The Boston Athenæum, a membership library, first opened its doors in 1807, and its rich history as a library and cultural institution has been well documented in the annals of Boston’s cultural life. Today, it remains a vibrant and active institution that serves a wide variety of members and scholars. With more than 600,000 titles in its book collection, the Boston Athenæum functions as a public library for many of its members, with a large and distinguished circulating collection, a newspaper and magazine reading room, quiet spaces and rooms for reading and researching, a children’s library, and wireless internet access throughout its building. The Art Department mounts three exhibitions per year in the institution's Norma Jean Calderwood Gallery, rotating selections in the Recent Acquisitions Gallery, and a number of less formal installations in places and cases around the building. The Special Collections resources are world-renowned, and include maps, manuscripts, rare books, and archival materials. Our Conservation Department works to preserve all our collections. Other activities for members and the public include lectures, panel discussions, poetry readings, musical performances, films, and special events, many of which are followed by receptions. Members are able to take advantage of our second- and fifth-floor terraces during fine weather, and to search electronic databases and our digital collections from their homes and offices.

For 100 years, Boston Children's Museum has been a leader in Boston and within the museum community worldwide. The Museum is a private, non-profit, educational institution that is recognized internationally as a research and development center and pacesetter for children's exhibitions, educational programs and curriculum. Designed for children and families, our exhibits focus on science, culture, environmental awareness, health & fitness, and the arts. In addition to extensive child-centered exhibits, Museum educators develop programs and activities that address literacy, performing arts, science and math, visual arts, cultures, and health and wellness. The Museum is also one of the few children's museums in the world to maintain a collection, with more than 50,000 items.

The Boston Fire Museum, owned and operated by the Boston Sparks Association, has occupied the old firehouse at 344 Congress St, Boston, since 1983. The goal of the Museum is to preserve and display fire fighting memorabilia from the Greater Boston area, educate and inform the general public on fire safety, restore and maintain the "Landmark" building we occupy, and to support the fire service in general.

The Museum Committee, which oversees the operation of the Museum, is an all-volunteer group of persons dedicated to informing friends and visitors about the history of fire fighting. Since the Boston Fire Department is one of the oldest in the nation, there is a rich tradition to salute.

The Boston Fire Museum is made-up of several parts. They are:

Antique fire apparatus

Fire alarm displays and artifacts

Photo displays

Firefighting equipment

The architecturally significant building

The home of our parent group, the Boston Sparks Association, is on the second floor.

We are continually upgrading, adding and improving the exhibits in the Museum. Please take some time to look over our displays. Any member of the Museum Staff will be happy to inform you about the exhibits.

Located on the Congress Street Bridge, the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum is an interactive, high tech, floating museum. Unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before, this unique museum sits on a barge in the water, includes tours on restored tea ships and a stunning, interactive documentary that immerses you into the events that led up to the American Revolution. Touch, feel, see and hear what the patriots felt when their passions and angers flared at the injustice of taxation without representation. Participate in multi-sensory exhibits, witness dramatic reenactments by professional actors and historians and discover the true story behind the Boston Tea Party.

Explore 12,000 specimens drawn from Harvard’s vast research collections at the University's most visited museum -- dinosaurs, meteorites, rare minerals, and hundreds of prehistoric and current-day animals from around the globe. Get close to the world’s only mounted Kronosaurus, a 42 ft-long marine reptile; one of the first Triceratops ever discovered; a 1,642 lb. amethyst geode; 3 whale skeletons. Don’t miss the world famous exhibit of 3,000 ‘Glass Flowers’, amazingly realistic models of plants, fruits and flowers created by father-son glass artists Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka from 1886-1936. Check out the latest permanent exhibition, New England Forests, the perfect prelude to any fall foliage trip. This dramatic multimedia gallery allows visitors to explore the world of dozens of regional animals and birds; and glimpse the circle of life within and around a forest pond from tiny tadpoles to giant moose.

Isabella Stewart Gardner conceived her collection and constructed Fenway Court at precisely the moment that landscape architecture was first articulated as an academic discipline, liberal profession, and civic art. In siting her Museum on the recently constructed Back Bay Fens, Gardner contributed to a conception of the city as enabled, informed, and enhanced by landscape.
To this day, the Museum aspires to be a preeminent cultural venue for landscape.

Modeled after a Venetian palazzo, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston houses one of the world’s most remarkable art collections.

The Larz Anderson Auto Museum is home to "America’s oldest car collection." For over 75 years the Larz Anderson Auto Museum has been supporting the community through a variety of educational programs, exhibits, and lectures.

