12 Best Museums In Massachusetts

It is no surprise that the state of Massachusetts in New England is a museum hotspot. From the colonial era to the present, few U.S. states have exerted as much influence over the history and culture of the nation at large, so naturally, the state boasts many excellent museums recalling that heritage. But even so, Massachusetts museums largely lack the worldwide name recognition of the more famous museums in New York and Washington, D.C.

These 12 Massachusetts museums cover a wide range of topics and themes, but they all excel at presenting their subject and are worthy of an addition to any Massachusetts itinerary. From the widely known to the niche, there’s a museum in this dozen for every interest!

Concord Museum (Concord)

Most local history museums don’t get much attention out of town, but most towns aren’t Concord, Massachusetts. From the Revolutionary War (the Battle of Lexington and Concord kicked off the American Revolution) to the development of American literature (it was the birthplace and hometown of Henry David Thoreau), Concord has exerted an outsized influence on American history. There’s much for this local history museum to brag about, and its exhibitions are consistently top-notch.

With galleries highlighting Revolutionary War history, the Transcendentalist literary movement, and the region’s Indigenous heritage, there’s a lot to delve into at the Concord Museum. In addition to exhibits on local history, the Concord Museum serves as a cultural hub for the area with a variety of educational and arts programs. At the time of writing, the museum is also celebrating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution with special programming.

This historically rich town is full of significant sites to visit, from the Orchard House where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women to Minute Man National Historical Park's Revolutionary history. Both historically and literarily, Concord offers an embarrassment of riches that could easily fill a whole weekend.

Harvard Museum of Natural History (Cambridge)

It seems only fitting that one of the world’s most prestigious universities would have amassed a veritable cabinet of curiosities in the handful of centuries that it’s been a hub of academic research. The Harvard Museum of Natural History results from a 1998 merger between three smaller Harvard museums, themselves the product of decades of research and study. But this historic collection is anything but stuffy: these days, the Harvard Museum of Natural History is a cutting-edge showcase of the wonders of nature.

With exhibits ranging from exquisitely lifelike glass models of flowers (permanent and not to be missed) to the iconic Great Mammal Hall, Harvard’s most-visited museum is up there with the world’s great science museums. A popular field trip spot for local students, it’s best-known as a place for kids, but anyone curious about the natural world will find something to appreciate. You can be certain that every exhibit will be as superb as the last—after all, it is Harvard.

Whether you visit as a day trip from Boston or stop by while touring the campus with your Harvard hopeful high schooler, there’s plenty more to do in the lively college town of Cambridge. The Harvard Art Museum is an equally excellent showcase of the university’s collections, and for the true college-student experience, stop by Yume Wo Katare or Santouka Hokkaido to sample the king of all college staples: a bowl of ramen.

Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum (Boston)

If any museum in Massachusetts has national name recognition, it’s this one. In 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was the site of U.S. history's most famous art heist. Of the thirteen paintings stolen from the museum, not one has ever been recovered, and their former positions on the walls are left vacant. Why? Because when Boston socialite Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her private art collection to the public in 1903 as a museum, she stipulated that under no circumstances was the original museum to be permanently changed. This meant no acquisitions, no sales, and no rearranging, which means that the spots where stolen paintings once hung are still bare.

That remarkable story would make this one of the most fascinating Massachusetts museums on its own, but the collection itself is just as amazing. Visitors to the museum can see paintings by Titian, Rembrandt, Botticelli, and other art-historical giants in an Italian-inspired pavilion whose design and decoration were overseen by Stewart Gardner herself. Although the museum has since been expanded and hosts educational and cultural programs far beyond the original scope of the museum, the original building retains its intended design down to the letter.

Come for the fascinating story, and stay for the world-class art collection at this top Boston museum. Although you’ll have no trouble filling a day in Boston, this museum should be at the top of every art lover or true crime fanatic’s list.

Lizzie Borden House (Fall River)

Speaking of true crime, here’s another Massachusetts museum for anyone who loves a good murder mystery podcast. In 1892, Fall River residents Andrew and Abby Borden became the victims of an axe murderer, suspected by many to be their daughter Lizzie; however, the courts found Lizzie innocent, and the murders were never solved. The house in which those murders took place is now a museum, an inn, and a popular attraction for mystery fans and true crime aficionados of all stripes—and, according to its website, “the most haunted house in America.”

