guide2museums.com

What kinds of museums are there? Museums come in many styles and sizes, including: art museums, children’s museums, general museums, heritage museums, historic house museums, history museums, military & war museums, and science & technology museums. They’re all described below.

Art Museums

Art museums are also called art galleries, in fact the terms are used interchangeably in most places. These museums provide, of course, a collection of artwork in many different forms. Collections may be housed inside a building or in an open space, depending on the type of artwork. Likewise, collections may be owned by the museum giving the exhibit or may be privately owned collections on display.

Children’s Museums

Children’s museums have been around since the end of the 1800s, initially started to fill a gap museum curators felt existed in other museums of the time. They are, of course, designed with children and their interests in mind. Many children’s museums also offer hands-on learning activities, interactive exhibits, and even formal programs for kids. Some, however, may just provide collections related to the interests of children. 

General Museums

General Museums are, you guessed it, collections of a variety of artifacts. Since they hold more than one subject, they’re sometimes called multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary museums. The collections may be a small spattering of many different disciplines or they may have collections grouped in several specialized collections.

In North America, the most common general museums are those serving a region, county, or district. Typically, they’re established out of civic pride and a desire by local historical societies to archive and display the history and knowledge of their areas. The communities served may be culturally similar or have many aspects in common. 

Heritage Museums

Heritage museums are a popular type of history museum in North America. These museums cover the 1700s through the 1900s, focusing on ethnic settlements and communities. A number of the heritage museums Linda has visited have also been open air museums (also called museum of buildings or a folk museum), which are museums that exhibit collections of buildings and artifacts out-of-doors. Typically, each building is restored to its original purpose on a site, or recreated according to plans from a specific era. 

Historic House Museums

Historic House Museums are common across North America. As you’ve likely guessed, an historic house museum was typically the home of someone influential or important in their community or country. However, they may also be set up to tell the story of a particular community, social class, or historical period, rather than individuals. 

Exteriors and interiors may reflect a specific time in the house’s history, or contain artifacts of this historic figure and his or her family acquired over numerous decades. The house may be completely original or have some, or all, components reconstructed or acquired from the specific time period. Sometimes, historic home museums are also called memory museums, as the museum contains traces of the memory of the people who once lived there.

Historic Sites

Historic sites are designated in various ways in North America. In Canada, you’ll find Municipal Heritage properties at the local government level, all the way to various designations at the national level. These include: National Historic Sites (NHS), National Historic Events (NHE), Heritage Railway Stations ((HRS), Federal Heritage Buildings (FHB), and Heritage Lighthouses (HL). Click to learn more about the Canadian Register of Historic Places’ Role in Canada. Search the Canadian register of historic places here.

In the United States Federal historic designations include the National Historic Landmarks (NHL) Program and listing on the National Register for Historic Places (NR or National Register). Both the National Historic Landmarks Program and the National Register for Historic Places are managed by the National Park Service. Most US states have similar designations to the National Register for Historic Places and some also have historic landmarks.

History Museums

History museums are common in North America. Their purpose is to preserve and showcase collections of artifacts, which are often organized and displayed in a chronological order. They’re often found at the national, provincial, state, or local levels. Many museums of this type also have archives that include print materials such as newspapers, books, immigration records, etc. 

Linda has visited many history museums and you’ll find them in themes common in North America, including: 

• Fur trade (1600s through 1800s – includes trappers and explorers)
• Gold rush (1800s – includes various gold rushes across the continent)
• Heritage (1700s through 1900s – includes ethnic settlements and communities).
• Lifestyles (1700s through 1900s – includes museums focused on everyday life such as furnishings, clothing, and activities)
• Maritime (1500s through 1900s – includes museums focused on objects related to ships and travel on large bodies of water)
• Old West (1800s into early 1900s – includes cattle drives, outlaws, western art, etc.)
• Pioneers (1700s into early 1900s – includes settlement and homesteading)

Military & War Museums

Military and War Museums preserve the history of all services of the military over the centuries, including: army, navy, and air force, while war museums focus on the people, events, and machines of specific combats, such as WWI and WWII. Linda has visited many of these museums in North America that have impressive collections that may be focused in one specific era such as: 

• Cold War – 1947 to 1991
• WWII – 1939 – 1945
• WWI – 1914 – 1918
• American Civil War (War Between the States) – 1861 – 1865
• Weapons and firearms 

Some of the Cold War museums, in particular, may be historic military sites that have been opened as museums. 

Music Museums

Music Museums focus on the music industry and its performers. You may also find music museums combined with a Hall of Fame. The museums are often geographically or genre themed, or they may be dedicated to a single performer who made a mark in the industry.

Science & Technology Museums

Science and Technology Museums are common in North America. Their focus is on how scientific ideas and technology have been applied in various topic areas. Depending on the museum, you may find a focus on the process of doing something, as opposed to the objects used to do something. 

You’ll find a number of types of science and technology museums here. They include: 

• Agricultural
• Fossils
• Manufacturing
• Mining
• Natural Science & Natural History
• Space

Guide2Museum’s categories have been further divided to include:

• Technology museums: Their focus is on how scientific ideas and technology have been applied in various topic areas. Depending on the museum, you may find a focus on the process of doing something, as opposed to the objects used to do something. Includes: agricultural, manufacturing, mining, machines of all sorts and the history of their development, as well as space travel.
• Science museums: Their focus is on science including natural science, paleontology, science centers, anthropoligical museums and collections, aquariums, arboretums, planetariums, mineralogical museums, geological museums and collections, and botanical gardens.

Specialty Museums

Specialty museums provide collections concerned with research and the display of all aspects of a single theme or subject not covered in one of the other categories. The subjects may be wild and crazy, or simply a niche.

Sports Museums

Sports museums focus on collecting the history of a specific sport. In North America many sports museums are also a Hall of Fame, so you’ll find information on the achievements and records of the sport’s participants.

Transportation Museums

Transportation museums are collections of transport artifacts. Since North America has four distinct seasons, often with specialized transportation needs depending on the state or province, these types of collections are popular either on their own, or as a key part of a general museum. Linda has visited a number of transportation museums which may be specialized such as: 

• Air transport (includes all types on non-military aircraft of the 1900s and early 2000s)
• Cars and trucks (includes all automobiles and trucks, or private passenger vehicles from the 1800s through to present)
• Motorcycles (includes all motorcycles from the 1900s through to present)
• Snowmobiles (includes all snowmobiles or tracked vehicles intended to move over snow or ice from the 1900s through to present)
• Trains (includes all trains and train stations from the 1800s through to present)
• Public transport (includes busses, trolleybuses or trolley cars, and motorcoaches, along with bus garages and engine sheds from the 1800s through to present)
• Water transportation (includes boats of all kinds as well as amphibious vehicles from prehistory to present)