Now is the time to renew your local museum membership, or join if you’re not already a part of one of those support communities.
First and maybe most important, a museum membership supports your favorite institution’s mission. Curators, archivists, historians, educators, registrars, catalogers, preparators, front-of-house staff, and other museum professionals are those who craft gallery experiences, plan and execute engaging public programs, and preserve all the artwork and artifacts. They are all essential players in the New Orleans cultural economy, so it’s OK to think of that website’s “support” button as a digital tip jar.
Second, museum memberships come with all kinds of benefits in addition to a year of free admission. For example, the Historic New Orleans Collection offers all members a free subscription to its beauty- and history-packed quarterly newsletter-slash-magazine called, yes, “The Quarterly.” National WWII Museum members also get a quarterly newsletter called “V-Mail,” a reference to the unique mail system soldiers used during the war. A Friends of the Cabildo membership includes a French Quarter walking tour and admission to all of the Louisiana State Museums.
Also frequently included in museum memberships are discounts at museum stores and restaurants and special events, early registration for high-demand programs, and admission to members-only exhibition previews and receptions. And, upper levels of some museum memberships include eligibility in the North American Reciprocal Museum ( NARM ) program, or NARM, which means free admission at more than 1,500 art and history museums around the continent, botanical gardens, zoos, and more.
Given all of those things, museum memberships also make a great gift. Something to consider if you’re gifting someone who’s interested in New Orleans history, art, and culture.
Third: In August, during New Orleans Museum Month, a New Orleans & Co. promotion (the above image is the corresponding website), a membership at one of the thirty participating museums gets you free admission for two to all of the others.
The math is pretty compelling. It adds up to a great value, in addition to supporting your favorite museum, and is a great way to upskill yourself as the ultimate influencer for when friends and family come to visit and look to you for recommendations.
The program’s website – neworleans.com/museum-month – is a terrific resource, with membership links to all of the museums that offer them, as well as suggested itineraries grouped by theme: history, art, family, like so. There are also details there about the Museum Month Passport, which you fill with stickers as you make your way around town, with the ultimate prize a one-year membership to the museum of your choice.
The website’s itineraries are pretty cool, but I don’t mind a few of my own based on specific exhibits that I’ve covered in the Times-Picayune, on the radio, and online. All of these are “special” or “changing” (meaning “temporary”) exhibits, so see ‘em while you got ‘em.
Starting at the New Orleans Jazz Museum, “The First Piano Professors and Lost Music of Early New Orleans” tells the story of the 19th century composers who predated jazz. And the story is largely told through sheet music. This is a beautiful exhibit, co-curated by musician and archivist John Davis and the museum’s David Kunian. Links to print, podcast, and digital coverage here.
At the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, “Holocaust Survivors in a New Land: The New Americans Social Club of New Orleans” tells the story of refugees who made new lives for themselves in postwar America. More here.
If you’re still gripped with semiquincentennial fever, there are three exhibits in close proximity in the French Quarter. They are:
“American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition” at the Historic New Orleans Collection (more here), and at the Cabildo, “Galvez and Louisiana in the American Revolution” (more here) and “Bienvenue Lafayette.”
While you’re on Jackson Square, pop into “Origins of New Orleans Black Carnival Society: The Story of the Illinois Clubs” at the Presbytere (more here). Note: Per this July 21 Instagram post, the Presbytere will be closed for “building upgrades” through August and September.
If art’s your thang, sample “Burke’s Delight: The Stacey and Michael Burke Collection” at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (more here), where the exhibit “Louisiana Contemporary 2026” opens just in time for Museum Month; “Michalopoulos: Mystical Expressionism” back at the Cabildo (more here); and “Sevres Magnifique: French Porcelain from the Collection of Thomas B. Lemann” at the New Orleans Museum of Art (more here).
At the National WWII Museum, there are two changing exhibits now on view: “Come Back Fighting: USS New Orleans at War” (more here) and the traveling exhibit “Drawn to Combat: Bill Mauldin and the Art of War.”
For most of these, there are Museumgoer Podcast episodes and blog posts featuring interviews with curators, collectors, and artists. Click on the above links to find those.
And I should mention a few museums in this program that might be undiscovered so far:
The Tate, Etienne, and Prevost Center is a civil rights landmark that’s been restored into an interpretive space, the Louisiana Civil Rights Museum in the Convention Center is a tidy introduction to the role New Orleans and the state played in the midcentury human rights movement, and the American Italian Cultural Center is all about the local contributions made by that immigrant population, who we should thank for Louis Prima alone.
And finally, there’s the Great American Alligator Museum on Magazine Street – a storefront that explores the gator’s role in fashion, commerce, travel and leisure, and salt and pepper shakers. It’s a fun, slightly kitschy departure from some of the other offerings in the promotion.
Find links to all of the above institutions at the Museum Month website.
Happy Museum Month!
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