NPS museum collections span the natural and cultural heritage of the country from geologic time to the present. Collections from over 300 units of the National Park system are maintained in parks, cultural resource centers, and non Federal repositories. They reflect many themes, subject areas, time periods, individuals, groups, activities and significant events in American history, as well as the range of fossils, rocks, plants, and wildlife that cover our national heritage. The NPS museum collections include objects, specimens, and archival and manuscript collections that are managed in the actual places, structures and habitats where they were made, used, or collected.

Other Significant Cultural Resources Collections

National Park Museum Centennial
The first national park museum – an arboretum – was established in Yosemite National Park in 1904. Today, the National Park Service manages the world’s largest system of museums; more than 350 national parks preserve more than 105 million objects, specimens, documents, and images. As part of National Park Week (April 17-25), the National Park Service will mark the centennial of national park museums.

Museum Exhibits
Thematic virtual exhibits showcase NPS collections at NPS parks throughout the nation. Each thematic exhibit also includes an expanded image gallery. Exhibits include:

American Revolutionary War
This new multi-park exhibit highlights NPS museum collections at American Revolutionary War parks. Featured sites and collections commemorate significant events and individuals of the American Revolutionary War [1775-1783]. Valley Forge National Historical Park, Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, Independence National Historical Park,and Morristown National Historical Park collections are featured.

American Visionaries
A series featuring American men and women celebrated in the National Park System who helped shape the life, culture, and history of the United States. Exhibits showcase NPS museum collections created or used by these extraordinary individuals whose homes and places of work can be seen at NPS sites.

Harry S Truman: American Visionary
This online museum exhibit takes visitors on a tour through the Truman home. It provides a closeup look at President Harry S Truman, his wife Bess and daughter Margaret's personal belongings and memorabilia, from their earliest years to the White House, and their return to Independence, MO.

Eleanor Roosevelt
celebrates the life of the First Lady and champion of domestic social reform, economic justice and human rights. The exhibit features her belongings in the collections at Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site and Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site.

Thomas Moran
features selected works from Yellowstone National Park's museum collections. Works include sketches that Moran produced in the Yellowstone area, sketchbooks filled with field studies and notations, and charcoal drawings. Photographs by William Henry Jackson from the park's archives are featured.

Frederick Douglass
features items owned by Douglass and that highlights his achievements. Father of the American civil rights movement, Douglass was an abolitionist, human rights and women's rights activist, orator, author, journalist, publisher, and social reformer. The featured items are objects and archival documents at the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site at Cedar Hill, Southeast Washington, DC.

Legends of Tuskegee
highlights the lives and achievements of Booker Taliafero Washington, George Washington Carver and the Tuskegee Airmen at Tuskegee, Alabama. Tuskegee was the site of major African-American achievements for over 100 years.

Camp Life: Civil War Collections from Gettysburg National Military Park
The exhibit showcases some of the items that were made or used by soldiers in Union and Confederate camps, and that helped soldiers cope with daily life.

The Museum Collections at Chaco Culture National Historical Park
Visit a dazzling array of ceramics, bead and stonework, and historic rock art photographs from Chaco Canyon's remarkable museum and archival collections. This NPS web exhibit displays extraordinary detail of the spectacular designs, elegant forms, and technical expertise of the ancient Chacoan artisans, which offers insight into Chaco culture and life some 1,000 years ago.

New Lease on Life
This exhibit features the steps that NPS conservators take to ensure the safety of NPS collections during analysis, exhibition, and in long-term storage. Steps include examination, stabilization, research and restoration. Specific examples from parks are on view.

Symbols in Battle
This exhibit features selected Civil War flags in NPS museum collections, including flags from Appomattox, Fords Theater, Fort Pulaski, Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, Kennesaw, Manassas, Richmond and Stones River.

Museum Publications
The NPS Museum Management Program offers several publications, including:

Conserve O Gram
The Conserve O Gram series includes short, focused leaflets on how to care for museum collections. They are also published in loose-leaf form.

Museum Handbook
The Museum Handbook is a reference guide on how to manage, preserve, document, access and use museum and archival collections. There are three parts to the NPS Museum Handbook:
Part I, Museum Collections
Part II, Museum Records
Part III, Museum Collections Use

Automated National Catalog System User Manual ANCS is an automated collections management system developed by NPS ANCS+ includes multiple functions covering documentation, preservation and use of collections such as accessions, cataloging, loans, deaccessions, housekeeping, and conservation treatment and reports.

Disaster Plan
on how to plan for emergencies, and salvage and care for paper objects during emergencies, such as fire, flood, and earthquake. The Primer was issued by the Smithsonian Institution, National Archives and Records Administration, Library of Congress, and National Park Service.

Park Profiles
Park Profiles briefly describe the scope of museum collections located at over 300 parks nationwide. Profiles contain data on park collection size by type, and are featured alphabetically. Collection disciplines include archeology, ethnology, history, geology, paleontology, biology and archival documents. Individual park museum contact information is included.

Treasures of the Nation
Treasures of the Nation is an indexed image database that contains an ever growing sampling of more than 76 million museum objects, specimens and archival documents found in over 300 NPS park.

Web Catalog allows users to search across participating park cultural and natural history databases, and do global searches across all park databases. The Web Catalog provides access to related objects, themes, and geographic areas. It includes selected collection images.

NPS Museum Activities and Events
provides current information on museum news, conferences and training, and volunteer opportunities.

NPS Museum Clearinghouse
NPS Museum Clearinghouse serves as a point of contact for park and non-park museums and others in order to exchange information on objects needed to fill gaps in museum collections, as well as objects available for deaccessioning.

Clearinghouse Classifieds is a newsletter where parks and museums can advertise for objects needed or objects available. Parks and museums may subscribe to the newsletter free of charge by sending an e-mail to the NPS Clearinghouse.

 

There are other significant collections of cultural resources preserved by the National Park Service. Check them out here.

Managing Archeological Collections
This source of technical assistance and distance learning concerns the long-term management and care of archeological collections, including objects, records, non-cultural materials, reports, and digital data. Ten sections cover a wide range of issues, concerns, and best practices for archeologists, curators, CRM managers, and many others. Each section contains a review quiz to test your knowledge, an extensive bibliography, and a page of useful links to related materials.

HABS/HAER Collections
A permanent collection of architectural and engineering documentation is safeguarded for you at the Library of Congress. This national treasure consists of hand-measured and computer-generated drawings, large-format black and white and color photographs, written historical and descriptive data, and original field notes, capturing the essence of the American experience through more than 36,000 recorded historic structures and sites, from Native American cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde to space-age technology at Cape Canaveral.

The National Register Collection
The National Register Collection documents the over 71,000 properties listed in the Register since its inception in 1966. Together these files hold information on nearly one million individual resources -- buildings, sites, districts, structures, and objects -- and provide a link to the country's heritage at the national, state, and local levels. The documentation on each property consists of photographs, maps, and a National Register registration form, which provides a physical description of the place, information about its history and significance, and a bibliography.

Yellowstone's Historic Vehicle Collection
Yellowstone National Park maintains an historic vehicle collection consisting of 30 horse-drawn and motorized vehicles ranging from stage coaches from the late 1800s to a Vespa motor scooter used by rangers in the 1960s. You will see very few historic vehicles if you visit the park, however, online visitors are now able to see many of them and learn the details of their uses.