Accessibility links
Hidden Treasures Some museums are like attics -- so full of stuff that no one knows exactly what's there. For the Hidden Treasures Radio Project, Harriet Baskas explores the backrooms, storehouses and rumors of museums to see what we're missing.
Special Series

Hidden Treasures

Reporter Harriet Baskas explores museum backrooms for objects that the public never gets to see.

Archives Help Businesses Learn from Mistakes

The documents, products and records a company keeps in its archive help it to create institutional memories -- good and bad. Nike turns to shoes in its archives to be reminded of past successes and failures.

Archives Help Businesses Learn from Mistakes

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/5077178/5159705" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Hidden Treasures: Mrs. Parmeter's Klan Quilt

A blue-and-white quilt at a Washington state museum has an unusual and mysterious story behind it. Made in 1928, the quilt includes cloth from discarded Ku Klux Klan masks.

Hidden Treasures: Mrs. Parmeter's Klan Quilt

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/4866157/4866237" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

A Gruesome Stroll Through Medical History

The National Museum of Health and Medicine in D.C. is not for the squeamish. Founded in 1862, the museum displays everything from a large human hairball to skull fragments from Abraham Lincoln.

A Gruesome Stroll Through Medical History

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/4653952/4654138" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Hidden Treasures: Gifts Fit for a President

Every American president receives gifts from fans and foreign dignitaries, but as Harriet Baskas reports for Hidden Treasures, an occasional series on All Things Considered, some of the most precious and peculiar ones never get displayed.

Hidden Treasures: Gifts Fit for a President

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/4116572/4119212" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Hidden Treasures: Warhol's Ongoing Work of Art

When Andy Warhol died in 1987 he left hundreds of sealed and dated boxes full of trash and treasure. The time capsules are opened periodically by the Warhol Museum. Harriet Baskas reports.

Hidden Treasures: Warhol's Ongoing Work of Art

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/3904754/3905514" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Hidden Treasures: A Museum for the Mob

The mayor of Las Vegas is proposing a museum exploring the history of organized crime's involvement in the building of the city. Opponents point out that coming up with material to display might be tough given the mob is known for covering its tracks. Harriet Baskas reports in this installment of "Hidden Treasures."

Hidden Treasures: A Museum for the Mob

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1905864/1905865" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Hidden Treasures: Hawaii Custody Battle

A museum and indigenous Hawaiians are in a custody battle rare carved artifacts, some of which have been repatriated to sacred burial caves. The story is the latest in NPR's Hidden Treasures series.

Hidden Treasures: Hawaii Custody Battle

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1839007/1839321" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Hidden Treasures: Lewis and Clark's Map

In 1806, over a camp fire and food, Nez Perce Indian chiefs made a map for William Clark showing a short and safe journey through the Rockies. The rare Indian map, one of only a hundred surviving, went overlooked for decades. Harriet Baskas tells the story as part of All Things Considered's Hidden Treasures Radio Project.

Hidden Treasures: Lewis and Clark's Map

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1748763/1800934" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Hidden Treasures: Sacred Relics of the Freemasons

In Boston -- the birthplace of the American Freemasonry society -- some ceremonial objects are considered so sacred, they're kept locked away. As part of the Hidden Treasures Radio Project, Harriet Baskas goes inside the Grand Lodge's vaults for a look at objects with ties to such illustrious Freemasons as George Washington and Paul Revere.

Hidden Treasures: Sacred Relics of the Freemasons

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1570170/1576832" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Hidden Museum Treasures: 'In Cold Blood'

Years ago, the tombstones of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith -- the two killers portrayed in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood -- mysteriously disappeared. Now they have resurfaced at a museum that won't put them on display. Harriet Baskas reports on a Kansas museum's dilemma as part of the "Hidden Treasures" series.

Hidden Museum Treasures: 'In Cold Blood'

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1503950/1506871" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

The Forgotten Wright: Katherine Wright

The third, unsung Wright sibling. Some historians say that without her, the famous pioneers of flight might not have gotten off the ground. Yet Orville tried to keep her contributions out of the newspapers and history books. In the next installment of the series "Hidden Treasures," Harriet Baskas tells us why.

The Forgotten Wright: Katherine Wright

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1467050/1467051" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Hidden Museum Treasures: Fortune's Bones

A small museum in Waterbury, Conn., is struggling with a big question: what to do with a set of human remains in its collection. In the next installment of All Things Considered's "Hidden Treasures" series, Harriet Baskas reports on a real skeleton in the closet, named Fortune.

Hidden Museum Treasures: Fortune's Bones

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1433035/1433165" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Hidden Museum Treasures

From shrunken heads to items literally too hot to handle, many museums collect items of note, but choose not to display them. Harriet Baskas takes a look around the back rooms of some of the nation's most prominent museums to see what they're not showing the public.

Hidden Museum Treasures

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1414460/1414597" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Browse the section archive or search npr.org