Apparently, there are more museums in the USA than all of Europe combined and I was wondering, if the stereotype of obscure and small, privately-owned local museums holds any truth and if they’re actually visited?

44 comments

  3. I work in museums. Something I have heard (I’m not sure how true this is) is that there are more museums than Subways and McDonald’s combined.

    It is absolutely true that the vast majority of museums are small and obscure and might not even have a single full time employee. However, most are not privately owned and are instead registered as nonprofits.

    Visitorship varies, there are certainly small local musuems that are very popular, but there are also obscure museums that might get two visitors in a week.

  4. Yeah they are all over the place. Sometimes you might be driving and just see a billboard for one.

    A cool one near me is a mining museum where they take you through a replica mine and talk about the history of mining in the area. They have really cool displays of florescent minerals that glow under UV light. Sterling Hill Mine in NJ.

    Have been to as many of these as I can. They are fun and tickets are usually cheap.

  5. there are big and small museums. both are amazing for different reasons, and both have significant patronage.

    big museums are obviously a popular destination for people traveling to big cities. (look up the Milwaukee Art Museum if you’ve never seen it! one of my favorites)

    smaller museums can have more niche appeal. like little hidden gems. but I’ve seen some of the most incredible and historically significant art in smaller museums. they’re fun to go to bc they’re much more low key.

  6. Yes, though we do have large, sprawling ones. Hell, Colonial Williamsburg is basically a city-sized museum.

  8. Yes, they’re all over the place. There’s a museum for every possible topic in NY.

  9. Yes. The Ralph Foster Museum on the campus of School of the Ozarks is super kitschy (exhibits include some terrible taxidermy and the original Beverly Hillbillies’ car) but also houses a wide variety of Ozarks’ related historical exhibits.

    The Creation Museum is an interesting exhibit if you are a Biblical Creationist (or just curious). It’s where Christians take their kids to satisfy that home school science field trip requirement.

    Branson also has a military/veteran museum, the worlds largest toy museum, a farm and auto museum, a museum for celebrity cars, a Hollywood wax museum, a shipwrecked treasure museum, a home and museum dedicated to the creator of the Kewpie doll and a dinosaur museum. We also have a dozen or more caves open for tours, which is a kind of museum.

    I’ve been to all of these and they are usually pretty busy.

  10. Tons of small museums out here.

    [My township has a small military museum](https://goo.gl/maps/Fk87TU5rnDg7GphV8). I have never actually seen it open. Might be just something for school tours.

    Here’s a [Museum of Miniature Houses](https://g.page/miniaturehouses?share).

    And [here is a tiny Statue of Liberty Museum](https://goo.gl/maps/LhzqGdCGHbndszGv5).

    [Chicago has a torture museum.](https://goo.gl/maps/VWZyKKcahMqRUvMH7)

    [The spy museum in DC is really fun.](https://g.page/IntlSpyMuseum?share)

  11. As an example, when in New York I went to the Met and the Guggenheim. I think I enjoyed the NY Transit Museum in a disused subway station in Brooklyn more.

    Locally, I love taking or directing visitors to the Pacific Pinball Museum, which has all the different rooms set up by decade with era specific jukeboxes and pinball machines all free to play with admission.

  13. There was a mining museum in Montana that I bought a blasting core from, and there’s a tiny museum outside of Dickinson that just one guy runs

  15. There are plenty here in NYC. They’re some of the most interesting museums in the city.

  16. If they weren’t visited, why and how would they exist?

    My little town has a local history museum, it’s open from 10a-4p a few days a week and on Saturdays. I have no idea what the attendance there is, but it’s enough to stay open.

  17. Yes, but what actually qualifies as a museum here might differ from your expectations. One person’s museum is another person’s kitschy tourist trap.

  18. most museums I know of are maintained by some sort of historical society or scientific organization. really haven’t seen many truly independent ones though i know exist.

  19. Yup, little ones are all over the place with varying degrees of attendence. Some of them are really cool, some of them are just a good excuse to get out and walk around somewhere cheap with A/C when you’re on a road trip.

