If coronavirus has you stuck at home, these Pa. museums offer virtual tours

Virtual museums

The Mercer Museum in Doylestown is one of the Pennsylvania museums that offer virtual tours of parts of their collections.

Under Gov. Wolf’s statewide shutdown of nonessential businesses across Pennsylvania there’s probably not a single museum open if you did want to venture out into a world altered by coronavirus for a break from confinement in your home. Even if the kids, home from school for the next two weeks at least, need it.

But here are a dozen virtual museum experiences from a variety of museums across Pennsylvania.

The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, offers multiple online exhibits, including Penn’s Treaty, which looks at the “firm league of peace” Pennsylvania’s founder William Penn established with the Native Americans through the collection of art, artifacts and documents in the collection donated to the museum by Mr. and Mrs. Meyer P. Potamkin.

The virtual tour Valley Forge National Historical Park, Valley Forge, the site of a turning point in the American Revolution illustrates life during the Valley Forge winter through the park’s collections and the headquarters occupied by General George Washington and his officers during the encampment.

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Strasburg, provides several 360-degree virtual tours of equipment in the collection, from Pennsylvania Railroad steam locomotives to Pullman club-restaurant-sleep cars.

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Among the virtual tours offered by the Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, is Toys of the 50s, 60s and 70s, including all the old favorites like Barbie, Matchbox vehicles, Gumby, that mechanical monkey clapping cymbals and many, many others.

The Museum of the American Revolution, Philadelphia, provides Beyond the Battlefield: A Virtual Field Trip hosted by Lauren Tarshis, author of the I Survived series of children’s historical fiction novels that includes artifacts and documents from the Revolutionary War.

The National Toy Train Museum, Strasburg, has an entire library of videos shot from the engine cabs of many of the toy trains in the collection as they race along the track layouts of the museum.

Birthplace of the American Revolution, the Betsy Ross House, Philadelphia, takes a virtual into the sights and sounds of the 18th century and inspiration that went into the Stars and Stripes.

The Penn State All-Sports Museum, University Park, offers a virtual tour through Google Maps, including a glimpse at each of the museum’s exhibits.

The amazing collection of more than 50,000 pre-industrial tools from 60 different crafts and trades displayed throughout a six-story reinforced concrete castle is the focus of the Mercer Museum, Doylestown, virtual tour.

The Frick, Pittsburgh, offers seven virtual tours ranging from pastel works by Jean-Francois Millet to fashion from the Gilded Age.

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The virtual tour of the American Treasure Tour Museum, Oaks, offers a glimpse into the collection of collections housed in a former tire factory, ranging from beautifully restored self-playing orchestra to hordes of life-size clown statues and stuffed animals from carnivals and promotional campaigns to decades worth of movie posters.

Get a taste of Pennsylvania’s lumbering heritage Pennsylvania’s in a virtual tour of the exhibits and 10-acre campus, including a re-creation of an early 20th century lumber camp in a virtual tour of the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum, Ulysses.

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Contact Marcus Schneck at mschneck@pennlive.com.

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