Museums

American Folk Art Museum

Bata Shoe Museum

Bayou Bend Collection (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; house museum of American decorative arts)

Colonial Williamsburg (in Virginia; world’s largest living history museum recreates an 18th century Colonial town; museums include the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockerfeller Folk Art Museum; extensive website of exhibits and research resources)

Concord Museum (historic Massachusetts)

Corning Museum of Glass

DAR Museum (in Washington D.C.; run by the Daughters of the American Revolution; website provides virtual tours of period rooms)

Gardiner Museum (Toronto museum of ceramics)

Gibbes Museum of Art (collects art that touches Charleston, SC)

Gomez Mill House (in Marlboro, NY; oldest surviving Jewish Homestead in North America)

Gunston Hall (Virginia estate of George Mason IV; mansion constructed between 1755-9)

Hagley Museum and Library (site of 1802 DuPont gunpowder works; collections strong on early American industry)

Kenmore & George Washington’s Ferry Farm (Virginia estate museums)

Mariners’ Museum (in Newport News, Virginia; collections on maritime culture, science and history)

Mercer Museum and Fonthill Castle (Doylestown, PA; collections focus on tools and objects of everyday life in American before the Industrial Revolution)

Milwaukee Art Museum

Minneapolis Institute of Arts: Decorative Arts, Textiles & Sculpture Collection

Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC; collections strong in ceramics and decorative arts)

Monticello (Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia home and plantation; extensive website of virtual tours, exhibits and research resources)

Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens (George Washington’s Virginia home; site provides an online searchable Digital Encyclopedia)

Museum of Arts & Design (formerly the American Craft Museum)

Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) (devoted to Southern decorative arts and material culture; resources include a searchable craftsman database)

Museum of Early Trades & Crafts (history of pre-industrial New Jersey)

New York Historical Society Museum and Library

Old Salem Museums and Gardens (website provides information/links regarding the historic town of Salem, North Carolina, and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts [MESDA])

Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, Massachusetts)

Pilgrim Hall Museum: America’s Museum of Pilgrim Possessions

Rhode Island School of Design: Museum of Art

Smithsonian American Art Museum, begun in 1829, is devoted to American art of all regions, cultures and traditions. The Renwick Gallery houses its collections of craft and decorative arts from the 19th century to date. Among resources compiled for researchers is a Pre-1877 Art Exhibition Catalogue Index and Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture in U.S. collections.

Smithsonian National Museum of American History provides exhibits related to material culture, such as American Enterprise (including contributions of research by UW-Madison students and Prof. Ann Smart-Martin).

Stratford Hall Plantation (Virginia ancestral home of Robert E. Lee, dates to the 1730s)

Wisconsin Historical Society

Worcester Art Museum (Worcester, MA; houses strong collection of colonial painting; see their online timeline)