Museum Exhibitions
Museum Exhibitions
George Washington’s Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon: The Story of an American Icon (On display through March 2024)
This exhibition explores the history of Mount Vernon, from its origin as the home of the Washington family to its ownership by the Vice Regents of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association in the nineteenth century. The display from the Gilder Lehrman Collection includes a 1787 membership certificate for the Society of the Cincinnati and a 1783 ink wash drawing of an eagle medal for the Society of the Cincinnati by Pierre Charles L’Enfant.
George Washington’s Mount Vernon, 3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, Mount Vernon, VA
Gettysburg National Military Park
Permanent Gallery Exhibit (On display through December 2028)
This permanent exhibit in the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum walks visitors through the events of the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg, featuring a number of artifacts from the battlefield.
On display from the Gilder Lehrman Collection is the inkwell used by General Ulysses S. Grant and General Robert E. Lee to sign the treaty of surrender at Appomattox, April 9, 1865.
Gettysburg National Military Park, 1195 Baltimore Park, Gettysburg, PA
The Morgan Library & Museum
Echoes of the Bard: Shakespeare in Nineteenth-Century Americana (On display until January 7, 2024)
Objects on view in J. Pierpont Morgan’s library reflect the past, present, and future of the collections in four curatorial departments, comprising illuminated manuscripts from the medieval and renaissance eras, five hundred years of printed books, correspondence and literary manuscripts, as well as printed music and autograph manuscripts by composers. These selections, which rotate three times a year, provide an opportunity for Morgan curators to spotlight individual items, to consider their historical and aesthetic contexts, and to tell the stories behind these artifacts and their creators. The items on display in the Rotunda are part of a thematic installation, Echoes of the Bard: Shakespeare in Nineteenth-Century Americana, featuring items from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, including A Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth, 1884, a newspaper clipping about Shakespeare’s Hamlet, circa 1863, and an 1868 memorandum from John Quincy Adams Ward regarding the creation of a statue to honor William Shakespeare in Central Park, New York.
The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
United States Capitol Visitor Center
E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many, One (On display through 2027)
This exhibition is dedicated to telling the story of the US Congress and the making of the US Capitol. The hall includes rarely seen historic documents from the National Archives and the Library of Congress, artifacts from around the country, and a ten-foot-tall model of the Capitol dome. On display from the Gilder Lehrman Collection is a pin reading “You Fight & Die But Can’t Vote at 18.”
United States Capitol Visitor Center, First Street SE, Washington, DC 20004