Tour Dates:  Monday, July 20
Tours are scheduled 10:30-12:30 am or 1:30-3:30 pm; please note the time of the tour you select! Please go to this registration portal to register and pay for tours.

  • Tour spaces are limited.
  • You must be registered for the conference before securing tour tickets. Tours are non-refundable.
  • Tickets are limited to 4.  No children under 12.
  • Registration for tours will close when the maximum number of attendees is reached or July 15, 2026 (11:59 EST), whichever comes first.

NMAH Entertainment and Music Collection
Time: 10:30-12:30 am
Explore the National Museum of American History’s rich holdings related to 19th century music, theater, puppetry, vaudeville, and Wild West Shows. These rarely displayed objects are housed in collections storage at NMAH, and curators will tell stories about the pieces and how they came to the museum.
Meeting Point: NMAH 3rd floor, West Wing, Entertainment Nation exhibition entrance

Tesoros en el Museo Nacional de Historia Americana (Treasures at the NMAH, in Spanish)
Time: 10:30-12:30 am
In this guided tour, we will tour exhibitions at the National Museum of American History and view objects out of storage across multiple collections that highlight significant moments in the history of U.S. and Latin American relations in the 19th century.
Meeting Point: Mostrador de bienvenida del NMAH (primer piso, entrada por la Avenida Constitucional)

American Collector Charles Lang Freer and Japanese Art
Time: 1:30-2:30 pm
Charles Lang Freer founded the Freer Gallery of Art, now part of the National Museum of Asian Art. He amassed an important collection of Asian and American art through his interests in the Aesthetic Movement and his friendship with James McNeill Whistler. This tour will focus on Japanese and American art to follow his collecting journey and the collection’s development since the 19th century.
Meeting Point: Freer Gallery of Art, National Mall side entrance

Curatorial Walk of Exhibitions, National Museum of the American Indian
Time: 1:30-2:30 pm
Join museum curators to explore current exhibitions highlighting Native American history and culture, and contemporary Native art. Learn more about the rich and diverse lives of the Indigenous peoples of the Western hemisphere, past and present.
Meeting Point: NMAI Welcome Center/Cafe area, 1st floor, National Museum of American Indian, 4th Street and Independence Avenue NW

Library of Congress
Time: 1:30-2:30 pm
Take a tour of the historic Thomas Jefferson Building, built in the 1890s to house the nation’s library, including its namesake’s collection of books, acquired after the original Library of Congress was burned in the War of 1812. Participants will have a chance to view Beaux Arts architecture, enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at the library, and take in views from the famous Main Reading Room.
Meeting Point: By the main entrance of the Jefferson Building (101 Independence Ave SE)

National Portrait Gallery/Archives of American Art
Time: 1:30-3:30 pm
Tour the National Portrait Gallery’s The Spirit of Invention: Patent Office and Patentees Exhibition and the Archives of American Art, in the nearby Victor building. One half of the tour sketches the early history of the Patent Office through objects from the museum’s collection, 1840-1898. The other will provide an introduction to the Archives collections and a sample of its unique materials and records.
Meeting Point: Visitor services desk at the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, G street entrance of the National Portrait Gallery

Special Collections Library Tour, National Museum of Natural History
Time: 1:30-3:30 pm
The National Museum of Natural History has both a main library (with 10 departmental sub-libraries) for modern book collections and the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library for rare books. Visit the rare books collection with books published 1450-1840 in anthropology, zoology, botany, and other natural sciences; see other rare materials from the Dibner Library for the History of Science and Technology, and learn how the collections continue to be built to serve specific research interests in the Natural History Main Library.
Meeting Point: Constitution Ave. entrance lobby of the National Museum of Natural History, 10th & Constitution Ave, NW    (Gather in the area to the left, near the dinosaur skull)

NMAH Women’s History Tour
More information to come soon!