Imagined Nation

Now showing12 February 2026 – 14 November 2026$11

For the USA's 250th, rare material from George Washington's own library — including his copy of Paine's Common Sense — alongside early Declaration printings and WWII posters. Rotates through 2026.

Book tickets

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On now All of October 2026

In the Leventhal Room, George Washington's own copy of Thomas Paine's Common Sense sits in a case, a first printing of the first edition. The Boston Globe's Mark Feeney said you'd need the ax from the apocryphal cherry tree to top it as a Revolutionary artifact.

Virginia produced four of the first six presidents, but the Athenæum got the largest surviving part of Washington's library, and the show is built around it: books on farming and drill, and pamphlets arguing over slavery and Indigenous diplomacy. The rest is spread across much of the first floor rather than one gallery, which the Globe found slightly confusing and worth it for the pairings. You leave the Washington cases and keep running into the show in rooms that are still a working library.

The objects rotate three times in 2026 and the reviews covered the spring set; the final rotation, Citizenship & Democracy, runs to 14 November. Entry is the $11 first-floor ticket, free for members, open until 8pm Monday to Thursday.

Editor's pick

George Washington's own copy of Paine's Common Sense, from his personal library, shown with early printings of the Declaration and Second World War posters, in a selection that rotates.

Look for

Washington's Common Sense
Look for Washington's personal copy of Paine's 1776 pamphlet, the first printing of the first edition, among his books in the Leventhal Room.
Von Steuben's drill manual
Washington's copy of the 1779 Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops, opened to a gatefold the Globe said has the elegant rigor of a late Mondrian.
The Declaration in the news
The New-England Chronicle's 1776 account of the Declaration of Independence, one of the early printings the Athenæum shows alongside maps of the young republic.