By Nik DeCosta-Klipa, WBUR
Dust off your best Patagonia vest: The Museum of American Finance is moving to Boston. The Smithsonian-affiliated institution announced yesterday it has signed a 10-year lease to relocate to the Seaport, where it will occupy a 5,400-square-foot waterfront space on the Commonwealth Pier. The move comes after the museum, which was located in New York City since its founding in 1988, was forced to close in 2018 due to flooding from a burst water main pipe and never reopened.
- What's it about? The museum focuses on finance and the financial history of the U.S. — which, yes, sounds kind of like a snooze. But David Cowen, the museum's CEO and president, says their mission — which includes preserving " tens of thousands of artifacts which showcase what finance has done for this country" — is to make the topic "engaging" and less intimidating. In addition to exhibits, they plan to host classes and events on financial literacy. "This nation needs that desperately," Cowen told WBUR's Dan Guzman.
- Why Boston? Cowen says Boston is a good fit due to its "highly innovative" role in the nation's economic history, as the home to North America's first minted coins, the country's first paper currency, its first lottery and its first mutual fund.
- The museum collection also includes "hundreds" of Boston-centric artifacts, like a 1912 stock certificate for shares in the baseball team that became the Red Sox and a blank check signed by President John F. Kennedy that a Secret Service agent was carrying when JFK was assassinated in 1963. (Cowen says JFK was known to give agents blank checks so he could buy gifts for his wife and kids while traveling.) "When you're president of the United States, do you know what account number you get?" Cowen said. "You get account number one."
- What's next: The museum aims to open on July 1, 2026, just in time for the country's semiquincentennial celebrations. And despite the museum's focus, you won't need to bring any currency of your own; admission is free.