Museums provide a unique perspective on the financial education of children. Combining education with history can have a much more dramatic effect on kids. To present finance in a real-world context, makes it come alive. Other exhibits use fun and entertainment to teach kids money management principles. Either way, you will want to put these museums on your educational agenda. Visit them online or in person.
Moneypalooza
Marbles Kids Museum, Raleigh, NC
Step into a colorful world of money where kids play with smart ways to spend and save while having a wealth of fun learning to earn. Moneypalooza brings to life the importance of establishing healthy money habits through innovative and high-energy activities.
Money Museum, American Numismatic Association
818 North Cascade Ave, Colorado Springs, CO
Through the discovery of money, America’s largest museum dedicated to numismatics brings culture to life. The museum explores art, history, science and much more to promote the diverse nature of money and related items.
The museum includes one permanent exhibit and rotating exhibits in each of the other three galleries. Visitors can find spectacular rarities and learn about the history of our nation and the world as seen through money.
The Harry W. Bass Gallery
A multimedia gallery that houses the Harry W. Bass Collection, a spectacular and comprehensive collection of American gold coins, experimental pattern coins and paper money.
Main Level Rotating Exhibit
A House Divided: Money of the Civil War takes a unique look at this epic, bloody time while showcasing the era’s coins, paper money, medals, and new ideas in war financing that helped lead to the North’s victory.
Lower Level Rotating Exhibits
The Faces of Money: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly explores famous people on money and medals from their earliest appearance to the present day.
Coins, Crown & Conflict: An Exploration of Cromwell’s England explores the period from the reign of Charles I and the English Civil Wars to the first years of the restored British monarchy under Charles II, through the coins, medals, people and objects associated with Oliver Cromwell.
Virtual Museum
The ANA’s virtual museum collection consists of approximately 225,000 numismatic objects from the earliest invention of money to the modern day.
The National Numismatic Museum
Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Behring Center
The Museum contains many great rarities in coins and currency, from the earliest coins created 2,700 years ago up to the latest innovations in electronic monetary exchange, as well as fascinating objects such as beads, wampum, dentalia, and other commodities once used as money.
The following virtual exhibitions are based on objects within the National Numismatic Collections. In many cases they are based on exhibitions which have appeared in the Hall of Money and Medals at the National Museum of American History, or on travelling exhibits which have appeared at various venues across the United States. These exhibits are expanded as time permits and will eventually grow to be representative of the collections as a whole.
Byzantium
A Short Numismatic History.
The Coinage of Spain
Coinage in Spain from the earliest times to the present.
The Double Eagle
The History of the $20 United States Gold Coin 1849-1933
Life in Ancient Greece
Reflected in the Coinage of Corinth Featured in the Virtual Exhibitions section of the National Museum of American History site.
Numismatic Art Comes of Age: The Coins of the Demareteion Master
Recent donation of an extremely rare and important series of Ancient Greek coins.
Parthia: The Forgotten Empire
The history of Parthia illustrated through its coinage.
Recent Donations of Outstanding U.S. Rarities
Including one of the most coveted United States coin rarities, the 1804 silver dollar.
Russian Coins and Medals
The Willis H. duPont – Georgii Mikhailovich Collection
Surviving Images, Forgotten People
Native Americans, Women, and African–Americans on Early United States Bank Notes
Your Money in Transition
The evolution of American money from gold coins to credit cards.
Museum of American Finance
Welcome to the Museum of American Finance, the nation’s only independent public museum dedicated to celebrating the spirit of entrepreneurship and the democratic free market tradition which has made New York City the financial capital of the world.
Money: A History
Traces our country’s currency from the earliest years through the latest designs and features barter currencies, gold, coins, paper money and scrip. A tactile money display allows visitors to touch historic and modern coins, and to view the security features in modern money on a light board and under an ultraviolet light.
Banking in America
Explores the history of banking in America and explains the different types of banks and bank accounts. It also features multi-media sidebars on bank robberies, credit cards and the infamous S&L crisis, as described in the classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life, as well as a display of historical piggy banks.
Entrepreneurs
Visitors encounter stories woven with innovation and resourcefulness, a tolerance for risk and, above all, constant determination. The video interviews with 16 modern-day entrepreneurs reveals people who creatively identify opportunities and take the initiative to realize their ambitions.
