Henning, Tennessee
Originally known as the Palmer House, this 10-room, turn-of-the-century, bungalow home was the onetime residence of Alex Haley, writer of "Roots."The front porch was often the place where young Haley heard the oral accounts of family history, including stories of Kunta Kinte, the young Mandingo man...
Milledgeville, Georgia
Andalusia provided for author Flannery O'Connor not only a place to live and write, but also a functional landscape in which to set her fiction.During her productive years as a writer, noted female writer Flannery O'Connor spent most of her time at Andalusia. There, she routinely wrote every...
Waco, Texas
The Armstrong Browning Library is a research library devoted to the study of the lives and works of the Victorian poets, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.It houses the world's largest collection of books, letters, manuscripts, and memorabilia pertaining to the Brownings, as well as a...
Lake Wales, Florida
Edward Bok, the late-19th-century periodical pioneer, commissioned the architect Frederick Law Olmstead to construct these gardens.In 1921, Edward W. Bok was spending the winter months in the residential mountain lake community located adjacent to the highest hill of Florida's Lake Wales Ridge, 298...
Hardy, Virginia
Author and orator Booker T. Washington was born in this small plantation, where he eventually took his "first breath of freedom."
On April 5, 1856, Booker T. Washington was born a slave on the 207-arce farm of James Burroughs. After the Civil War, Washington became founder and first...
Eastham, Massachusetts
The great Outer Beach described by Thoreau in the 1800s is protected within this national seashore. Forty miles of pristine sandy beach, marshes, ponds, and uplands support diverse species.Lighthouses, cultural landscapes, and wild cranberry bogs offer a glimpse of Cape Cod’s past and...
Galesburg, Illinois
Poet and author Carl Sandburg was born in this home in Galesburg and its garden now serves as his final resting place.Visitors can tour Sandburg's birthplace, followed by a trip to the visitor center next door. It contains a museum, a small theater where several informative videos about Carl...
Flat Rock, North Carolina
Carl Sandburg and his family lived in this home in Flat Rock, North Carolina from 1945 until his death in 1967.The home of America's poet, Carl Sandburg, is quite a baronial estate for an old socialist. It was designated as a National Historic Site in 1968 to honor Carl Sandburg's compelling...
Dorado, Puerto Rico
In 1871, Casa del Rey became the home of Manuel Alonso y Pacheco--Puerto Rico's notable romantic writer.Constructed as a parador, or inn, about 1823, Casa del Rey, the "King's House," provided housing for Spanish government personnel. The building, the oldest in the town of Dorado, also...
Roslyn Harbor, New York
Purchased in 1843 by famed poet and newspaper editor William Cullen Bryant, Cedarmere became a place where the writer could retreat from the pressures and congestion of New York City.The natural surrounding provided the perfect backdrop to William Cullen Bryant's writer's retreat. Visitors can...
Dayton, Ohio
This Italianate turn-of-the-century structure was the final home of the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.The Dunbar House exhibits his literary treasures, many of his personal items and his family's furnishings. During his short lifetime Dunbar became known as the poet laureate of African Americans....
Bronx, New York
Edgar Allan Poe spent his final years in the old village of Fordham, living in this tiny cottage which he and his wife leased for $100 per year.
A small wooden farmhouse built about 1812, the cottage once commanded unobstructed vistas over the rolling Bronx hills to the shores of Long Island. It...
West Baltimore, Maryland
Edgar Allan Poe and his family lived in this Baltimore house before he traveled to Richmond, Va., in 1835 to pursue his career.The primary item on display is the house itself, the place in which Poe penned his collection "Tales from the Folio Club". In addition, a number of pieces related...
Richmond, Virginia
The Poe Museum provides a retreat into early 19th century Richmond where Edgar Allan Poe lived and worked.The museum features Poe's life and career by documenting his accomplishments with pictures, relics, and verse, and focusing on his many years in Richmond. Richmond's Poe Museum boasts the world...
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Edgar Allan Poe's life on Seventh Street is recreated through exhibits dedicated to his life and work at his former home.“For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen,” so begins Poe’s famous short story “The Black Cat,” written while...
Tarrytown, New York
Many historians attach Washington Irving's "coquettish" Katrina Van Tassel to the Elizabeth Van Tassel house, a tavern before and during the Revolutionary War which Irving frequented.There is no way around this, so we may as well be frank: the location of the Van Tassel homestead in The...
