Discover five small, offbeat Washington museums

Washington, D.C., is known for its museums. But venture beyond the Mall, which is home to four of the 20 most-visited museums in the world, and you’ll find plenty of smaller, quirkier institutions. Want to learn about great inventions, the history of horse racing in America or how drugs are smuggled across the border? You can, and it’s free.

These five museums are, for the most part, targeted at niche audiences, which means they don’t get the crowds you’ll find at, say, the National Museum of African American History and Culture. But you also don’t need a full day to explore them: Even the ones that offer full, guided tours can take less than an hour to peruse. Think of these spots as entertaining and educational diversions — especially the ones that go out of their way to welcome kids. Check hours carefully, as most of these museums are not open daily.

NATIONAL INVENTORS HALL OF FAME MUSEUM

The National Inventors Hall of Fame, inside the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, has a dual mission. Half of the museum is meant to inspire the next generation of creators, telling the stories of such inventors as Howard Head, who created the first aluminum skis, and then, in retirement, the oversize aluminum tennis racket. (Prototypes of the inventions bring the displays to life.) The section on patents and trademarks shows how technology has evolved: Get behind the wheel of a curious Ford Mustang — one half from 1965, one half from 2015 — to compare their features, or examine displays charting the changes to cellphones and cameras over decades.

Interactive games demonstrate how trademarks and copyrights work — there’s a quiz with trademarked sounds, such as Darth Vader’s breathing — and challenges to see if you can pick out which pair of name-brand shoes is a fake. Don’t be surprised if younger visitors want to pick up a science kit in the gift shop on the way out.

WHERE U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 600 Dulany St., Alexandria, Virginia

INFO Free, 571-272-0095, invent.org/honor/hall-of-fame-museum

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN JEWISH MILITARY HISTORY

The history of the United States military is long and complicated, but the National Museum of American Jewish Military History focuses on one area: the experience of Jews who’ve served in conflicts from the Revolutionary War to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Some of the displays feel a little formulaic — guns and helmets in cases — but where the museum succeeds is in the personal touches.

Touch screens allow visitors to scroll through dozens of candid snapshots taken during leisure time in Europe or the South Pacific; displays hold the flight jackets worn by pilots shot down over Berlin, a handmade ark used in Burma, and simple souvenirs, such as a coconut mailed home from Guam during World War II, or vases and belt buckles made from shell casings. Listening stations with headphones play oral histories of service members who liberated concentration camps. A separate gallery holds pictures and details of every Jewish service member to receive the Medal of Honor, which makes for compelling and inspiring reading.

WHERE 1811 R St. NW, Washington

INFO Free, 202-265-6280, nmajmh.org

CARTER G. WOODSON HOME

The Shaw town house where famed historian Carter G. Woodson wrote and edited the Journal of Negro History and the Negro History Bulletin from the 1920s until his death in 1950 became a national historic landmark in the 1970s. But it was vacant, home only to squatters, in the 1990s, and in such bad shape that walls collapsed during the 2011 earthquake. The National Park Service opened the home to the public in 2017, and much of the three-story building is empty — even the office and Woodson’s bedroom.

Instead, rangers who lead the Thursday, Saturday and Sunday tours bring Woodson to life through stories about his prodigious work habits, his relationships with educator Mary McLeod Bethune and poet Langston Hughes, the creation of Negro History Week (now known as Black History Month) and daily life in the house. The free hourlong tours are currently the only way to see the house, so make reservations online, or just walk in.

WHERE 1538 Ninth St. NW, Washington

INFO Free, 202-426-5961, nps.gov/cawo

BELMONT-PAUL WOMEN’S EQUALITY NATIONAL MONUMENT

Forced feedings of prisoners on hunger strike. Assaults on participants in a nonviolent protest. Mass arrests of pickets outside the White House. These stories are often whitewashed from the popular narrative about women’s suffrage, but they’re front and center at the Belmont-Paul House on Capitol Hill. Since 1929, this historic home has been the headquarters of the National Woman’s Party, whose leader, Alice Paul, helped organize the radical protests that drew public attention to their cause in the early 1900s.

The house is a memorial to the NWP, decorated with framed banners that were carried in marches (“The Young Are at the Gates,” “Forward Out of Darkness, Leave Behind the Night, Forward Out of Error, Forward Into Light”) and busts of the party’s founders. (The NWP is now a nonprofit educational organization.) Exhibits detail the background of the suffrage movement and the passage of the 19th Amendment, and the gift shop is the perfect place to pick up a “Votes for Women” tote bag or a kid-size “Feminist” T-shirt.

WHERE 144 Constitution Ave. NE, Washington

INFO Free, 202-543-2240, nps.gov/bepa/index.htm

GERMAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE MUSEUM OF THE U.S.A.

The German-American Heritage Foundation hosts movie nights and beer tastings at its Chinatown headquarters and has a small shop selling sundry items, including traditional egg noodles, mustards and sausages, and books about famous German-Americans. Its museum tells the story of Germans in this country from the arrival of 13 Mennonite families from North Rhine-Westphalia in Pennsylvania in 1683. (Today, the Census Bureau reports that 45 million Americans claim German heritage — more than any other ethnic group.)

Wall texts and videos discuss redemptioners — Germans who endured a system of indentured servitude to pay for their voyage to America — and the German intellectuals who flocked to America after the German Revolution of 1848, and again before and after World Wars. The displays can be a little dry, but they’re informative. Pick up stein-shaped pasta on the way out.

WHERE 719 Sixth St. NW, Washington

INFO Free, 202-467-5000, gahmusa.org