Click here to start a search of our online collection

Welcome to the National Heritage Museum’s online collection.  This searchable database provides access to information about and images of many objects in the collection of the Museum and the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives.

Established in 1975 by Scottish Rite Freemasons of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States, the National Heritage Museum tells America’s story.  For more than thirty years, the museum has collected, by gift and by purchase, objects that help tell that story.  Today, the collection numbers over 16,000 objects, with 60,000 books, 1,600 serial titles and 2,000 cubic feet of archival materials in our Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives.

The collection’s primary strength is its American Masonic and fraternal items.  The Museum also collects material related to American history from the 1700s to the present.

To perform a basic search, enter one or more keywords.  The advanced search option allows you to search in one or more specific fields.  To browse all of the objects online, use the menu.

About these records…

This database contains records for a selection of objects in the Museum and Archives collections.  It is a working database, with additional records added and updated as often as possible.  Our catalog numbers sometimes have a prefix that signifies a particular part of the collection.  For example, objects with numbers that start with A are part of our Archives collection.  Numbers that start with GL designate objects in the collection of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, which is on loan to the National Heritage Museum.

Image Use

The images and text associated with the objects on this website are protected under United States copyright laws.  We are pleased to share these materials as an educational resource for the public for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use, or for fair use as defined by the law.  If you are interested in using or ordering images from this site, please click here.

Appraisals

National Heritage Museum staff are prohibited from providing appraisals or an assessment of the value of an object.  For more information on why museums do not provide appraisals, click here. 

Questions

We welcome your feedback.  If you have comments or questions regarding objects in the collection or about the results of your search, please contact the Director of Collections.

Click here to start a search of our online collection

Click here to access the Library's collection of printed materials