The oldest natural sciences institution in the Western Hemisphere, the Academy was founded when the United States hugged the Atlantic coastline, and Philadelphia was the cultural, commercial, and scientific center of the new nation. Classic expeditions to explore the western wilderness were organized at the Academy. These explorers brought back new species of plants and animals, which were studied and catalogued; they formed the foundation of the Academy's scientific collections which now contain over 17,000,000 specimens.

The first Academy trip took most of the members to the Perkiomen Copper Mines by horse and buggy, April 18, 1812. During the ensuing years Academy personnel has been a part of thousands of treks into new collecting areas. Often the expeditions were privately financed or sent out by the Academy under grants from research foundations. Sometimes Academy scientists accompanied U. S. government expeditions.

Expeditions took place across the globe, from the Arctic; to North, South and Central America; to Africa; to Asia, to Europe, and to Australia. Within the United States, expeditions were taken to Franklin and Haddonfield, New Jersey; Port Kennedy, Pennsylvania; Alaska; the southeastern and southwestern states (including Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, New Mexico, Nevada and Virginia); the Rocky Mountains; Utah; Idaho; and Oregon. These American expeditions took place from 1927 to 1940.

In 1969, an expedition, led by James C. Tyler, to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, surveyed and collected marine fish, discovered the site where Captain James Cook’s H.M.B. Endeavour ran aground, and recovered artifacts that remained. When the ship hit the reef on June 10, 1770, Cook’s crew tried to escape by making the ship lighter and threw the ship’s cannons and ballasts overboard. The cannons and some other artifacts were retrieved, and one of the cannons was presented to the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia by the Australian government and is on exhibit. This trip was sponsored by Virgil Kaufman and Alfred L. Wolf and the salvage party included Virgil Kauffman, Alfred L. Wolf, Kenneth Myers, and Griscom Bettle. Kauffman and Wolf, both avid divers and active Academy supporters, provided most of the expedition’s financial backing. Myers operated the magnetometer that revealed the presence of the cast iron cannons, while Bettle assisted in diving operations. The scientists who collected several barrels of fishes, which represented more than 200 species, included James C. Tyler from the Academy’s Ichthyology Department and C. Lavett Smith from the American Museum of Natural History.

Some of the scientists who participated in Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia exhibitions are Count Emmanuel Armand, W. W. Atterbury, Nicholas Biddle, James Bond, William K. Carpenter, M. A. Carriker, W. Judson Coxey, Frederick E. Crockett, Rudolphe Meyer De Schauensee, Ralph Deshon, Brooke Dolan, Henry S. Drinker III, Arthur H. Fisher, William J. Fox, Samuel G. Gordon, Prentiss N. Gray, Harold T. Green, Francis Harper, Dr. Isaac Israel Hayes, Morgan Hebard, Ernest Hemingway, Wharton Huber, C.W. Johnson, Harry J. Lance, Sidney J. Legendre, Joseph W. Lippincott, Major Stephen Harriman Long, Clement B. Newbold, Robert Peary, J. Fletcher Street, James C. Tyler, George Vanderbilt, Edward Woolman, and William Jenks Woolston.