Over 100 items with unexpected visual and verbal richness that literally ranged from A to Z were on view from the Museum's renowned collection. From simple objects to high-style knockouts, the exhibition included furnishings, textiles, ceramics, silver, paintings, tools, jewelry and more.

The exhibition celebrated the 150th anniversary of the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; or, Life in the Woods, one of the seminal works that has shaped the American character. Artifacts and images explored the generations of visitors for whom Walden Pond has been home, workplace, playground and sacred ground.

Evocative photographic portraits of the homes of some of America’s most important literary figures and a selection of the writers’ original manuscript poems and letters, revealed the importance of place in shaping the books and poems we love most, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Moby-Dick, Ethan Frome, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Little Women, and Long Day’s Journey into Night.

Masterworks of Connecticut 18th-century furniture from the Connecticut Historical Society Museum and other public and private collections included 23 pieces ranging from high chests to candlestands and dressing tables to side chairs. Gallery interactives and videos featuring Leigh and Leslie Keno of PBS’ Find! and Antiques Roadshow reveal the secrets behind this highly-prized furniture of enduring elegance.

Over 50 original watercolor paintings by America’s most gifted contemporary illustrator of birds, David Allen Sibley, were on view at the Concord Museum in the first major exhibition of this author/artist’s work. More than just a field guide, The Sibley Guide to Birds has already proved to be one of the most influential natural history books […]

From multi-generation family businesses to new enterprises, from clock and cabinetmakers to butchers and milliners, hardware stores and apothecaries, through change and continuity, A Main Street Point of View celebrated the economic life of a quintessential New England town. This exhibition at the Concord Museum peeled back the streetscape's layers of history through contemporary views by nationally-renowned […]

While archaeologists may create a picture of an individual from a cache of artifacts buried deep in the earth, this exhibition brought together life stories buried right under our noses—in the purses carried by our mothers and grandmothers. Developed from a private collection of nearly 2,000 handbags, each vignette in this exhibit combined purses with […]

Featuring exquisite needlework pictures of idyllic country scenes created by schoolgirls in early America, the exhibition gave a new twist to the traditional focus on the landscape that is so much a part of New England history. The artistry and charm of the works themselves, the richness of the colors in the needlework, and the […]

The color blue made a splash in this blue-ribbon exhibition featuring all things blue from the Concord Museum’s wide-ranging collection. Fashion and furniture, tableware and textiles, art and advertising lit up the galleries with a blue palette that was both hot and icy cool. This exhibition looked at objects from the Museum’s collection through a […]

This exhibition had as its centerpiece the reconstruction of a boat like the one Henry Thoreau and his brother John rowed and sailed in a trip they took from Concord, Massachusetts to New Hampshire in 1839. It was this trip, in this boat, that resulted in Henry Thoreau’s first book, A Week on the Concord and […]

In the 1920s and 30s, Russell Kettell, collector and author of the now classic books Pine Furniture and Early American Rooms, defined an aesthetic that helped shape the appreciation of American domestic art and craft. His book on period rooms, compiled with the help of the first generation of American museum professionals to interpret American […]

The four seasons—winter, spring, summer and fall—evoke distinctive individual memories, yet often with universal appeal. This engaging exhibition drew from the artifacts in the Concord Museum’s rich and varied collection to explore some of the nostalgic events, traditions, and rituals of each season in American culture. Opening to the public on the first full day […]