The 14 Oldest Museums in the United States

The Museum of the American Philosophical Society — 1743

The Museum of the American Philosophical Society is the oldest in the United States. Benjamin Franklin founded the society in 1743 to promote knowledge. 

Today, the society holds some of the country’s oldest and most notable artifacts. There are over one million rare items. Some of the artifacts the society has include the following: 

• Books
• Native American language recordings
• Paintings 
• Photographs 
• Prints 
• Scientific instruments 

The Museum of the American Philosophical Society isn’t consistently recognized as the country’s oldest museum because it did not continuously operate as a museum. The society did not open its doors as a museum until 2001. 

You’ll need to visit the museum annually to see its vast collection. They change out their exhibit every year with new artifacts.

Charleston Museum — 1773

The Charleston Museum is the country’s truest oldest museum, as it opened to the public in 1773. 

Charleston, SC, is home to the Charleston Museum. It holds the town’s rich history and the rest of the United States.  

The Charleston Library Society established the museum from the inspiration of the British Museum. The museum opened just before the American Revolution. It displayed information and artifacts from South Carolina’s most influential figures of that time. Some notable statistics recognized in the museum were Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and John J. Audubon. 

Explore the museum’s permanent exhibits, which include: 

• Becoming Americans: Charleston in the Revolution
• Bunting Natural History Gallery
• Lowcountry History Hall
• The Armory
• City Under Siege: Charleston in the Civil War
• Early Days
• Kidstory
• Historic Textiles
• Charleston Silver

Philadelphia’s Independence Hall — 1786

The U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were signed in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. The hall is the “birthplace of America” and holds the country’s legacy and all it stands for. 

Many do not count Philadelphia’s Independence Hall as one of the country’s oldest museums because it was not originally meant to be a museum. Instead, it held Pennsylvania’s colonial government for many years. Many of the United States’s most important historical figures — including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin — set foot in Independence Hall. 

Yet, today, Independence Hall is a kind of living history museum. You can “step back in time” and imagine how the government operated in colonial America. 

The Independence Hall in Philadelphia is open year-round from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for tours. If you visit from March through December, you’ll need tickets to enter. Tickets are only required on holiday weekends throughout January and February. Prepare yourself to go through a security screening process to visit.

Peabody Essex Museum — 1799

The Peabody Essex Museum started as the East India Marine Society in 1799. The society displayed natural and artificial artifacts from India, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and coastal America. 

Explore the Peabody Essex Museum’s permanent exhibitions, which include: 

• Bethany Collins, America: A Hymnal
• On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America
• South Asian Art
• Salem Stories
• Anila Quayyum Agha: All the Flowers Are for Me
• Maritime Art
• Vanessa Platacis: Taking Place 
• And many more

You can also visit the museum to see their limited exhibitions, which include: 

• Let None Be Excluded: The Origins of Equal School Rights in Salem — through April 28, 2024
• Bats! — throughout July 28, 2024
• Susan Philipsz: if I with You Would Go — through June 29, 2025

Consider visiting the three city blocks the museum owns. See historical architecture, like first-period or post-medieval-style houses. Visit the beautiful gardens or participate in an event, like an art class.

5. New York Historical Society — 1804

The New York Historical Society holds 400 years of history within its walls. It has an assortment of exhibitions, collections, and events. The Historical Society is New York’s first museum and one of the country’s oldest. 

Explore the museum’s permanent exhibitions: 

• The Collection: New Conversations
• “Turn Every Page”: Inside the Robert A. Caro Archive
• College of Tiffany Lamps 
• Meet the Presidents of the Oval Office
• Objects Tell Stories 
• Audobon’s Birds of America Focus Gallery

Or, check out the museum’s temporary exhibitions and installations, including: 

• Kay Walking Stick/Hudson River School — through April 14, 2024
• Acts of Faith: Religion and the American West — through February 25, 2024 
• Women’s Work — through July 7, 2024
• Bittersweet: “Picture Brides” on the Hawaiian Sugarcane Plantations — through December 31, 2023 
• Women Who Preserved New York City — through June 9, 2024

6. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts — 1805

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is the first art museum and art school in the United States. 

You can visit the museum for its comprehensive historic and contemporary fine art collection. 

You can also become a student of one of the school’s undergraduate or graduate programs. 

Explore the museum’s permanent exhibitions: 

• Claes Oldenburg: Paint Torch 
• Markus Linnenbrink: Therideneverends 
• Robert Ryman: Philadelphia Prototype 

Besides exhibitions, you can view the museum’s permanent collection of over 16,000 art pieces. The collection includes pieces from the 18th century to now. You’ll see pieces from artists like Andy Warhol, Charles Demuth, and Winslow Homer. 

Check out the museum’s temporary exhibitions, including: 

• Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America — through December 31, 2023
• Determined to Be: The Sculpture of John Rhoden — through April 7, 2024
• Artists as Cultivators — from February 1, 2024 to June 2, 2024

7. Bowdoin College Museum of Art — 1811

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is free and open year-round. They recognize the importance of art and wish to promote “creative thought, global engagement, inclusivity, and the common good.” 

Founded in 1811, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art comprised over 200 art pieces. Today, the museum has a vast permanent collection of over 30,000 pieces from over 5,000 years of history. 

