HistoryMiami Museum

ABOUT THIS PLACE

It began as the Historical Association of Southern Florida, took the name HistoryMiami in 2010 and changed again this year, so a visitor will find both names still in use around the city. It became a Smithsonian Affiliate in July 2011 and was reaccredited by the American Alliance of Museums in 2023. The holdings run to more than forty thousand objects, from prehistoric archaeological material to things collected last year, and an archive of over two million historical images, which makes it one of the largest private regional history organizations in the southeastern United States. The core exhibition, Tropical Dreams, covers more than ten thousand years of South Florida. The building is part of the Miami-Dade Cultural Center, designed by Philip Johnson, a raised plaza that also holds the main library. The museum runs guided city and boat tours, which are the part most residents recommend. The plaza it stands on is shared with the main branch of the county library, so a researcher can work in both in one afternoon. For anyone moving to this county, the museum is the shortest route to understanding why Miami looks and sounds as it does: the exhibition covers the Tequesta, the Spanish, the railroad, the land boom and the successive waves of arrival from Cuba, Haiti and Central and South America that made the city