Today the first museum of Argentina is known as the Museum of Natural History. These were men educated in Europe to be lawyers, writers, artists and scientists who dominated the political and intellectual life of Argentina of the end of the nineteenth century. They saw museums as places where the patrimony of the country was preserved and they were instrumental in establishing the first anthropological and archaeological museum in 1872, the National Museum of History in 1889, and in 1896, the National Museum of Fine Arts. The first university and school museums were created at the beginning of the twentieth century. By the 1930s museums reflecting a variety of disciplines flourished throughout the country.
Today there are over seven hundred museums throughout the country.
It is estimated that every city and town in Argentina has a local museum. The government of Argentina has a long tradition of encouraging and supporting cultural initiatives. Argentina also has private museums that receive no government support. Economic problems beginning in the 1950s have had serious effects on the financial state of museums, causing most to operate with greatly reduced budgets. During the mid-1970s some museums established Associations of Friends of Museums to help support cultural programming.