Museum Information

On Special Exhibit:
UPSET! Harry Truman and the 1948 Election
May 30, 2024 - February 1, 2025

With the world watching the pivotal 2024 election, a new Truman Library exhibition recalls the biggest political upset in U.S. history. Promising Americans a “Fair Deal” while campaigning against a “do-nothing Congress,” Truman changed the nation’s tune—from MILD to WILD about Harry.

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A new temporary exhibition, UPSET! Harry Truman and the 1948 Election, allows visitors to travel back in time to see how the most stunning surprise in U.S. presidential election history came about. The exhibit, which includes over 100 artifacts, original political cartoons, interactive displays, diary entries, photographs and videos, opens May 30, 2024, and runs through February 1, 2025, at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum in Independence, Missouri.

Rooted among the Ashes: Hibakujumoku / A-bombed Trees Katy McCormick
Exhibit extended until June 1, 2024

For over a decade Katy McCormick has examined Japan’s A-bombed landscapes. Her work portrays the survivor trees or hibakujumoku subjected to the first use of atomic bombs in 1945, signifying the vulnerability of life in the face of nuclear threats. Standing in school yards, temple grounds, and city squares, the A-bombed trees are living memorials, rooted among the ashes just below the surfaces of now-thriving cities. Predicated on “walking and remembrance,” the exhibition invites a promenade through space and time, memory and history, urging reflection upon how the past haunts the present—warning, teaching, urging care. More information.

The museum is closed each year on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Visitors are allowed to take pictures throughout the museum, but the use of a flash is prohibited. Manual wheelchairs are provided to museum visitors at no charge and are available on a first come / first served basis. Please inquire at the admissions desk.