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M u s e u m s
in the USA

 

These pages include an eclectic collection of World Wide Web sites connected with museums, galleries and archives in the United States. If you know of a museum website that is not included here, or would like to make corrections or suggestions, please use the submission form. (If your browser really cannot handle forms, please email John Burke at the Oakland Museum of California.) New submissions, updates as well as broken links are listed on the What's New page. Bad links are deleted after a month or so if not corrected. Please help us keep our list current.

Items starting with ! are recent additions or updates. Starred items * have large collections and/or are highly recommended. If enough people ask that a museum receive a star (use the submission form!), it will get one.

The USA has the most developed set of on-line museum information of all the countries in the world. So much so that the number of museum links in the USA may be of the same order of magnitude as all the other museum websites around the rest of the world. Currently these pages receive around 2000 "visitors" each day.

You are virtual "visitor" number: [VISITOR NUMBER] (since August 1994)
! The millionth visitor accessed VLmp on 1st February 1997.
! The two-millionth visitor accessed VLmp in January 1998!

You may also find the related WWW Virtual Library information on libraries and art and literature to be of interest, or if you just don't know where to go, try a surprise museum or gallery site selected by AltaVista.

Coming Soon!
a new searchable version of
The USA Museums Page


| Alphabetically | By State | By Type | Top Sites | What's New |


USA museums, Top Sites

  1. * ! American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY. American Museum of Natural History - collections include more than 30 million items; dinosaur fossils, a 63 foot-long canoe carved by the Haida Indians, a slice of a giant sequoia tree, the costume of an African spirit dancer. Check out the pages for discount offers to several attractions throughout the city
  2. * Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, Austin, TX. Largest Latin American Art Collection in the USA. James & Mari Michener Collection of Twentieth Century American Art. 13,000 works and a premium Prints & Drawings Collection.The Westerrn American Art collection of C.R. Smith.
  3. * Art Museum Network Official Web site for the largest art museums in North America. Choose a museum by region.
  4. * Berkeley Art Museum + Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA. The BAM + PFA at the University of California offers a website with extensive exhibition information including online catalogs with images and audio artist interviews, a database of over 12,000 film notes on world cinema, searchable art and film collection guides, an interactive multimedia guide to modern art for kids and more.
  5. * Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii. The State Museum of Natural and Cultural History. Pacific anthropology, botany, entomology and zoology. Includes on-line exhibits.
  6. * Boston and New England museums
  7. * ! Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY. The Brooklyn Museum of Art is one of the largest art institutions in the United States, with collections in Ancient Egyptian art and American Painting & Sculpture that are considered among the world's finest. One of the premier art institutions in the world, its permanent collection includes more than one and a half million objects and represents almost every culture.
  8. * China the Beautiful, Guttenberg, NJ. Virtual museum of Chinese culture art painting calligraphy philosophy literature poetry. Possibly the largest on-line site for classical Chinese arts and literature with 20,000 visitors per month.
  9. * Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio.
  10. * Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. Historic capital of 18th century Virginia.
  11. * Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York. The Corning collection includes more than 27,000 objects representing 3,500 years of achievements in glass design and craftmanship. The Museum's Rakow Library is the principal research center for glass students worldwide. Its collections consist of more than 70,000 volumes and 800 periodicals in 41 languages. See also the Corning Glass Center, Corning, New York.
  12. * ! Dallas Museum of Art, Texas.
  13. * Diego Rivera Web Museum dedicated to the Mexican muralist painter Diego Rivera (1886-l957). (Also in Spanish.)
  14. * Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.
  15. * Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco , San Francisco, CA. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's web site contains an astonishing database of over 65,000 images from the permanent collection. It also contains museum information on important exhibitions, tours, the collection, etc.
  16. * Florida Association of Museums, a listing. A website that includes a searchable directory of all museums in Florida, plus a listing of exhibits that can be searched by month.
  17. * Franklin Institute Virtual Science Museum, Philadelphia. Includes virtual exhibits.
  18. * High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia. Includes images of contemporary art, a decorative arts collection, American and European painting, African art, folk art, and photography.
  19. * Illinois State Museum, Springfield. Natural history, anthropology, art, and natural/cultural history of Illinois.
  20. * J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA. Getty Museum collections, history, vistor services and information.
  21. * Kansas Museum of History, Topeka, KS. An Atchison,Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad locomotive highlights the Main Gallery of the Kansas Museum of History. Built in 1984, the museum holds more than 22,000 square feet of exhibits about Kansas's colorful past. You'll see a full-sized Cheyenne tipi, covered wagon, log house, and a 1911 airplane manufactured and flown in the state. The Special Exhibits Gallery features changing exhibits on special topics dealing with Kansas and the American West.
  22. * Kennedy Space Center NASA.
  23. * Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley, CA. Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) is the public science museum and research center for K-12 education at the University of California, Berkeley. LHS offers hands-on science exhibits, discovery laboratories, computer labs, planetarium shows, after-school classes and summer camps, family workshops, special events, school programs and teacher education. Science and mathematics teaching materials and curricula developed at LHS are used in schools across the U.S. and worldwide.
  24. * Library of Congress, Washington DC. On-line exhibits.
  25. * Los Angeles museums, a listing.
  26. * Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. One of the largest art museums in the world. See the collections.
  27. * Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Ancient Americas, Egypt and Near East; prints and drawings; Asia; Greece and Rome; sub-Saharan African.
  28. * Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI. Established in 1888, the Milwaukee Art Museum features 20,000 works from ancient objects to recent art. A 125,000-square-foot, $50 million building expansion project is underway, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.
