Take a trip around the world with MOAH! On display are a variety of mechanical and electrical artifacts made abroad. See a selection of artifacts from many countries including Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland, the United States and more.

Discover vintage devices that heated and cooled the home. This exhibit features cooling fans, a stove, heaters, sun lamp, winter accessories, ice crushers and more.

Take a journey through the decades and experience how we once entertained ourselves. Starting from the phonograph to gathering around the radio, entertainment has transformed throughout the years. Singers’ voices became amplified with the improved technology of microphones. Television brought popular shows like The Twilight Zone, Leave It to Beaver and I Love Lucy into families’ living rooms.

This special 30th anniversary exhibit was dedicated to Frank Livermore, our founder. It featured the foundation of the original MOAH collection, all donated by Frank. An eclectic collection of various artifacts including radios, household items, survival items, adding machines and more.

Travel back in time to the early 1900s to the 1950s when pennies, nickels and dimes were dropped into slots across the nation. Coin-operated machines were widely used in places of businesses such as general stores, toy stores, parlors, restaurants, bars, casinos and gas stops. See how businesses across America operated before the era of the credit card.

Discover a variety of antique toys that captured and sparked the imagination of children in the past. This exhibition will cover the origins of playtime, toy factories, toy trains, builder toys and more. This exhibit aims to evoke childhood memories over the decades. The exhibition features an assortment of vintage toys including pedal cars, toy trains, toy sewing machines, building sets, a mechanical pony, wind up toys and more.

In the Groove: A History of Record Players now on display. Featuring vintage phonographs, jukeboxes, turntables and music boxes.

PALO ALTO, California (March 16, 2018)— The Museum of American Heritage will display unique artifacts in a new exhibit called In the Groove: A History of Record Players. The exhibit opens on March 23, 2018 and will run through August 19, 2018.

Learn about the history behind the phonographs, jukeboxes and turntables and explore how record players changed the landscape of music. Some of the topics covered in this exhibit include the different sizes of records, the social impact of bringing music into the home environment and organized crime in the jukebox industry.

The exhibit features a diverse collection of record players including Edison phonographs, a Seeburg jukebox, a Metzner turntable and an assortment of music boxes, and many more. Immerse yourself in the rich world of record players. Discover the era of a more personal musical experience by listening to a phonograph. Explore the evolution of record players, from the phonograph to the jukebox.

Learn about the American ingenuity in the 20th century that sparked rivalries between Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla as they raced to bring life changing inventions and electricity to the American public.

The exhibit features a vast collection of artifacts that Edison and Westinghouse created. From toasters and waffle irons to voltmeters and lightbulbs, this exhibition is one of our most varied in nature due to Edison’s many inventions.

This new exhibition will take you back to the workdays without computers. Experience the nostalgia of the office during the early to mid 1900s with an emphasis on business and mathematical machines that revolutionized the workplaces across America.

A plethora of office equipment will be on display, including adding machines, mimeographs, addressographs, typewriters, and office supplies that would be used by typists, office workers, bankers, secretaries and switchboard operators. This exhibition features an area of touchable artifacts. Try your hand at an adding machine, typewriter and embossing stamp.

Notable artifacts include an IBM timekeeping machine that clocked in up to 150 employees, circa 1950s, a 1892 Williams Manufacturing Co. “The Empire” typewriter, Western Union Telegraph Desk Fax, the first prototype for fax machines, and a Burroughs adding machine from 1925 that has a transparent panel to feature the sophisticated mechanisms for its time.

Step into time by viewing The Evolution of Film a unique reverse chronological presentation of artifacts. This exhibit features a wide variety of motion picture artifacts dating from the late 1800s to 1980s. Film newsreels and movie reels can be played in the gallery. These clips show the ever-changing landscape of film. Toy models will be available to be played with including the zoopraxiscope zoetrope and praxinoscope. Notable inventions such as the rare Visionola a Kerosene movie projector and a Scopitone will be on display. With its storied history film has been iconic to documenting American life.

