Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Museum

Meet us where history meets literature

Literary lion Ernest Hemingway is as much known for his world travels as he is for his beloved prose, but the Nobel Prize-winning author's early years are not nearly as well known, despite the formative influence his upbringing had on his worldview.

Now called the Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Museum, the Oak Park home in which Hemingway spent the first six years of his life  offers a fascinating look into the author, his family and how they lived during the turn of the century. Gain new insight into Hemingway and his work by taking a tour of the immaculately preserved home led by enthusiastic and knowledgeable museum docents.

Built in 1890 for Hemingway's maternal grandparents, the Queen Anne- style home was remarkable in its time for being the first home in Oak Park with electricity. Nine years later, Hemingway's mother gave birth to the author in one of the home's upstairs bedrooms. The home was purchased in 1992 by the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, the organization that operates the museum,

Through the foundation's efforts, the Hemingway home was meticulously restored to look almost exactly as it did when young Hemingway lived there. With era-appropriate furniture and decor, you'll feel as if you've stepped back in time upon walking into the house. Hemingway's sons even visited the home near the restoration's end and gave it their stamp of approval. The collection of photographs of the Hemingway family that hang upstairs is just one of the many painstaking details that make touring the home such an authentic experience. 

After taking the 50-minute tour, you'll depart the home with a deeper understanding of the person Hemingway was and a renewed fascination with the work that survived him.