The museum's exhibits document the rise of the banjo from its arrival in North America via the Atlantic slave trade to modern times.

[7][6] The museum's collections also contain historical recordings, film, video, printed music, instructional materials, and banjo-related ephemera and memorabilia.

[11] The museum covers approximately 370 years worth of banjo history in the United States from the mid-1600s through the present.

[12] Examples of Joel Walker Sweeney, Christy's Minstrels and the Ethiopian Serenaders, who performed in blackface, are included.

[12] The classical movement after the Civil War is also covered, when the instrument "found acceptance in the parlors of middle upper-class America.

[12][7] A third multimedia display talks about the 1920s, ragtime and the era's dance-music culture, in which the banjo took on a central role comparable to that of the electric guitar in today's music, with banjo-playing stars such as Eddie Peabody, Harry Reser, and Roy Smeck.

[12] These dances could be accompanied by the four-string banjo played with a pick, which helped to provide a "rhythmic pulse" for the music.

[12] A final display shows places in popular culture where the banjo survived through a resurgence in the post-World War II years, when it was played by musicians Earl Scruggs (bluegrass), Bela Fleck (jazz, rock, world music), Gerry O'Connor (Celtic and Irish music), Perry Bechtel (jazz, big band), Pete Seeger (folk), and Otis Taylor (African-American roots, blues, jazz).

[15] The museum's permanent collection also includes an 1840s five-string banjo that has a peghead shaped like a lyre by an unknown luthier.

Bullock in Rhode Island; the 1854-made fretless banjo has a metal body with bolts to adjust the tension of the skin head.

[17] A post-Civil War banjo on display from the 1880s used a wooden hoop tacked to the instrument's body on the outside to adjust the skin-head's tension.

[24][25] Inductees into the American Banjo Museum Hall of Fame in 2018 include Bela Fleck (five-string performance), Borgy Borgerson (four-string performance), Jim Henson (promotion), Hub Nitsche and the Banjo Newsletter (instruction and education), and Eddie Collins (historical).

[28] His guests on The Muppet Show included Roy Clark and Steve Martin, and in doing so, "presented the music and visual dynamic of the banjo to an international audience in the most entertaining and positive manner imaginable.

"[28] The exhibits showed Henson's work throughout his career and included video footage of Kermit the Frog in his first banjo-playing appearance from Sam and Friends.

[28] His Maya banjo was signed by many musicians, including Julie Andrews, Gene Kelly, Roy Rogers, Johnny Cash, Elton John, Diana Ross and Peter Sellers.

[28] Comedian and actor Steve Martin was the subject of an exhibition in 2015, when he was inducted into the hall of fame for his work promoting the banjo.