Oak Park, Illinois
The roots of Ernest Hemingway's life and art can be found at his birthplace in Oak Park.The Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Home is a large Victorian home built by his maternal grandparents that has been meticulously restored to its Turn-of-The-Century grandeur. One of the greatest writers of the 20th...
Key West, Florida
Author Ernest Hemingway finished "A Farewell to Arms" in this Key West house.Ernest Hemingway finished the final draft of his masterpiece, "A Farewell to Arms," and composed the short stories "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber...
Jackson, Mississippi
This literary house museum was once owned by American author and photographer, Eudora Welty.Visitors will see Welty's house as she lived in it. The Department of Archives and History has overseen the transition from private residence to historic site. The department is now working to open a visitor...
Harvard, Massachusetts
The Fruitlands Museum, located on the grounds of a 19th-century Utopian experiment, explores the ideas of American Transcendentalists, Shakers, and Native peoples.A National Landmark and Historic District, Fruitlands includes the original farmhouse that was the site of the 1843 Utopian experiment...
Crawfordsville, Indiana
General Lew Wallace’s study is a separate standing building that was constructed fifty yards north of his residence in Crawfordsville, Indiana. The study was built between 1895 and 1898 and cost the then remarkable sum of $30,000. The limestone frieze that wreaths the study contains four...
Greensboro, North Carolina
The museum's 17,000 square feet of exhibition space offers hours of entertaining, educational enjoyment.Visit the museum and view a vintage moving picture in the Crystal Theatre, listen in on a conversation at the local Telephone Exchange, or become a pharmacist at the Richardson-Fariss Drugstore....
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Built in 1744 as a country summer home by wine importer John Wister, Grumblethorpe was originally known as "John Wister's Big House" because it had multiple stories. Built from stone quarried on and oak cut from the Wisters' extensive property, the house is a prime example of domestic...
Piggott, Arkansas
Portions of one of Ernest Hemingway's most famous novels, A Farewell to Arms, and several short stories were written by the noted author during his stay in this studio in Piggott, Arkansas.The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center in Piggott, Arkansas includes a barn-studio associated...
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Famed American author Herman Melville lived, farmed, and wrote at Arrowhead for 13 years. Arrowhead, Melville's home in the Berkshires, influenced him greatly in his writing. The view of Mount Greylock from his study window, the one that brought him to Arrowhead, was said to be his inspiration...
Salem, Massachusetts
The majestic and mysterious House of the Seven Gables inspired author Nathaniel Hawthorne to write his legendary novel of the same name. Built in 1668, the House of Seven Gables is the oldest surviving 17th century wooden mansion in New England. The home in which Hawthorne was born was moved...
New York, New York
The Humanities and Social Science Library contains a number of collections that explore important contributions to literary history.The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle is one of the world's leading repositories for the study of English Romanticism. Its holdings consist of...
Glen Ellen, California
The park is a memorial to writer and adventurer Jack London, who made his home at the site from 1905 until his death in 1916.The park is a memorial to writer and adventurer Jack London, who made his home at the site from 1905 until his death in 1916.
The park contains the cottage residence where he...
Burlington City, New Jersey
This historic house is the birthplace of James Fenimore Cooper, novelist of the American wilderness.Built in 1780, the James Fenimore Cooper House saw the birth of the celebrated American author in 1789. Today, it contains four museum rooms displaying Cooper artifacts, implements and furnishings,...
Indianapolis, Indiana
The house of Hoosier Poet James Whitcomb Riley embodies the sophistication of society life during the late-Victorian era.
The Museum Home, nestled in the heart of Indianapolis’ historic Lockerbie neighborhood, showcases many of the great poet’s personal belongings including his writing...
Big Stone Gap, Virginia
Serving as both a museum and a memorial to the Fox family, the John Fox, Jr. House celebrates the life and work of the noted author.The house was built in 1888, and is filled with beautiful furnishings and mementos of the family. Here, the author, John Fox, Jr., wrote The Trail of the Lonesome Pine...
Bancroft, Nebraska
Nebraska's poet laureate John G. Neihardt called Bancroft, Nebraska home from 1900 to 1920, and it was in this building that he wrote many of his works.
The building was erected on this site in the 1890s for August Hartman and used as a residence by various owners until 1964. Poet John G. Neihardt...
Haverhill, Massachusetts
As the birthplace of Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier and home to his family for five generations, the Whittier Family Homestead houses decades of American history.The Whittier Homestead is an outstanding example of the old New England farm, located on its original site, is...