Financial Markets
Interviews conducted on the trading floors at the New York Stock Exchange, the New York Mercantile Exchange and at Citi allow the viewer to experience these financial markets firsthand, directly from those working in the industry.
Alexander Hamilton Room
Traces Hamilton’s life from his birth into poverty in the Caribbean through his rise to military and political greatness in America, becoming America’s premier economic thinker. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, he saved the new nation’s credit, established plans for funding our new country’s debt, created a national bank, and used the tax system to encourage economic development.
Tracking the Credit Crisis: A Timeline
A monumental 8’ x 20’ graphical wall accompanied by a video presentation, the timeline begins with the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble in late 2006 through the unprecedented trillions being guaranteed and injected into the private sector in 2008-2009 by the government.
America’s First IPO
Includes such unique pieces of American history as the earliest known American stock certificate, the earliest known American bank check in the public domain and a certificate from the first US federal bond issue.
Museums of the Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
1000 Peachtree Street N.E., Atlanta, GA
After touring the museum, experience the rest of the Visitors Center, where interactive and multimedia exhibits provide in-depth lessons on the role of the Federal Reserve in the U.S. economy.
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Collection
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
600 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, MA
Learn about the substantial improvement in living standards in New England over the past 200 years and about how economic growth makes possible rising living standards. Visitors see how life used to be in three earlier periods and try their hand at making major decisions in the textile, bicycle, and computer industries in New England.
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
230 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL
Exhibits include:
- Fed Shreds
- Million Dollar Cube
- Inflation
- Million Dollar Suitcase
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Money Museum
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
1455 East Sixth Street, Cleveland, OH
Activities include:
- 23-foot-tall Money Tree
- Trading Coconuts for Oranges on Barter Island
- Picking out Counterfeit Bills
- The Make Your Own Money Station
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Money Museum
Federal Reserve of Kansas City
1 Memorial Drive, Kansas City, MO
Exhibits include:
- Cash Vault
- Truman Coin Collection
- Interactive Exhibits
- Gold Bar
- Design Your Own Money
Federal Reserve of New York Museum and Tour
Current exhibits:
- The Gold Vault
- FedWorks: Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve System
- Drachmas, Doubloons and Dollars: The History of Money
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Ten Independence Mall, Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia is the home of the first Bank of the United States, and that’s why the Philadelphia Fed is eager to tell you about the nation’s financial history.
Activities include:
- Tracing the changes in our national currency from the early 1600s to today
- Viewing money from the original 13 colonies
- Examining a rare $100,000 bill
- Testing your skill at operating a bank by correctly answering questions that advance you from trainee to investment manager
- Learning the Fed’s role in maintaining national financial stability, especially in the days following 9-11-01. Explore in depth our country’s monetary policy over the past five decades
- Listening to a futuristic teller describe the payment system
- Marveling at a 25-foot tower of shredded bills totaling $100 million
- Examining a currency cart representing $1,350,000 in $5 bills
- Testing your skill at detecting counterfeits and learn about the new security features on the latest currency
- Matching wits with Benjamin Franklin and testing your knowledge of money
Federal Reserve Bank Money Museum – Richmond
Exhibits include:
- Colonial Paper Money
- Paper Money of Virginia 1755-1865
- Currency of the Confederacy 1861-1865
- U.S. Currency 1861-1865
- Small-Sized Currency
- Postwar Problems and Progress 1865-1912
- Large-Denomination Currency
Federal Reserve of San Francisco
101 Market Street, San Francisco, CA
The Fed Center: Exploring our Nation’s Central Bank is designed to teach the public about the functions of the U.S. central bank through a series of guided hands-on and visually engaging experiences.
Whimsical and thought-provoking elements in the exhibit include giant iconic representations of financial concepts, such as a
Free-floating sphere
Suspended safe
14-foot tilting chair
Also featured is a newly designed Currency Collection.
Los Angeles Branch
Federal Reserve of San Francisco
950 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
The Fed Gallery: Your Central Bank in Focus uses interactive technology and vivid graphics to highlight the Federal Reserve’s role in the United States economy. Various displays focus on:
- Cash and check operations
- Bank supervision
- Monetary policy
The gallery includes:
- A pachinko-style game in which the participant rates the safety and soundness of a particular financial institution
- A money wheel that asks visitors to identify counterfeit notes
- A currency display featuring historic and rare notes
