The Museum, founded in 1886, serves as a center of learning and cultural enjoyment for the thousands of visitors touring Concord each year, as well as for area residents of all ages. The Concord Museum collection began around 1850 and was exhibited before the Civil War; only a handful of Americana collections can claim to be as old or as remarkably well-documented.
The Concord Museum collection is a distinguished one containing numerous examples of 17th, 18th, and 19th-century decorative arts — case furniture, tables, seating furniture, clocks, looking glasses, textiles, ceramics, and metal ware — all with histories linking them to first owners in Concord. The collection has been recognized for its national significance by curators, historians and educators for more than a century.