Exhibitions
Sparking curiosity and enhancing public access to the Library & Archives collections since 1921
On View in Hoover Tower
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives exhibits their collection materials in the rotunda and two galleries at the front of Hoover Tower. The entry rotunda and the Herbert Hoover Room currently feature the long-term exhibition Hoover@100: Ideas Defining A Century. The Lou Henry Hoover Room showcases our rotating exhibitions that change twice a year. It will feature the exhibition Choosing Freedom: Lives That Defied Tyranny from June 17, 2026 through May 9, 2027.
Open Monday through Sunday, 10am – 4pm*
Exhibitions in the Hoover Tower galleries and the rotunda are free and fully open to the public.
*Before your visit, check for updates to Hoover Tower hours and upcoming closures.
Choosing Freedom
Lives That Defied Tyranny
June 17, 2026 – May 9, 2027
The twentieth century was an era of upheaval and displacement unprecedented in modern history. Driven by war, industrialization, and political persecution, millions were forced to seek new lives beyond borders. Within those mass migrations were the courageous individuals who refused to be broken by the regimes they fled. Drawing from personal testimonies, smuggled belongings, and powerful images held in the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Choosing Freedom presents the stories of those who did not merely survive oppression—they defied it.
Hoover@100
Ideas Defining a Century
Ongoing
Founded in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, the Hoover Institution started as a special collections library at Stanford University. Today it is a leading public-policy research center with a world-renowned Library & Archives, that houses many of the modern era’s most important material on war, revolution, and peace. In this centennial exhibition, learn the history of the Hoover Institution while seeing a showcase of documents and artifacts centered around the ideas of peace, freedom, and education—ideas that are embodied in the lives of Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry, and that drove the Institution’s collecting and the work of its eminent fellows in its first one hundred years.
Online Exhibitions
Discover our online exhibitions and related digital stories via our HISTORIES
Past Exhibitions
Discover the trove of past exhibitions at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives since 1998
