Making the New World Old: American Monuments and the Relics of Natural History.

This article examines how early American natural history collections and monuments functioned as both scientific specimens and cultural relics, playing a key role in shaping national identity in the United States. Focusing on institutions like the Massachusetts Historical Society and Charles Willson Peale’s Philadelphia Museum, it highlights how objects such as mastodon skeletons—initially called the “great American Incognitum”—were simultaneously treated as natural specimens and symbolic monuments affirming America’s antiquity and place in the transatlantic scientific community. The article also explores the complex legacy of such relics through the example of Tomanowos, the Willamette Meteorite, sacred to Indigenous peoples of Oregon but removed and displayed by white institutions, illustrating ongoing tensions between scientific classification, cultural meaning, and Indigenous sovereignty. Overall, it argues that American natural history objects have served not only as scientific evidence but also as powerful material embodiments of national history, identity, and contested cultural memory. [Extracted from the article]