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

Description: 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.
Where to meet: NMAH 3rd floor, West Wing – Entertainment Nation exhibition entrance
Time: 10:30-12:30
Max attendees: 20

Library of Congress

Description: 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.  Note: Registration for this tour closes Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Where to meet: by the main entrance of the Jefferson Building (101 Independence Ave SE)
Time: 1:30-2:30 [actual tour starts at 1:45]
Max attendees: 30

Tesoros en el Museo Nacional de Historia Americana (Treasures at the NMAH)

Description: En este recorrido guiado, visitaremos algunas exposiciones del Museo Nacional de Historia Estadounidense  y veremos una selección de objetos de los acervos pertenecientes a diversas colecciones que destacan momentos significativos de la historia de las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y Latinoamérica en el siglo XIX. Esta visita se realizará en español.
Where to meet: Mostrador de bienvenida del NMAH (primer piso, entrada por la Avenida Constitucional) / NMAH welcome desk (first floor, Constitutional Avenue entrance)
Time: 10:30-12:30
Max attendees: 30, broken into two groups of 15

American collector Charles Lang Freer, and Japanese art

Description: 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, with an additional stop in the archives of the Museum of Asian Art.
Where to meet: Freer Gallery of Art, National Mall side entrance
Time: 1:30-2:30
Max attendees: 30, broken into two groups of 15

Special Collections Library Tour, National Museum of Natural History

Description: The Smithsonian Libraries and Archives includes 20 branches serving SI staff and visiting researchers behind the scenes in the Institution’s museums and research facilities from New York to Panama, with most on or near the Mall in Washington DC.  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.  Our visit will start in the rare collection, where curators will display and discuss books published between 1450 and 1840 in the fields of anthropology, zoology, botany, and other natural sciences;  additional rare materials from the Dibner Library for the History of Science and Technology will expand and enhance the discussion of the libraries’ services.  The visit will finish in the Natural History Main Library, where librarians will discuss the various ways that the collections have been built—and continue to grow in the new digital age—to serve the specific research interests of the taxonomists and scientists at the Museum, and the scholarship worldwide.
Where to meet: 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.
Time: 1:30-3:30
Max attendees: 30

NMAH 19th Century Women’s Life Collections Tour

Description: In this behind-the-scenes tour, curators from the National Museum of American History will take attendees to collections storage to explore the museum’s holdings related to the 19th century suffrage movement, clothing, and domestic labor. Highlights will include patent models related to work in the home that have female patentees, 19th century fashion, and objects related to women’s suffrage and political participation.
Where to meet: NMAH 2nd floor, West Wing – by the George Washington Statue
Time: 10:30-12:30
Max attendees: 30, to be broken into three groups to rotate

Curatorial walk of exhibitions at National Museum of American Indian

Description: 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.
Where to meet: NMAI Welcome Center/Cafe area, 1st floor, National Museum of American Indian, 4th Street and Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC.
Time: 1:30-3:30 (60 minute tour: 45 minutes touring exhibitions and 15 minutes Q&A )
Max attendees: 20

National Portrait Gallery/Archives of American Art

Description: The tour will be split into groups to rotate between 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, switching halfway through so attendees can see both.  The NPG exhibition sketches the early history of the Patent Office—the third oldest public building in Washington—through works in the museum’s collection. The exhibition includes daguerreotypes, stereographs, painted miniatures, wood engravings, and lithographs ranging in date from 1840 to 1898. For tour attendees, the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art will provide an introduction to their collections and how to access them, and share with participants unique materials including artists’ sketches, diaries, correspondence as well as records of art collectors and commercial art galleries.
Where to meet: Visitor services desk at the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture at the G street entrance
Time: 1:30-3:30
Max attendees: 30 (two groups of 15)