  29. * Mingei International Museum, San Diego, CA. The official Mingei International Museum of World Folk Arts and Crafts presents an extensive photo collection of current and past exhibitions.
  30. * Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota. Fine arts museum.
  31. * Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, San Diego, CA. Small but influential museum focused on new art, often by young artists. Bilingual wall texts, audioguides, Web site is bilingual (Spanish/English). MCA collects, exhibits and interprets the art of our time, focusing on the period from 1950 to the present. The Museum has two locations: the flagship facility in La Jolla, founded in 1941 and recently renovated and expanded by Robert Venturi (1996); and the downtown San Diego satellite space, which opened in 1993.
  32. * Museum of Jurassic Technology, Los Angekes, CA. Unique! (Read "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders")
  33. * Museum of Modern Art, (MoMA), New York City. See menu including the collection and current exhibitions.
  34. * Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley. See the hall of dinosaurs.
  35. * National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC. Includes exhibition galleries. See also the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies.
  36. * National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
  37. * National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. The only museum in the world dedicated exclusively to the recognition of women in the arts, including a tour of their on-line galleries.
  38. * Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO. A general art museum comprising objects from ancient times to the present, and all cultures, with special emphasis on Chinese art and English ceramics from the 17th century.
  39. * New York City museums, a listing. See also New York Museums
  40. * Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH. The Ohio Historical Society conducts a range of activities related to interpreting, collecting and preserving the state's heritage.
  41. * Oregon State Archives Online Exhibit, Salem, OR. This online exhibit of Oregon history features over 100 separate Web pages and nearly 250 images. The exhibit interprets Oregon history primarily through documents and images held by the Oregon State Archives. Topics include prohibition in Oregon, a notorious prison escape, colorful Oregon trademarks, and more. A new exhibit is added every two months.
  42. * Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Over 11 million specimens/objects from the curatorial disciplines of Anthropology, Botany, Vertebrate Paleontology, Vertebrate Zoology, Paleobotany, Entomology, Invertebrate Zoology, Invertebrate Paleontology, Mineralogy, Historical Scientific Instruments, Meteorites.
  43. * Philadelphia Museum of ARt, Philadelphia, PA. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, founded in 1876, is unique among American museums in its integrated presentation of a full range of fine and applied arts from Asia, Europe, and the U.S. Spanning over 2,000 years, the collections include masterpieces of painting, sculpture, prints, and drawings displayed with a wide range of furniture, silver, glasswork, architectural elements, and entire furnished rooms from historic houses.
  44. * Photo Perspectives An interactive photography museum, designed to allow the public direct access to publications and museum quality exhibitions on-line.
  45. * Rice University Art Gallery, Houston, TX. Contemporary art, architecture and design
  46. * San Francisco Bay Area museums, a listing. Including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
  47. * San Francisco Exploratorium, San Francisco, CA . Includes on-line exhibits. See Diving Into the Gene Pool, a major exhibition from April 8 to Septemb
  48. * San Jose Art Museum, San Jose State University, California. Includes a growing searchable database of cultural photographs from around the world accessable in a number of ways.
  49. * Shrine to Music Museum, University of South Dakota.
  50. * Sixth Floor Museum, John F. Kennedy and the memory of a Nation. The Museum is located on the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository over looking Dealey Plaza at the site of the Kennedy assassination.
  51. * Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Includes:
    1. List of Smithsonian places
    2. New and temporary exhibitions at the Smithsonian
    3. * National Air and Space Museum. Includes exhibition galleries. See also the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies.
    4. * See The White House Collection of American Craft exhibition. Includes much audio and video material. See also Gopher site.
    5. National Museum of Natural History. See * Ocean Planet, a travelling exhibition.
    6. National Zoological Park.
  52. * St. Louis Science Center, Missouri.
  53. * Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, California. Includes HyperTech on-line interactive exhibits.
  54. * The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY. The Museum houses over 29,000 objects represeting 3,500 years of glassmaking; also houses the Rakow Library, the most comprehensive research library in the world. Images of some of the collection, and an extensive educatational section called "A Resource of Glass" that is used as a syllabus for many schools and researchers.
  55. * The Library of Virginia, Richmond, va. The Library of Virginia has served the archives and research needs of Virginians since 1823. The Library hosts special exhibits and displays of historic documents and artifacts. The Digital Library Project currently provides access to more than 2 million digital images of historic materials.
  56. * University of Missouri, Museum of Art and Archaeology, Columbia, MO. The Museum's collection, over 13,000 objects, is strong in classical art and archaeology, as well as European and American art from the 15th c. to the present. This site includes exhibit information, a virtual exhibit of Roman Coins and an extensive museum education page.
  57. * University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthroplogy, Philadelphia, PA. Has sponsored over 300 expeditions around the world and have artifacts from every inhabited continent.
  58. * Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. The YCBA holds one of the most comprehensive collections of British Art outside of London. The Center places special emphasis on art from the 17th Century to the present.
See also the following lists of museums:


| Alphabetically | By State | By Type | Top Sites | What's New |


The USA Museum Pages are maintained by John Burke, Chief Conservator at the Oakland Museum of California. Please accept our apologies that we cannot guarantee a reply to all email. For new submissions, please make sure to supply all necessary information - incomplete forms simply cannot be processed. Corrections and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[Top 5% Web Site]This service was developed by Jonathan Bowen, originally as part of the OUCL archive, and is now supported by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). These pages have been reviewed by POINTreview in its museums category as being in the "top 5%" of WWW pages and by Excite.

Latest revision Wednesday, November 11, 1998






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This page last changed: August 03, 2004