In addition to preserving the crime scene as a museum and one of the spookiest B&Bs you’re ever likely to find, the Lizzie Borden House offers ghost tours, ghost hunts, and even murder mystery dinners. (“Murder history dinners,” museum staff would correct you.) Whether you’re a true crime fan or simply interested in one of the most famous pieces of local history in this part of Massachusetts, it’s a museum like no other.

If all that talk of gruesome murders hasn’t made off with your appetite yet, Fall River offers excellent seaside dining. Family-owned Primo on Water Street is a particularly good choice, serving Italian classics with ocean views. Plus, stop by Battleship Cove to tour the five naval ships docked permanently in Fall River’s harbor as a maritime museum.

Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History (Springfield)

The Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History is first and foremost a research center for local history, but that isn’t what puts it in the map. That would be its collection of Indian Motorcycles, the largest in the world and a must-see for anyone interested in motorcycling or vintage vehicles.

But the Wood Museum is hardly a one-hit wonder: its Firearms Collection and Automobile Collections are also notably substantial. You can find an art museum almost anywhere, but where else are you going to see the world’s largest collection of Smith & Wesson firearms? Although most visitors stop by to see the vintage motorcycles, there’s plenty more to interest museumgoers.

Oh, and Springfield itself is no slouch, either. It’s the birthplace of basketball and the home of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. And if the firearms exhibit at the Wood Museum wasn’t enough for you, the nearby Springfield Armory National Historic Site displays weapons in a Revolutionary War arsenal.

Metropolitan Waterworks Museum (Boston)

Infrastructure isn’t supposed to call attention to itself. The systems that keep our electricity, water, gas, and transit moving work are supposed to work seamlessly under the surface, and as a result, few of us know how they really work. That’s what the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum wants to change.

In the grand scheme of human history, it wasn’t very long ago at all that running water was an unbelievable innovation. And in 1887, when the building that is now the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum began pumping water to the greater Boston area, adequate access to running water was a serious public concern. That it later became a research facility for the study of Boston’s water supply was even more unusual. Now, the former Chestnut Hill Pumping Station is a museum dedicated to the city of Boston’s early waterworks, and one of the finest in Massachusetts.

Highlights of this unusual museum include guided tours of the engine rooms, exhibits on the history of water infrastructure, and the opportunity to view the machinery of a turn-of-the-century pumping station up close. It’s a window into a facet of the past that is almost completely overlooked.

New Bedford Whaling Museum (New Bedford)

Many Massachusetts residents will know that New England’s chilly, nutrient-rich waters are the summer feeding grounds of migrating whales. Coupled with the area’s long history of shipbuilding and other maritime exploits, that once made Massachusetts one of the world’s foremost jumping-off points for whaling ships, and whaling one of the state’s key industries. This museum chronicles the area’s whaling industry, preserves the maritime history of what was once a proud seafaring region, and now — in a heartening display of irony — educates visitors about the need to protect whale populations.

Far from a stuffy, Moby Dick-esque retelling of the Massachusetts whaling story, this inventive museum focuses on the stories of its community as much as it does on the uses of ambergris or the art of the harpoon. The New Bedford Museum weaves together the many narratives that make up the rich seafaring history of the south Massachusetts coast, asking us to think about our impacts on the world around us. It’s a fitting tone to tell the story of an industry that was equally damaging and enriching to this fascinatingly vibrant community.

If you’re making the trek out to New Bedford to visit the museum, you might add on a visit to New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park to view the industry from a different angle. New Bedford also has one of the nation’s largest Portuguese populations, at about 38% of the total population, so you can enjoy excellent Portuguese food all over town: try Antonio’s or Alianca Restaurant.

Norman Rockwell Museum (Stockbridge)

Massachusetts artist Norman Rockwell is best known for his iconic “Four Freedoms” paintings, but few outside the art world are more broadly familiar with his career. At this museum, where you can view Rockwell’s paintings, magazine covers, illustrations, and even his former studio (reservations required), you’ll get a better grasp on what this deceptively well-known artist was really about. Unsurprisingly, the collection at this purpose-built museum in the Berkshires is the world’s largest collection of his work.

Though you might not have thought you had much interest in Norman Rockwell’s work before your visit, this excellent museum presents his famous scenes of small-town America in a new light. It’s both a perfect excuse to visit the scenic Berkshires region where Norman Rockwell spent his final years, and a perfect addition to a relaxing Berkshires weekend — even if you don’t typically think of yourself as an art lover. Rotating exhibitions of other artists’ works also add interest to any visit.

If you’re in the area, this famously beautiful region of Massachusetts is full of beautifully preserved historic architecture. Several of the sumptuous holiday homes in this area are open as museums, notably the stunning Gilded Age mansion Naumkeag. These attractions would make a worthy addition to a Berkshire County road trip.