There is something for everyone to see, no matter what art you like. The museum has American, Asian, European, and Indigenous art. It also has modern, contemporary, and ancient art. 

Check out the museum’s temporary exhibitions, including: 

• Threads: Artists Weave their Worlds — through October 13, 2024
• Currents: Art Since 1875
• Nick Van Woert: History, Material, Environment

You can even enjoy the Bowdoin College Museum of Art if you can’t visit it physically. They have an extensive collection of digital artwork, including the following exhibitions: 

• Innovation and Resilience Across Three Generations of Wabanaki Basket-Makers 
• There is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art 
• Along the Water: French and Dutch Impressionism 
• And many more

8. The Peale Center — 1814

According to their website, The Peale Center was the first museum in the United States explicitly constructed as a museum. Rembrandt Peale hired Robert Cary Long, the architect who began building the museum in 1813. 

Explore the museum’s permanent exhibition: Peale Faces Exhibit by Lauren Muney. 

Check out the museum’s temporary exhibitions, including: 

• Spark 6: Refractions — through November 26, 2023
• Through the Glass Darkly: Baltimore Stained Glass Makers — through January 7, 2024
• Chamber of Wonders: Artwork by Lisa Moren with Dr. Tsvetan Bachvaroff — from December 14 to February 4, 2024 

Even if you don’t live near Baltimore, you can still experience the museum through its extensive online collection. 

Some of their online exhibitions include: 

• Out of the Blocks Stories
• The Guardians: Reshaping History 
• Abstracts & Artifacts in Second Life

9. The Rotunda — 1818

The United States Captial Rotunda is another building different from your typical museum. Instead, it is more of a living history museum. You can visit it to imagine the goings-on of the colonial United States government. 

It took 22 years for The Rotunda to be completed in 1824. It sits below the Capital Dome, which was not built until decades later.

You can visit the Rotunda on a tour. Alongside The Rotunda, visit the National Statuary Hall, which used to be the House of Representatives Chamber. You can also see the Old Senate Chamber.

10. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art — 1842

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art has a collection of almost 50,000 art pieces from over 5,000 years of history. According to their website, they are the “oldest continuously operating public art museum in the United States.”  

Explore the museum’s permanent exhibitions, including:

• New Nation, Many Hands
• Cabinet of Art & Curiosity 
• Contemporary Art 
• Morgan Great Hall 
• Many more

Check out the museum’s temporary exhibitions, including: 

• Spotlight — through March 17, 2024
• Baroque & Impressionist highlights from the Collection

11. Museum of Fine Arts — 1876

The Museum of Fine Arts has an astounding collection of almost 500,000 art pieces worldwide. Come here to step into a world of history and beauty.

Explore the museum’s permanent exhibitions, including:

• Art of the Americas
• Hank Willis Thomas: Remember Me 
• Dutch and Flemish Art 
• Much more 

Check out the museum’s temporary exhibitions, including:

• Tender Loving Care Contemporary Art from the Collection — through July 28, 2025
• Marking Resilience: Indigenous North American Prints — through March 17, 2024
• Tiny Treasures: The Magic of Miniatures — through February 11, 2024

You can see many incredible things at the Museum of Fine Arts. Visit the Chinese Song Dynasty Gallery. Wander through the Japanese Garden and feel your stress melt away. Or, witness Monet’s most remarkable paintings.

12. Detroit Institute of Arts — 1885

This museum once sat on Jefferson Avenue, but its ever-expanding collection forced it to move locations. It has sat at its current site since 1927. 

The Detroit Institute of Arts has a vast permanent collection of over 65,000 art pieces from centuries of history. You can see the collections online even if you can’t visit the museum in person. 

Some of the museum’s permanent art collections include: 

• Africa, Oceania, & Indigenous Americans 
• Ancient Middle Eastern Art 
• Asian Art 
• Contemporary Art after 1950 

Check out the museum’s temporary exhibitions, including:

• Masterpieces of Early Italian Renaissance Broze Statettes — through March 3, 2024 
• After Cubism — through January 7, 2024

13. The Field Museum of Chicago — 1893

The Field Museum of Chicago opened its doors to the public in 1921 but began collecting artifacts in 1893. Their first artifacts came from the World’s Columbian Exposition. 

Marshall Field was a big part of why the museum was successful. He donated $1 million to help create a permanent museum full of natural and cultural collections. 

Today, the museum contains almost 40 million specimens and artifacts. 

Explore the museum’s many exhibitions, including: 

• Abbott Hall of Conservation: Restoring Earth 
• Calumet Voices, National Stories
• DNA Discovery Center

Or, you can buy tickets to their special exhibits, like Bloodsuckers: Legends to Leeches. This exhibit features massive models of blood-sucking creatures like mosquitos and leeches. You can even learn about Dracula.

14. Museum of Fine Art — 1900

The Museum of Fine Art is this list’s newest “old” museum. It is also one of the most beautiful places you can visit in Houston. 

Make sure you check out all the various locations. 

The Audrey Jones Beck Building contains permanent collections of ancient and modern art from Europe and America. It also includes ever-changing exhibitions. 

Head to the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, which sits on 14 acres. The building contains collections of American paintings and art.