The idea of a “Cabinet of Curiosities” (or in German—a “wunderkammer” or Wonder Cabinet) is a centuries-old idea. Collectors—usually wealthy, as they had the means to travel around the world—would display items that they gathered in their travels. “Curiosities” of the animal, plant, and man-made spheres would all be displayed side by side, with no adherence to categorization or organization as we know them in today’s museums.

The original cabinets were arranged to tell stories. Sometimes the story was as simple as “Hey! Look at all the amazing things I’ve got!!”, but often the story went deeper and could reveal ideas about the interconnectedness of things.

This is our Museum’s Cabinet of Curiosities, these are Humboldt stories, and this is our way of saying “Hey! Look at all the amazing things we’ve got!”. Use your imagination to add captions or thought bubbles to some of our mysterious archival photos, or try to figure out the cabinet’s curiosities with a game of Pop-Quiz or Match Game!

This display of curiosities from our collection was created by our Guest Curators:
Miggy Amante
Vichenzo Anthony-Moutou
Jasmine Hanson
Corbeau Johnson
Jayden Lockhart
Athena Miller
Aleah Pratchler

 These students from Humboldt Public School spent three afternoons in February 2023 with us. They chose the artifacts and photos to display and created the Pop-Quiz game that accompanies the exhibit. We would like to thank them for their creative ideas and for doing such a great job!