WASHINGTON—The National Archives cut the ribbon to officially open its first permanent exhibition in two decades on Nov. 21, an immersive, interactive, and personalized experience launching just in time for the nation’s 250th anniversary next year.
Guests gathered for a ceremony in the rotunda surrounded by the country’s founding documents—including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—for the grand opening of “The American Story.”
“This was a project that wasn’t just about a renovation,” Patrick Madden, executive director of the National Archives Foundation, told The Epoch Times. “It’s about a reimagination of how the public engages with American history and with the National Archives.”
The 10,000 square foot exhibit includes interactive kiosks that use artificial intelligence to help visitors navigate the 10 galleries of the exhibit while exploring their own, unique interests.
No two visits are alike, as the curated collection with dozens of original documents and artifacts is rotated, and more than 2 million digital documents are available through various displays.
“The new space connects Americans to their personal interests, to our collective history,” Madden said.
Visitors start their journey through the new exhibit by collecting a ticket with a bar code and logging into one of eight kiosks in the forum.
Guests are invited to choose up to three areas of interest—including presidents, the Revolutionary War, and historical figures, among many others—to customize their adventure.
As the ticket is scanned throughout the exhibit, items from the collection related to the interests are displayed on screens for further review.
Those interested in researching more can save the information and use the code on the ticket to explore their selections later on the National Archives website from home or elsewhere.
One of the project leaders who helped oversee the design and installation said the new galleries gives Americans better access to the nation’s historical records.
“To me, that mandate for the National Archives to hold, preserve, protect, and make the records accessible to anyone over the age of 16 has always been a beautiful part of our democracy,” Franck Cordes, senior project director for the National Archives Foundation, told The Epoch Times.
“With this exhibit, we use our machine learning system to give people a better point of entry to their personal interests and how that ties into the history of our nation as we see it through our government records.”
Highlights of the new exhibition include George Washington’s hand-annotated copy of the U.S. Constitution and the original Louisiana Purchase Treaty signed in 1803 by James Monroe and Robert Livingston from the United States and Napoleon Bonaparte of France.
Other notables include a ratified Indian treaty from 1829 and the William J. Stone copperplate engraving of the Constitution, commissioned by then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and completed in 1823.
The tour through American history includes stops through the ages, from Ansel Adams photographs to clips from the more than 450 million feet of film—enough to circle the Earth more than three times—in the National Archives’ safes.
One room honors the ingenuity of inventors over the years, with original patents for the first artificial heart and the 1953 drawings for the Zamboni ice resurfacing machine, among others on display.
Visitors are invited to make personal connections in the last gallery, with tools to research family histories.
Approximately 2 million visitors tour the National Archives each year—nearly 30 percent are eighth graders on school trips—according to officials, who expect the total to increase in 2026 with the timing of the country’s semi-quincentennial celebration.
A new “Discovery Center” for children and students includes a “Democracy Disco” dance floor, arcade games, a historical photo booth, books, and other engaging learning opportunities.
“We’ve created a fun entry point into the records of the archives that is not necessarily through the lens of adult history,” Madden said.
“We pulled records and activities that really show that history is for kids, too, and that kids are in history, as they can see themselves in history, doing that in such a way where they can also expend some of their excitable energy while learning.”
The team behind the new museum upgrade said the exhibit is offering Americans a glimpse into the approximately 13.5 billion pages, 40 million photographs, and 10 million maps and drawings in the archives, while inspiring them to learn more.
“It’s letting them know how much we really do have,” Grace McCaffrey, acting director for Congressional records at the National Archives, told The Epoch Times. “It’s really introducing people to the concept of research.”