  20. Some are indeed cool, others are as dull as dishwater. Americans tend to view things that are not especially old (by non-American standards) as “historic” and in need of preserving so you get all sorts of stuff that qualifies. Some of it is indeed interesting but plenty of it reminds me of an elderly relatives storage space full of junk. Given the amount of space available here a lot gets preserved (and ends up either in a museum or turned into a museum) that would have been junked or torn down anywhere else.

  21. Whenever we go camping there’s usually a small mountain town. In that town there’s an old house that has been turned into a museum. It will have antiques from the local industry. Photos of the towns founding. Memorabilia from major historic events there. And probably information about the local Native Americans.

  22. If you really want to go down a rabbit hole, spend some time on atlas obscura. Pick any random location in the US, and I’m willing to bet there is at least one small and incredibly specific museum in the area.

  23. Yes.

    There are a huge amount of small museums. Near me we have three little science museums, a local history museum, the Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Museum, a small but excellent Childrens Museum down in NH, a small but great Childrens Museum in Portland, The Maine Historical Society Museum, Tate House, the lighthouses which have museum type exhibits and are probably counted, the Portland Science Center and probably a dozen more small museums in the area. The town that has the childrens museum also has a Historical Society and an eclectic little museum with everything from Native American artifacts to WWI and WWII artifacts brought home from the wars.

    Just about every mid sized town has some kind of museum in New England. Often multiple.

    Indianapolis is full of excellent museums, including the largest Children’s Museum in the world, a world class Native American museum, the state museum, a surprisingly excellent art museum.

    Colleges also have museums on campus. Bowdoin in Brunswick Maine has a museum and it’s a college of like 2000 students. Ohio State has several, including a comic museum that is superb and a geology museum.

  24. I’ve visited a few. My favorite painting of all time, “I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold”, was painted by Charles Demuth. His childhood home in Lancaster PA is a museum now – quite lovely.

    One other small museum that’s a lot of fun for everyone is the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati OH.

    US presidents often establish an archival library/museum in their name after they leave office. Costs are paid by private donations. I don’t know how far they go back in time, but I highly recommend the Franklin D Roosevelt Library and Museum at Hyde Park, NY. The grounds and house are lovely perched above the Hudson River. House tours are given regularly, and the museum is fantastic, given the length of FDR’s political career.

  25. Yep there’s museums hidden all over the place devoted to damn near anything you can imagine.

    Like, near me there’s a museum documenting 5000 years worth of history of the Loxahatchee River. It’s not a particularly big or important river, but it’s a river and stuff happened there for 5000 years, so let’s document it.

    It’s also housed in a building that used to be an old WW2 radio station, so here’s a section dedicated to how radiomen and their families lived here. Because why not? Its a big building and we got the room.

  26. Twister the Movie Museum in Wakita, Oklahoma. This is in the middle of nowhere, but gets visitors from around the world. I made a specific trip myself to visit it. Highly recommend if you like tornadoes and the movie Twister!

  27. The small ones can often be lots of fun. You may be the only one there, the expert/owner will give you a personal tour, if they have merch you may get some freebies if they like you, and they’re in unique locations like the back of an old school, or in an old home. They’re great for an inexpensive hour of learning.

  28. I finally visited the museum for my local county the other day. The whole thing was covered in about 20 minutes because it was really only two rooms outlining the highlights of general development

  29. The strangest museum I’ve been to is the Spam museum, in Minnesota.

    The highway out there has about a dozen billboards advertising it. After a few trips through there to visit family, we couldn’t deny our curiosity any longer.

    It’s literally a museum about the canned meat product, Spam. It was an entertaining afternoon.

    Basically, American Museums are like reddit. If there’s an interest in something, SOMEONE has created a museum for it.

  30. I wasn’t aware this was a stereotype but I’ve travelled quite a bit around the country and can say that’s pretty true.

  31. There are a lot of museums here. Every little town has a historical society (sometimes more than one) and most of them have museums. A lot of them are pretty small but they can be pretty good.

