikely treasure from the Victorian era. The Wagner Free Institute of Science is a window back to the 1840s, with its aisles of glass cases containing hundreds of biological specimens from vials of squidgy sea worms in formaldehyde to toothy skulls and taxidermy of every description. The slightly macabre collection might even resemble the more famous Mutter Museum, if it were focused on natural history instead of medical history.
Philadelphia merchant William Wagner, the "gentleman naturalist," was known for his extensive natural history collection of fossils, minerals, and biological specimens and the free informal lectures he gave in his home during the mid-1800s. The Victorian building was built in 1865 to display Wagner's ever growing collection and also included a grand lecture hall on the ground floor for Wagner to continue offering free scientific education to the public.
Famed biologist Joseph Leidy took over the Institute after Wagner's death in 1885, and expanded and reorganized the collection according to Darwin's theory of evolution. The museum has not changed since, and the labels have not been updated for over a century. Outdated depictions of lumbering dinosaurs and classification errors abound, providing a rare glimpse of natural science during the Victorian Era.
The Wagner still hosts free guest lectures, as well as class trips and other educational programs where you can learn just as much about modern science as you can about the past.
The Wagner Free institute is open Tuesday-Friday 9am- 4pm
