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The Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop was established in 1976 as a not-for-profit historic and educational organization. The Museum preserves the site on which Whitney built his factory in 1798, paving the path of the precision manufacturing revolution in America.
In addition to our educational commitment to local communities, the museum develops exhibitions and manages collections of historical artifacts and archives relating to the museum site, the surrounding area, and important contributors to our organization's success.
Annual Exhibitions
The Leonardo Challenge
This annual benefit for the EWMW invites artists and craftspeople to create artworks around a theme inspired by the works and ideas of Leonardo da Vinci. It culminates in a display of the artworks and a live auction.
A.C. Gilbert Train
Annually from Thanksgiving to late January
Every year from November through January, visit the Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop to view and operate American Flyer trains on one of four tracks.
Permanent Installations
The Water Lab
On July 4th, 1993, the Eli Whitney Museum in partnership with the South Central Regional Water Authority, the National Science Foundation and nearly a dozen corporate friends renewed the teaching legacy of this site with an outdoor experiment area which engages, a new generation, in the fundamental engineering experiences of the stream and sandbox. It is a shared resource for the region, and a model for schools and communities across the nation.
The Armory Model
The Armory Model tells the story of the work Whitney directed here and the significant changes that are discernible in that work. Our sources: period artwork, Whitney’s probate inventory, records of parallel armories, and informed guesswork. The model is constructed in 1/3 scale.
The Marble Wall
Why marbles?
Children discover the power of marbles before they understand it. Marbles need no captions. Marbles speak their own language. Marbles know all the laws of nature and they obey them in their simplest possible form.
Marbles are the atoms of experience.