Join us in celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Museum of American Heritage (MOAH). From opening our doors at the original Alma Street location to our current home at the Williams Property, 25 Years at the Museum of American Heritage: A Retrospective highlights memorable exhibits from the past 25 years. The exhibit offers visitors a glimpse of a variety of artifacts while also following the history and evolution of MOAH itself. We hope you will have the opportunity to join us on this journey as we celebrate each year of MOAH's impressive past.

The Museum of American Heritage (MOAH) boasts a collection of roughly 5,000 historic electrical and mechanical inventions, yet some artifacts are rarely exhibited. Museum of American Heritage A to Z, introduced visitors to the breadth and depth of the MOAH collection with a variety of unrelated artifacts. This exhibit featured artifacts beginning with the letter A (abacus) and continued all the way through the alphabet to items beginning with the letter Z (zapper). Among the unique artifacts in this display are antique medical devices, including an embalming pump, a collection of typewriters, extraordinary culinary devices and much more. Visitors were welcomed to identify each letter of the alphabet as they tour this fascinating display of unusual historic inventions.

Timekeeping devices have been used for at least 5, 000 years and today are essential for the planning and timing of our everyday lives. The Museum of American Heritage (MOAH) presents Time Machines: Clocks & Timekeeping an exhibition exploring timekeeping and timekeeping devices from the introduction of the sundial by the Egyptians circa 3500 BC to the precise atomic clock of the 1940s. In addition to explanations of clock mechanisms the exhibit examines the role of timekeeping in early navigation and in the industrial revolution when workers moved from the home to the factory and trains had to run on time. This exhibition also includes a wide variety of clocks from the MOAH collection and local collectors.

MOAH showcased television in its early years when it became a prime source of entertainment and an important source of local and national news. Many 1940s and 1950s television sets from the Museum's collection were on display. The story of early television was told, from the TV studio, with its camera and green make-up for the actors, through TV transmission to a rooftop antenna and on into the home. A re-creation of a family room with its TV set, TV trays and dinner, and a TV lamp, set the scene to illustrate the major impact of television on family life. 1950s and 1960s programs and commercials were featured together with some favorite children's shows. The nostalgia trip is carried through into a display of lunch boxes, all with TV inspired decorations

MOAH continued its exploration of American innovation with Inventing the 20th Century, 1901 - 1941. Following in the footsteps of the highly successful exhibit, Victorian America: Invention and Technology, our next exhibit continued to examine America's role in the process of technological innovation from the turn of the century to the beginning of the Second World War. Many of the concepts and ideas from the technologies of the Victorian Era were further developed to create the essential inventions of the early 20th century; many remain in use today.

Inventing the 20th Century was an opportunity to view an abundance of artifacts from MOAH's permanent collection. Everyday items, from the electric vacuum cleaner to the blender, first appeared in the early part of the 20th century.

Antique Toys, 1870-1930 showcased exquisite and rare toys from a local collector. In addition to early American toys, the exhibit featured turn-of-the-century toy trains and their accessories from fine European toy makers such as Marklin and Bing. Visitors young and old enjoyed discovering playthings from an earlier age.

The Victorian era, 1837 to 1901, was one of the most prolific periods of invention and innovation the world has ever known. Not since the introduction of the microchip has technology appeared to alter life so radically.

Victorian America: Invention and Technology provided an unusual opportunity to look back at one aspect of our American Heritage with its exploration of 19th century domestic and industrial inventions. From telephones to typewriters, elevators to egg beaters, the exhibit showcased the great age of American innovation.

Using historic cameras from MOAH’s collection, Picture This! A History of Photography highlighted the revolution that photography has made in our world from its invention in the 1830s until the beginning of the digital age. Complementing the main exhibit was Capturing Light and Time: The Photography of Wayland Lee. This retrospective of our museum’s resident photographer showcased Wayland Lee’s evocative work over of the years

While Sunset Magazine has existed since the late 19th century, its purchase and redesign by the Lane family in 1929 shifted its focus to a magazine of "home-life and family interests." Over the next thirty years it would become synonymous with the creation of the uniquely western lifestyle. For the thousands of newcomers settling in the emerging California suburbs, Sunset offered practical advice on topics such as gardening, architecture and building, home economics, traveling, and doing-it-yourself. MOAH visitors enjoyed glimpses into Sunset’s vision and definition of our uniquely Californian lifestyle.