American Museum

American Museum may refer to

The American Museum (magazine)

The American Museum was a monthly American literary magazine published by Mathew Carey in the late-18th century. The American Museum "shares with the Columbian Magazine the honor of being the first successful American magazine."

Carey established the magazine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, using $400 that was given him by Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette. Carey published a total of 72 issues (twelve volumes) of the magazine—one each month from January 1787 to December 1792. The magazine reprinted significant historical documents of American history and also some original work.

In its first edition, The American Museum republished Thomas Paine's Common Sense. The proposed Constitution of the United States was first published in the magazine. Contributors to the magazine included John Adams, Timothy Dwight IV, Benjamin Franklin, Philip Freneau, Alexander Hamilton, Francis Hopkinson, David Humphreys, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Rush, John Trumbull, George Washington and Noah Webster.