Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology

In 1903, German-born brewer and philanthropist Rudolf F. Haffenreffer Jr. purchased a 69-acre amusement park at Mount Hope in Bristol, Rhode Island to use as a summer home and farm. Over the following decades, Haffenreffer collected Native American archaeological and ethnographic objects and created the King Philip Museum in 1928 to house them. After Haffenreffer's death in 1955, his family donated the museum (later renamed the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology) to Brown University, which used the collection to create its anthropology program. In 2004, gallery space was secured at Manning Hall on Brown's Providence campus while the Collections Research Center remained in Bristol.

Today, the Haffenreffer Museum serves as Brown's teaching museum, inspiring creative and critical thinking about global cultures of the past and present. The institution stewards a collection of 1 million-plus archaeological and ethnographic objects. Additionally, the museum supplements courses for Brown's undergraduate and graduate students, hosts educational programs for local preK-12 students, and supports leading research in anthropology and archaeology. In 2019, the institution began the process of relocating its collections from Bristol to Providence, and the new museum (slated to open in 2025) will unite its collections, activities, and exhibition programs under one roof.