Museums

Capital Children's Museum - Capital Children's Museum (CCM) has fostered children's love of learning for over 25 years. Children are encouraged to explore by touching, climbing, tasting and using their imagination to learn about the world around them. At CCM, there are five permanent exhibits and more than a dozen traveling exhibits each year.

Decatur House - The Decatur House's distinguished neo-classical architecture and prominent location across from the White House made Decatur House one of the capital's most desirable addresses and home to many of our nation's most prominent figures. Today, visitors hear compelling stories of this unique site, from elite socializing to a fatal duel to a slave's campaign for freedom.

Daughters of the American Revolution Museum - The museum is Washington's only American Decorative Arts Museum. The Museum features 33 period rooms depict scenes of early American life, two galleries with permanent and rotating exhibits, over 33,000 objects made or used in America prior to 1840 and more.

National Museum of Women in the Arts - The National Museum of Women in the Arts is the only museum in the world dedicated exclusively to recognizing the contributions of women artists. The museum features a collection of more than 1,500 pieces by 400 women artists from 28 countries, including Cassatt and O'Keeffe.

The Octagon Museum - The oldest museum in the United States devoted to architecture and design, the Octagon Museum enables the American Architectural Foundation to increase public awareness of the power of architecture and its influence on the quality of our lives. This building was designed by Dr. William Thornton for Col. John Tayloe III, and was constructed between 1799 and 1801.

The Phillips Collection - The Phillips Collection, America's first museum of modern art, opened in 1921 in the home of Duncan Phillips (1886-1966). Renoir's great masterpiece Luncheon of the Boating Party hangs here, along with other outstanding Impressionist paintings by Van Gogh, Monet, Degas and Cézanne.

International Spy Museum - The International Spy Museum is the first public museum in the world solely dedicated to the tradecraft, history, and contemporary role of espionage. The museum features the largest collection of international espionage artifacts ever placed on public display. Spanning the history of espionage around the globe, many of these artifacts can now be seen by the public for the first time.

Woodrow Wilson House Museum - Washington's only presidential Museum. Each year, thousands still visit the final home of the twenty-eighth President. The remarkable collection offers the visitor unique insights into the personality of one of America's greatest leaders. On display are objects from the White House, family items, memorabilia, and elaborate gifts of state from around the world.

National Building Museum - The National Building Museum is America’s premier cultural institution dedicated to exploring and celebrating architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning.

National Museum of Health and Medicine - Discover a smoker's lung, the bullet that took Abraham Lincoln's life, a brain still attached to a spinal cord suspended in formaldehyde.  You can see Paul Revere's dental tools and what a kidney stone looks like.  You can try on a pregnancy garment that makes you feel what it's like to be with child.  You can find out what on earth a shoe fluoroscope is.  You can even touch a real brain if you dare.

Hillwood Museum & Gardens - Hillwood Museum and Gardens is one of America's premier estate museums, featuring the most comprehensive assemblage of imperial Russian fine and decorative arts outside Russia, and an extensive collection of eighteenth-century French works of art.

The Textile Museum - The Textile Museum is dedicated to furthering the understanding of mankind's creative achievements in the textile arts. As a museum, it is committed to its role as a center of excellence in the scholarly research, conservation, interpretation and exhibition of textiles, with particular concern for the artistic, technical and cultural significance of its collections.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - The Museum's Permanent Exhibition The Holocaust spans three floors of the Museum building. It presents a narrative history using more than 900 artifacts, 70 video monitors, and four theaters that include historic film footage and eyewitness testimonies. Also hosting a variety of traveling exhibitions, the museum is a fascinating and educational experience for the young or old.