National Museum of American History
Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, public domain (cropped)
A stop on Washington DC National Mall Walking Tour, a free self-guided tour.
Directly across Madison Drive on your left is the National Museum of American History. It opened in 1964 as the Museum of History and Technology and now holds more than 1.8 million objects.
Its centerpiece is the Star-Spangled Banner, the huge garrison flag that flew over Fort McHenry in Baltimore after the British bombardment of 1814 and inspired Francis Scott Key's poem. It hangs in a dim, climate-controlled chamber to slow its fading. Elsewhere in the building you can find a pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, Julia Child's home kitchen, and a section of the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, where four Black college students began a sit-in in 1960.
Admission is free and no passes are needed. Behind the museum, across Constitution Avenue, is the headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
More on Wikipedia: National Museum of American History · The Star-Spangled Banner
Stops on this tour
- Washington Monument
- National Museum of African American History and Cu
- National Museum of American History
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
- National Gallery of Art
- United States Capitol
- United States Botanic Garden
- National Museum of the American Indian
- National Air and Space Museum
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- The Smithsonian Institution Building - The Castle
- Freer Gallery of Art
- Jefferson Memorial
- World War II Memorial
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Korean War Memorial
- Lincoln Memorial
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- White House Ellipse
- White House
- Lafayette Square