Martinez, California
John Muir National Historic Site preserves the Victorian home of the noted author and preservationist.Surrounded by almost 9 acres of fruit orchards and 326 acres of oak woodland, the site today is just a small piece of the original 2,600 acre ranch. Muir's 14 room Victorian mansion and the...
Hampden, Massachusetts
Laughing Brook was once the home of beloved children's author Thornton Burgess and the beautiful brook inspired many of his timeless tales.Explore Laughing Brook’s 356 acres of woodlands, meadows, and streams along its four-mile trail system. Be on the lookout for the many signs of wildlife...
Richmond, Virginia
The extensive collection of this state library illuminates the lives of prominent Virginians and their relationships to reading.The State Library, which contains an excellent collection of objects, manuscripts, maps, and antiques, mounts changing exhibitions on the first floor, most of which center...
New York, New York
Immortalized in Hildegarde H. Swift's children's classic, the "Little Red Lighthouse" has been guarding Manhattan's shores since 1880.Illustrated by Lynd Ward, this tale of the friendship between the tiny beacon and the George Washington Bridge introduced children around the world to the red, round...
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Learn about Henry W. Longfellow, his poetry, and his impact on the development of an American identity at his home in Massachusetts.Longfellow National Historic Site preserves the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of the world’s foremost 19th century poets. The house also served as...
Lucas, Ohio
In the rolling countryside of Richland County, Louis Bromfield, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and dedicated conservationist, created his dream -- Malabar Farm.Inspired by his love of the land, Bromfield restored the rich fertility of the farmlands and preserved the beauty of the woodlands. He built...
Hawthorne, Florida
The Cracker architectural style home characterizes the former residence of Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.This site was the home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, the author of many major literary works, including The Yearling, which received the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for fiction...
Miami, Florida
Marjory Stoneman Douglas was a prolific journalist and an environmental and women's rights activist, whose house stands as an architectural landmark and as a testament to her life's work.Author, activist, and Medal of Freedom honoree Marjory Stoneman Douglas lived and worked in this house for more...
Florida, Missouri
The cabin in which Mark Twain has been born has been preserved for visitors the world over to see.Details of Samuel Langhorne Clemens’ remarkable life are interpreted through exhibits and audio-visual programs at the museum. Along with the two-room cabin in which he was born, the museum...
Hartford, Connecticut
The Mark Twain House and Museum provides a rich treasury of Twain's triumphs and tragedies, contemporaries and the Gilded Age.
At the museum, visitors can experience a biography from award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns. And for a penetrating look at Twain's notable peers, period influences, and...
Monroeville, Alabama
The Old Courthouse Museum houses the headquarters of the Monroe County Heritage Museum, a conglomerate of many local historic sites.
The beautiful old Courthouse on the town square, which now houses the Monroe County Heritage Museums, served as a model for the famed courtroom scene from "To...
New London, Connecticut
Situated in New London, Connecticut, Monte Cristo Cottage is the boyhood home of Eugene O'Neill, America's only Nobel-Prize winning playwright.The Monte Cristo Cottage was the only permanent home of Eugene O'Neill from his birth in 1888 until 1917, when he began supporting himself as a playwright....
Nashville, Tennessee
Founded in the 19th century, Nashville's Public Library continues to provide resources for research and pleasure to its visitors.Nashville's library history can be traced back to 1813, but it was the late 1800s before Nashville had a public library. In 1897, the Tennessee General Assembly passed...
Norwich, Ohio
Exhibits about the National Road and Western author Zane Grey are housed in the Museum.This modern museum has three major exhibit areas. First is the National Road, early America's busiest land artery to the West. The National Road stretched from Cumberland, MD. to Vandalia, IL. Begun in 1806, the...
Salinas, California
In the tradition of John Steinbeck, the center draws its inspiration from the diverse people and the land of the Salinas Valley to tell its history.In the tradition of John Steinbeck, the center draws its inspiration from the diverse people and the land of the Salinas Valley to tell its history....
Boston, Massachusetts
Landscape gardener, suffragist, and pacifist Ruth Standish Nichols lived in this townhouse from 1885 to 1960.The museum educates visitors by providing a unique glimpse into domestic life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on Boston's historic Beacon Hill. The House is furnished with...
West Hartford, Connecticut
Noah Webster’s birthplace helps to tell the story of one man’s vision and his impact on American culture.The Noah Webster House, probably built c. 1748, is the restored birthplace and childhood home of the great lexicographer, Noah Webster. The house, once part of a 120-acre farm, was...