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Museums

American Folk Art Museum

American Museum of Straw Art

American Textile History Museum

Bata Shoe Museum

Bayou Bend Collection (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; house museum of American decorative arts)

Chicago History Museum, Decorative and Industrial Arts Collection

Colonial Williamsburg (in Virginia; world's largest living history museum recreates an 18th century Colonial town; museums include the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockerfeller Folk Art Museum; extensive website of exhibits and research resources)

Concord Museum (historic Massachusetts)

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Corning Museum of Glass

Gardiner Museum (Toronto museum of ceramics)

Gibbes Museum of Art (Charleston, SC)

Gomez Mill House (oldest surviving Jewish Homestead in North America)

Hagley Museum and Library (site of 1802 du Pont gunpowder works; collections strong on early American industry)

Hampton National Historic Site (Maryland estate dating from the 1700's; see virtual museum tour online)

Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

Kenmore & George Washington's Ferry Farm (Virginia estate museums)

Mariners' Museum

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of American Decorative Arts

Milwaukee Art Museum

Minneapolis Institute of Arts: Decorative Arts, Textiles & Sculpture Collection

Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC; collections strong in ceramics and decorative arts)

Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home and plantation; extensive website of virtual tours, exhibits and research resources)

Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens (George Washington's Virginia home; site provides an online searchable Digital Encyclopedia)

Museum of Arts & Design (formerly the American Craft Museum)

Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) (devoted to Southern decorative arts and material culture; resources include a searchable craftsman database)

Museum of Early Trades & Crafts (history of pre-industrial New Jersey)

National Gallery of Art, Index of American Design (18,000 watercolor renderings of American decorative arts from Colonial times through the 19th century; some images are available online)

New York Historical Society Museum and Library

Old Salem Museums and Gardens (website provides information/links regarding the historic town of Salem, North Carolina, and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts [MESDA])

Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, Massachusetts)

Pilgrim Hall Museum: America's Museum of Pilgrim Possessions

Rhode Island School of Design: Museum of Art

Smithsonian American Art Museum, begun in 1829, is devoted to American art of all regions, cultures and traditions. The Renwick Gallery houses its collections of craft and decorative arts from the 19th century to date. Among resources compiled for researchers is a Pre-1877 Art Exhibition Catalogue Index and Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture in U.S. collections.

Stratford Hall Plantation (Virginia ancestral home of Robert E. Lee, dates to the 1730s)

Virginia Historical Society (online exhibitions and the ability to search library and object collections)

Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, CT; first public art institution in the U.S.)

Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library (Delaware estate of Henry Francis du Pont; premier museum of American decorative arts with a collection of 90,000 objects made or used in America between 1640 and 1860; also houses an extensive research library for scholars of decorative arts and material culture, and provides online resources as well)

Wisconsin Historical Society

Worcester Art Museum, Early American Painting Collection

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