Imagined Nation

Marking the 250th anniversary of the United States, Imagined Nation invites visitors to explore how artists, writers, and printers have imagined the country’s future from its founding to the present. Through a rotating series of installations unfolding across 2026, Imagined Nation invites visitors to consider the questions that continue to shape the nation today: How is history made and remembered? How are communities created and sustained? And how have ideas of freedom and democracy been debated, challenged, and reshaped over time?

On the Athenaeum's first floor, visitors will encounter rare and perhaps unexpected materials drawn from George Washington’s own library—including his personal copy of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Alongside Washington’s books on agriculture and military strategy are pamphlets that reveal the era’s contested ideas about slavery, Indigenous diplomacy, and early American politics, offering a complex portrait of the nation at its beginnings.

Additional highlights from the Athenaeum’s Special Collections trace the Revolution’s lasting legacy, from early printings of the Declaration of Independence and maps of the young republic to striking World War II–era posters that show how revolutionary ideals were reimagined generations later.