Today the Museum's primary goal is its continued support of the community through educational outreach and the preservation of our permanent collection of early automobiles. The Larz Anderson Auto Museum hopes to serve as a resource for your automotive and cultural interests.

The museum is housed in what was once the opulent carriage house of wealthy Bostonians Larz and Isabel Anderson. This self guided museum is home to the permanent Anderson automotive collection as well as yearly changing exhibits of cars, automobilia, rare automotive artwork and vintage fashion. Both exhibits are a wonder for the eyes and great for kids and adults.

Robots, holography, MIT history, and cutting-edge exhibitions blending art and technology draw visitors from around the world to the MIT Museum. Located in the center of Cambridge, MA, the MIT Museum features some of the latest MIT research, the history of artificial intelligence at MIT, and special galleries for holography, kinetic art, and photography. The Museum also offers a range of talks, educational programs and workshops.

The Museum Of Bad Art (MOBA) is a community-based, private institution dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its forms and in all its glory.

MOBA was founded in the fall of 1993 and presented its first show in March 1994. The response was overwhelming. Since then, MOBA's collection and ambitions have grown exponentially.

Initially, MOBA was housed in the basement of a private home in Boston. This meager exhibition space limited the museum to being a regional cultural resource for the New England area.

As the only museum dedicated to bringing the worst of art to the widest of audiences we felt morally compelled to explore new, more creative ways of bringing this priceless collection of quality bad art to a global audience. Another Boston-area cultural institution, Dedham Community Theatre, generously allowed MOBA the use of their basement. Our first permanent gallery is now conveniently located just outside the men’s room in a 1927 movie theatre. The ambience created such a convivial atmosphere, that when we went looking for a second location, the only place that was up to our quality standards was another theatre basement. The Somerville Theater in Davis Square, Somerville MA is now our second gallery.

Filled with obscure paintings found in yard sales, rescued from the rubbish dump or mysteriously donated, the museum opened by art dealer Scott Wilson features pieces of art ‘so bad, they’re good’.
The ‘disasterpieces’ on show include a reproduction of the Mona Lisa that would have Da Vinci spinning in his grave.
There is no shortage of terrible art, and the ever-changing exhibits feature in themed areas such as 'blue people', 'poor traits' and 'unlikely landscapes, seascapes and still lifes'.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States and saves the second largest permanent collection of works of art in America, after the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The museum was created in 1870 and opened in 1876. The project was the architect Guy Lowell and its construction is in Neo-classical. It is currently undergoing a makeover.

Science and technology come alive at the Museum of Science with more than 700 interactive exhibits, New England's only IMAX Dome theater, the Theater of Electricity, Butterfly Garden, the 3-D Digital Cinema, and more!




Participation in Museum Day is open to any tax-exempt or governmental museum or cultural venue on a voluntary basis. Smithsonian magazine encourages museum visitation, but is not responsible for and does not endorse the content of the participating museums and cultural venues, and does not subsidize museums that participate.

The Nichols House Museum is an historic house museum.

Showing how the domestic life of a typical family of Beacon Hill was, this museum has beeing sustained as its owners left in the early 1900s.

Here you will see Sheridan style tables, Flemish tapestries, Italian paintings of the 1700s and much more.

The Old South Meeting House was a place where colonists gathered time after time to challenge British rule in the years leading to the American Revolution.

Having a milestone in the history of Boston’s revolution as the organizing point for the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, this house is now a museum that serves to people meet, discuss and act on important issues of the day.

The Old State House is a national historic treasure that gives you the opportunity to experience the American Revolution and the importance of this building on it.

This museum has two floors of exhibitions, showing the collections of The Bostonian Society, the John Hancock's coat and others.

The Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology is one of the oldest museums in the world devoted to anthropology.

This museum features more than 1.2 million individual objects from North, Central, and South America, and the Oceania (Pacific Islands), Africa, Europe, and Asia.

The Institute Of Contemporary Art also known as ICA,

The Mary Baker Eddy Library is now a museum and repository for the work of Mary Baker Eddy, an author, poet, teacher, and religious leader.

Don't miss the Mapparium, a room-size, stained-glass globe that allows visitors to stand in the center of the earth with the countries laid out around them.

The USS Constitution Museum is focused on the memory and educational voice of USS Constitution.

This museum has besides the USS Constitution ship has 1,700 artifacts and over 7,000 rare books, manuscripts, and other archival material divided in: Arms and Armament, Art work, Ceramics and Glass, Clothing and Textiles, Personal Possesions, Presentation Pieces, Spoils of War and Tools of Trade.

Built in 1919, the Vilna Shul is a former synagogue and a museum dedicated to the Jewish culture in Boston.