    It is also pretty common to have an exhibit or two at local libraries and town halls. Makes me wonder if those are each being counted as museums as well to get this statistic.

  32. [Here’s a list of museums in Massachusetts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Massachusetts). I haven’t counted them. Some of these are really tiny, such as the handful of historic homes in Concord. The lifesaving museum in Hull is even smaller. Old Sturbridge Village, an open air museum focused on early 19th century rural life, is over 200 acres.

    Most of these are operated by non-profits. Some are operated by the National Park Service; typically these have the word “national” in the name (not just the description). The ones with “state park” in the name are operated by the state. I believe a few are for-profit.

  33. What’s the stereotype? I’m not familiar with what stereotype you’re referring to. Some are better than others.

    Here in my city the Cole Transportation company has put together a Land Transportation Museum that’s actually pretty cool. It’s got all manner of vehicles from all over Maine through the past 100 years. I discovered it cause my son loves trucks and we took him there. They’ve got all these restored cars and trucks and trains and snowcats and wagons. Basically if it was ever used for transportation in Maine, they’ve probably got one.

    I always see other people there when we go. It’s one of those things that, you’re not going to go out of your way to Bangor just to see this, but if you live here, or happen to be in the area, it’s worth checking out.

  34. There are lots of small museums throughout the country. You never really know until you go to one if it will be a complete waste of time, absolutely fascinating, or somewhere in between.

  36. Yeah, there is this one in my hometown along the bayou that is a “museum dedicated to the war between the states”. Looks like a really nice building. However I’ve yet to met a single person who has ever entered it. It’s never come up in a conversation either. We had a fairly sizable battle in the general area, and most of the three local towns were burned down by Union forces.

  37. if you take a trip through Ballston Spa in NY you can visit the bottle museum, I’m sure it’s at least somewhat interesting so I’d say the stereotype is probably true

  38. There are some smaller and unknown ones that might get less visitors based of that (especially if the area that they are located in is already small); but the majority of museums aren’t like that as they attract tons of people. Been to all sorts of different ones, from art museums to the historical museums (including Native American ones), dinosaur, and even more interactive/hands-on science museums.

    Very few are actually privately owned though.

  40. They definitely exist. They can also be super niche and specific. There is a private museum in my home state that claims to have “the most Duke’s of Hazard memorabilia of anywhere in the world.

  41. If it exists and is something that can be collected, there’s a museum of it somewhere. There’s a kookoo clock museum, Salt and pepper shaker museum, cookie jar museum, etc. If there’s a town with a railroad, it has at least one abandoned train car and a train museum. If it’s a town near a lake or ocean, it has a maritime museum. If it’s near a civil war battlefield, there’s a museum. If it has a historic downtown, there’s a museum for the local history. If there’s a military base nearby or a state capitol there will be military museums. If it’s a recognizable brand, there’s a museum somewhere near the corporate headquarters. Even bush’s baked beans and spam have museums. If it’s in a touristy area that caters to families, it will have a dozen museums (see Gatlinburg).

    Most of these small museums operate as a labor of love rather than trying to generate a profit. A lot that I have been to are either open to the public, only have a tip jar, or have a very small ticket price.

  42. Per Google there are 26 museums within a 5-mile radius of my house. That’s honestly way more than I realized, but then I do live in a history-rich town.

  43. This is a hypothesis but I wonder if Americans have a broader definition of culture. It’s not just capital C culture that we esteem. (And therefore we have more museums to reflect that)

  44. There are definitely lots of local museums! Most that I’ve been to aren’t privately owned though. A lot of times they’re run by a university department, a state/county park system, town government, etc. A good portion of towns have a small “town history” museum. There are some private niche museums too of course though.

    Here’s an example of a local-ish museum. This part of the museum (though it’s not the only part) has niche, obscure focus that is the stuff of *nightmares*: https://morrismuseum.org/mechanical-musical-instruments-automata/ (I just find these things so fucking creepy… there are some videos linked on there too…)

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