The San Francisco Historical Society is proud to partner with other organizations to show case several special exhibits through out the year!

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is known the world over as a poet, publisher, painter, activist, bookstore proprietor, and cultural icon. The San Francisco Historical Society is proud to announce a new exhibit in celebration of our local legend. Ferlinghetti | An exhibit in 6 vignettes, focuses on different aspects of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s life, shown from a new perspective—his own. The exhibit draws all of its material from his personal effects, his personal library, his paintings, and other unique artifacts from his life and times.

Ferlinghetti was best known for his second collection of poems, A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), which has been translated into nine languages and sold over a million copies. When Ferlinghetti turned 100 in March 2019, the city of San Francisco turned his birthday, March 24, into “Lawrence Ferlinghetti Day.”
Join us for a free docent tour of the Museum Every Saturday at 11:30 AM and at 1:30 PM!

Museum Hours: Thursdays – Saturdays, 10 AM – 4 PM.
Admission is Free

In conjunction with the exhibition Ferlinghetti | An Exhibit in 6 Vignettes, the San Francisco Historical Society is delighted to collaborate with another local literary light, 826 Valencia. Via their 2024 program theme, “Write Here, Write Now,” young writers were invited to reflect on their experience of San Francisco in this moment. Their poems are on display in the museum’s
Lower-Level Gallery.

826 Valencia hosts summer writing workshops at each of their city locations, in the Mission, the Tenderloin, and Mission Bay. The work presented in this exhibit was created by students from schools all across the city, including elementary school students in the Mission Center Exploring Words Summer Camp, middle schoolers in Exploring Leadership Summer Camp, and high schoolers who took part in the Tenderloin Podcasting Field Trip and the Young Authors Workshop. Visitors to the exhibition are also encouraged to add their reflections to the map in the gallery.

826 Valencia is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting under-resourced students ages six to eighteen in San Francisco with their creative and expository writing skills and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

Past Exhibits

The San Francisco Historical Society and the Museum of Performance + Design are proud to announce our inaugural collaboration, San Francisco On Stage. The exhibit features highlights from MP + D’s collection of historical artifacts from the worlds of dance, music, and theater, including costumes, programs, videos of performances, and other unique memorabilia. The exhibit will be on display at the San Francisco Historical Society Museum, 608 Commercial Street, in San Francisco’s Financial District through August 15, 2024.

The exhibit explores San Francisco’s long and colorful tradition of performing arts, which began during the Gold Rush. “This exhibit is a rare opportunity to view the highlights of MP + D’s extraordinary collection–artifacts that are rarely on display for public view,” said Lana Costantini, Director of Operations for SFHS.

Objects on view include the wings from the Eureka Theatre’s production of Angels in America and costumes from Tosca and Der Rosenkavalier worn by opera singers Dorothy Kirsten and Blanche Thebom. Models of the Tivoli Opera House and the War Memorial Opera House are also on display. Photographs in the exhibit include one of groundbreaking opera singer Marian Anderson and a portrait of the “Mother of Modern Dance,” Isadora Duncan, by photographer Arnold Genthe. The San Francisco Historical Society Museum is open Thursday through Saturday, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

The United Irish Cultural Center’s Keepers of the Steps program is delighted to announce an inaugural collaboration with San Francisco Historical Society just in time for Irish American Heritage Month in March as they present Irish Dance—Celebrating the Roots, Rhythms, and Rituals of the San Francisco Irish. This special exhibit explores how Irish dancing has fostered community and celebrated culture since the city’s inception.

During the bustling days of the Gold Rush, dance halls and entertainment enlivened the community and allowed Irish immigrants to hold on to and share their heritage. The San Francisco St. Patrick’s Day Parade hails from this era and is the oldest St. Patrick’s Day west of the Mississippi. Cultural preservation was further enhanced and fostered by the Gaelic League was formed near the turn of the 20th century and incorporated Irish dance activities and competitions into prominent cultural events. Dance schools began to grow in numbers. And by the 1970s competitive Irish dancing became further organized under the Irish Dance Commission in Dublin, Ireland, and San Francisco played host to the first annual championship competition in what has since been known as the Western Region—the Western Region Oireachtas.

Irish dancing is a centuries-old tradition native to Ireland with documented origins dating back to the mid-1700s, and the art form continues to capture the hearts of dancers and onlookers alike around the world. Enjoy local stories and history, dances shoes and costumes, and social and competitive highlights as you explore more than 150 years of Irish Dance in the San Francisco Bay Area. Join us as we celebrate the roots, rhythms, and rituals of one of the most enduring traditions of the Irish heritage.

The Irish Dance history exhibition pairs nicely with the SF Historical Society’s concurrent exhibit where they team up with the Museum of Performance + Design for another inaugural collaboration, San Francisco On Stage. The exhibit features highlights from MP + D’s collection of historical artifacts from the worlds of dance, music, and theater, including costumes, programs, videos of performances, and other unique memorabilia.

The exhibit will be on display at the San Francisco Historical Society Museum (608 Commercial Street), the site of the first Branch Mint in the West in the heart of San Francisco’s historic core.