New Haven Museum and Historical Society – Virtual Tour

The New Haven Museum and Historical Society was founded in 1862 for the purposes of preserving and presenting the region’s history. The museum’s collection includes art, photography, furniture, and other artifacts from New Haven’s history.

The Museum features exhibitions on local art, and decorative arts, with collections associated with Eli Whitney, Winchester, Yale, East Rock, and Noah Webster.

The Museum’s Library contains manuscript and archival holdings from the first settlement to the present. The collection includes rare books, the manuscript collections, including personal papers, business, and institutional records, court and municipal documents, maps, architectural drawings, and photographs.

The library contains 30,000 printed titles including monographs and pamphlets that include genealogical materials, town records, passenger arrival lists, Federal census schedules for New Haven County, and New Haven city directories from 1840.

The Colonial Revival style building was built in 1929 and includes a number of artifacts from demolished historic New Haven houses.

Highlights of the New Haven Museum and Historical Society

“New Haven Green” by Thomas Prichard Rossiter, 1850
Furniture and portraits from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
The mantelpiece from the Benedict Arnold house
A mantelpiece and urns from the Nathan Smith house from the late 1700s
The manuscript collections of about 300 items
The collection of 100,000 photographic images
Paintings prints, drawings, and portraits from the 18th and 19th centuries
Decorative Arts – from the 17th through the 19th centuries, pewter, silver, clocks, textiles, glass, and ceramics
Maritime History – relating to New Haven’s coastal, West Indies, and international trade, the oyster industry, and shipbuilding
Technology and Manufacturing History – including an original model and full-size working version of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin
An early milling machine from the Whitney Armory
One of the first Morse code receivers
A reconstruction of the first telephone switchboard
The Amistad Gallery – tells the story of the Amistad affair, which became a symbol for the movement to abolish slavery