The Museum of American Finance opens its doors in Boston

Nearly a decade after leaving its former home, the Museum of American Finance is welcoming the public to its new headquarters — and just in time for the country’s 250th anniversary.

The 5,400-square-foot museum located on Commonwealth Pier in Boston is the Smithsonian Institution’s first permanent home since it terminated its lease at 48 Wall Street in New York in 2018 due to flooding.

After signing a new lease just 16 months ago, the museum was able to release the first seven exhibits. One, developed in collaboration with the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, uses artificial intelligence to create an interactive Alexander Hamilton.

“We are bringing him back to life,” said Erich Umar, head of strategy and technical planning at FCAT, during a press conference at the museum earlier this week ahead of its opening. “History doesn’t just live in the past; it communicates with the future.”

Visitors can speak to the first secretary of the US treasury in more than 50 languages ​​and even ask him unique questions, such as asking him to elaborate on mutual interest using the analogy of a football.

“Advances in technology are giving us opportunities that we could only imagine a few years ago,” Umar told CNBC. “It enables us to scale financial education and reach more Americans where they are, regardless of geography, language or preferred learning method.”

As visitors enter the museum, the first subject they will examine will seem familiar: money.

An interactive exhibit, “America in Circulation,” displays several examples of the country’s currency from the earliest to the present day, showing how it has evolved over the centuries.

“We wanted the money gallery to be the first exhibit visitors see because everyone is familiar with money,” said Kristin Aguilera, the museum’s deputy director. “So, we start with a topic that is very accessible to everyone.”

The earliest coins on display are pine tree shillings from 1652, and the first paper currency on display dates from the 18th century. Even with such wide viewing angles, visitors can use touch screens to zoom in. With a few taps, they can zoom in to view the intricate details and characteristics of a particular instance.

“A lot of this paper money was created by major events in our history like the Revolutionary War,” said Rahul Arora, a financial historian and guest curator at the exhibition. “Some of these notes wouldn’t exist.”

Arora said she hopes the exhibit will lead others to truly appreciate money, especially from an artistic perspective. That result couldn’t come at a better time, as the federal government has halted production of new cents, and Arora expects it’s only a matter of time before the dollar itself is issued.

“These days when you shop online, all you see is the prices,” he said. “You go to Amazon, you buy something, and you just see the price. You don’t think about the transaction that’s going on.”

Bringing financial education to the masses, free entry, ensures that anyone who wants to learn about finance can.

This comes at a time when financial worries have been plaguing Americans. According to a Pew Research survey, 64% of Americans said in April that the federal deficit is the “biggest problem” in the US That’s up from 57% in February 2025.

Currently, the national deficit for the fiscal year to date is over $1.2 trillion. The national debt has exceeded 39 billion.

“We’re moving away from the goals that Hamilton set,” said Richard Sylla, a senior professor of economics at the NYU Stern School of Business and former chairman of the museum. Still a member of the museum’s board of trustees, Sylla has curated three exhibitions, one of which documents the founding of the US financial system.

“There are many things that are not good about the state of the country now,” he said in the interview. “I think this is a good reminder that as bad as you might think now, there is a good history of how we became the richest country in the world.”

Even with concerns about the financial situation the US has been in, Sylla is optimistic that such problems will be resolved in the next few years.

“When Hamilton came into office, we were in a bigger problem than we are now because we were actually not paying our debts. Now we are still increasing debts and we are moving towards paying debts, but we were actually not paying, both to domestic and foreign creditors,” he said.

“The museum is full of things that were left aside from music [‘Hamilton’],” Syla said later.

Like visitors at the end of their museum tour, they enter “Personal Finances,” the final exhibit. This section hopes to combine the themes of previous galleries, leaving visitors with a better understanding of the US financial system and how to develop tools to improve one’s financial well-being.

Bob Pisani, a former senior markets reporter for CNBC, said the museum is not only about financial history but also financial information.

“Alexander Hamilton helped establish the first bank in the United States which helped stabilize the finances of the United States and put this country in a position to innovate,” said Pisani, a member of the museum’s board of trustees. “Learning about finance is about understanding that kind of history, but it’s also about understanding your own personal finances. It’s about budgeting.”

He pointed out that a person who sets his own budget is, in fact, “very similar” to a government that sets its own budget.

“The personal budget and the federal budget are not that far apart,” he said. “Financial education teaches people to understand how to invest. It teaches people how to save money wisely. It teaches people the importance of compounding interest and how to make your money work for you.”