Atlanta Museums

Atlanta is the capital of Georgia and is situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains giving it one of the highest elevations among major cities east of the Mississippi River.

Atlanta was initially founded as the terminus of a major railroad. With rapid expansion, it soon became the convergence point among multiple railroads, spurring its rapid growth.

During the American Civil War, the city was almost entirely burned to the ground; however, the city rose from its ashes and quickly became a national center of commerce.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Atlanta became a major organizing center of the civil rights movement, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many other locals playing major roles in the movement’s leadership.

Today, Atlanta’s economy is diverse, with aerospace, transportation, logistics, professional services, media operations, medical services, and information technology.

Atlanta is the home to many significant art museums and institutions, including the renowned High Museum of Art, The Museum of Design Atlanta, and many others.

Atlanta also contains a notable number of historical museums and sites, including the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and the U.S. President Jimmy Carter Center.

Museums in Atlanta - Virtual Tour

Retracing by Deanna Sirlin – High Museum of Art

Virtual Tour of the Museums in Atlanta

High Museum of Art
Atlanta History Center
National Center for Civil and Human Rights
William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum
World of Coca-Cola Museum

World of Coca-Cola

Highlights Tour of the Museums in Atlanta

High Museum of Art

The High Museum of Art is a leading art museum in the Southeastern United States, which was founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association. Today, the museum’s collection includes more than 17,000 artworks

Special exhibitions at the High feature strong global partnerships with other museums such as the Louvre and the museum is also a Smithsonian Institution Affiliate.

The museum covers seven key collecting areas:

African Art – including masks and figurative sculptures, textiles, beadwork, metalwork, and ceramics
American Art – over 1,200 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints made by American artists between 1780 and 1980
Decorative Arts, and Design – including nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American decorative arts and a Collection of English Ceramics from 1640 to 1840
European Art – over 1,000 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper span the 1300s through the 1900s
Folk and Self-taught art – artworks by Southern and African American “self-taught” artists
Modern and Contemporary Art – traces the development of innovative visual languages since 1945
Photography – with 7,500 prints from the 1840s to the present, by from artists, entrepreneurs, journalists, and scientists

Atlanta History Center

The Atlanta History Center was founded in 1926, and its campus of 33-acres features historic gardens and houses located on the grounds. The Center also holds one of the largest collections of Civil War artifacts in the United States.

The historic houses featured at the Atlanta History Center campus include:

The Smith Farm – an Antebellum architectured estate that includes a farmhouse, enslaved people’s cabin, kitchen, blacksmith shop, smokehouse, double corncrib, barn, and several gardens
The Swan House – named for the swam motif located above the home’s rear entrance, this house is one of the most photographed places in Atlanta
The Wood Family Cabin – interprets North Georgia settler and Native American life in the 1820s and 1830s

The Center’s Midtown Campus includes:

The Margaret Mitchell House- home of Margaret Mitchell from 1925–1932 while she was writing the novel “Gone With The Wind”
Commercial Row – an accessible hub for community events

Paved pathways through the Center’s historic gardens connect the Swan House and the Smith Farm which are surrounded with landmark gardens

National Center for Civil and Human Rights

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights is dedicated to the achievements of both the civil rights movement in the United States and the broader worldwide human rights movement.

The Center’s exhibitions tell the history of the civil rights movement in the United States, and how the campaign is related to contemporary human rights struggles across the world.

The “Voice to the Voiceless” exhibit tells Dr. King’s story from his youth through to his assassination and its aftermath. Dr. King’s personal papers in the displays include Letters from Birmingham Jail and King’s Sermons.

The Center contains interactive galleries with examples of segregation in the United States as embodied in Jim Crow laws and signs designating facilities as “whites only.”

The Global Human Rights Movement exhibits include modern-day issues such as efforts to improve conditions of women, LGBT individuals, and religious rights around the world.

William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum

The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum is a cultural center dedicated to Jewish history, culture, and arts. The Breman, which opened in 1996, has an emphasis on Jewish history in Georgia and the Holocaust.

The museum has exhibitions about Jewish values, customs, and traditions. It is named for Atlanta businessman William Breman, a philanthropist active in the Jewish community of Atlanta.

The museum uses film, music, visual arts, and exhibits to explore the themes of personal responsibility, community, and cross-cultural understanding.

The museum has extensive exhibits about the struggles that Jewish people endured in Europe before, during, and after the Holocaust. Also featured are oral history interviews with Holocaust survivors.

World of Coca-Cola Museum

The World of Coca-Cola is a museum showcasing the history of The Coca-Cola Company in a 20-acre (81,000 m2) complex that opened in 2007.

The museum covers Coca-Cola’s history dating back to 1886 when Dr. John S. Pemberton, a pharmacist from Atlanta, created a unique soft drink with a flavored syrup that became highly popular.

Frank M. Robinson, his partner, and bookkeeper created the name of Coca-Cola as well as the well-known design of the script.

The museum, which features thousands of Coca-Cola artifacts, is located just blocks away from where the original Coca-Cola formula as created.

There are other World of Coca-Cola Museums and shop in locations such as Las Vegas and Disney Springs.

Museums in Atlanta

City: Atlanta
State: Georgia
Country: United States
Demonym: Atlantan
Population: 6 million – Metro

Museums in Atlanta – Map

Museums in Atlanta – 360 Views

New York Museums – Virtual Tours

The Metropolitan Museum of Art or MET
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
Intrepid, Sea, Air & Space Museum
Neue Galerie New York
The Cloisters
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
American Museum of Natural History
Museum of the City of New York
New-York Historical Society
Frick Collection
Met Breuer
Rubin Museum of Art
Brooklyn Museum

Washington, D.C. Museums – Virtual Tours

National Gallery of Art
National Museum of American History
National Air and Space Museum
National Museum of African American History and Culture
National Museum of Natural History
National Portrait Gallery
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Phillips Collection
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
International Spy Museum

Museums in Atlanta

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“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
– Mark Twain

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Photo Credit: seanpinto / CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0); Kyle Pind. Deanna Sirlin / CC BY-SA (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/); Elisa.rolle / CC BY-SA (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

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