About

The Science History Institute is a free museum and library that serves as a trusted cultural resource. We share the stories behind the science to encourage people to think differently about the role of science in their world. With a free museum and library in Philadelphia, we are dedicated to preserving, interpreting, and sharing histories of chemistry, chemical engineering, and the life sciences for a global audience. We produce free, trustworthy, and high-quality programs and products. We focus on accessible and affordable platforms that reach multiple audiences with different learning styles, and we choose products that allow us to partner with content distributors who can magnify our impact. 

In 2025, the Institute acquired one of the most significant archives in the history of science: the History of Molecular Biology Collection.  More than 100 boxes of letters, photographs, notebooks, and unpublished manuscripts document the foundations of molecular biology and the race to determine DNA’s molecular structure. The collection features items of immediate public interest, such as British chemist Rosalind Franklin’s own copy of the famed “Photo 51” and correspondence between Nobel Prize-winning scientists, including James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Aaron Klug, Max Perutz, and Linus Pauling. This archive promises to yield entirely new stories about the relationships and investigations that produced some of the most significant scientific milestones of the 20^th century.

library services; and education services namely, providing seminars, classes, workshops, conferences, presentations, events, exhibits and programs in the field of science history