Peabody Essex Museum (Salem)

Salem, Massachusetts, is best known for its eponymous witch trials, but its more recent history had a much less supernatural focal point: seafaring. In 1799, the East India Marine Society was founded in Salem to collect the exotic goods that the area’s sea captains had collected in their voyages to the Eastern Hemisphere, and in the 1860s, the Society’s collections were turned over to the Peabody Academy of Science. Eventually, the Peabody Essex Museum became a place to display the many natural, ethnological, and artistic treasures that found their way to Salem in those 200-odd years. It is, as such, the oldest operational museum in the U.S.

As you might imagine, the Peabody Essex Museum’s collections are vast and varied, and rotating exhibitions give the museum an opportunity to display art and artifacts of nearly every genre, medium, and cultural patrimony you could imagine. Suffice to say that the Peabody has had plenty of time to learn how to create a beautiful exhibition, and there’s always something new to see. The PEM campus also includes entire historical buildings, reconstructed on its campus.

When visiting Salem, you could devote an entire day to the Peabody Essex Museum, but there’s much more to see. You’ll find attractions dedicated to seafaring, ghost hunting, pirates, and witches. Especially popular is the House of Seven Gables, a spooky historical home with manicured gardens made famous by a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel.

Plimoth Patuxet Museums (Plymouth)

It’s practically purpose-built for a school field trip; this open-air “living museum” replicates the Plymouth Colony (of Mayflower fame) in real time, with a historically-accurate faux townscape populated by costumed actors to give visitors a glimpse of what one of the earliest European settlements in the U.S. might have looked like in its heyday. Since 1947, the site has expanded to create an ever more elaborate living diorama of the area, now including a replica of a Native American village.

While the place is a magnet for school groups, the Plimoth Patuxet Museums are by no means a dull lecture on the distant past. Visitors of all ages can find something of interest in the complex’s painstaking rendering of daily life in the 17th-century Plymouth Colony, and take something away from the immersive experience of diving headfirst into an unrecognizable way of life.

Although the museum complex has a café, there are also plenty of waterfront dining options in the town of Plymouth. Check out Tavern on the Wharf or Dillon’s Local for seafood-forward dining with a view.

Whydah Pirate Museum (Yarmouth)

The mention of pirates may recall kitschy theme park rides or boardwalk amusements, but keep an open mind when it comes to the Whydah Pirate Museum: it’s anything but. This extraordinary museum is the product of an unprecedented archaeological endeavor, and it displays the only verified pirate treasure currently on display anywhere.

Wrecked near Cape Cod in 1717, the Whydah Gally, which gives this museum its name, is the only sunken pirate vessel ever to be verified when it was rediscovered in 1984. Since then, artifacts have slowly been brought to the surface, and many of those artifacts are displayed in the Whydah Museum.

At the Whydah Pirate Museum, you’ll have the opportunity to learn everything you might have wanted to know about the Golden Age of Piracy in the 17th and 18th centuries—through artifacts that were there when it happened. Thanks to painstaking excavation work that remains ongoing, the Whydah Pirate Museum is able to reconstruct the history of piracy and its role in the 18th-century world in a way few other institutions could.

The Cape Cod area needs no introduction as a tourist destination, lined with white-sand beaches and elegant summer homes. But if you’re already in the area, a quick trip to Yarmouth to visit the Whydah Pirate Museum is a must.

Worcester Art Museum (Worcester)

Art museums aren’t everyone’s speed, but this list includes a diverse range of museums in Massachusetts so that anyone who’s not into art will find something to their liking. The Worcester Art Museum is vast and similarly has something for every visitor. Famous for its Japanese print collection, the Worcester Museum collections are extensive and diverse: it even features a Medieval meeting room moved from a 12th-century French monastery in 1933 and reconstructed inside the museum. Modern art, Roman art, textile art—you name it, and the Worcester Art Museum probably has it on display.

If you’re not museum-ed out or decide midway through your visit that art isn’t your thing, Worcester is also home to the ecology-focused EcoTarium science museum. Or, take in a live performance in Renaissance splendor at Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts.

Whatever your area of interest, Massachusetts is so full of excellent museums that you’re bound to find one you’ll love. That tends to be the case in a state with the history, artistic traditions, and dedication to preserving its past that you’ll find in Massachusetts. So, whether you’re a local looking for a new day trip idea or are a visitor road tripping through New England, there’s a Massachusetts museum that fits right into your itinerary.