Dime museums were establishments that grew in popularity starting from 1870 that were used to display freak show performers, human anatomy exhibitions, dioramas, oddities, and moral lectures to the general public. These institutions peaked in popularity at the end of the 19th century all throughout the United States. Designed as centers for entertainment and moral education for the working class (lowbrow), the museums were distinctly different from upper middle class cultural events (highbrow). In urban centers like New York City, where many immigrants settled, dime museums were popular and cheap entertainment. The social trend reached its peak during the Progressive Era (c. 1890–1920). Although lowbrow entertainment, they were the starting places for the careers of many notable vaudeville-era entertainers, including Harry Houdini, Lew Fields, Joe Weber, the Griffin Sisters, and Maggie Cline.

Dime museums arose during a unique time in American history. Urban areas were becoming more economically and racially diverse. The new working and middle class needed new forms of entertainment due to increased leisure time from advances in labor production. Dime museums became a popular form of mass entertainment.

Dime museums took on trends from now controversial freak shows. Freak shows trace their origins to early 19th-century Europe. Freak shows were also a form of mass entertainment, however, they frequently took advantage of the people they put on display. They used non-Western and physically abnormal individuals as spectacles, often accentuating exoticism, stereotypes, fetishes, and exclusionary hierarchies.

Dime museums were not strictly for a specific group since they were open to anyone who could afford the entrance fee. They were a place where people could enjoy wild entertainment while also learning due to the educational front these museums displayed. Dime museums eventually fell out of style once other forms of entertainment began to rise in popularity. Amusement parks, higher-quality films, and vaudeville (a form of theatrical entertainment). These forms of entertainment were refreshing to audiences who had grown accustomed to contents within dime museums. By World War I, dime museums existed only as memory.

One of the longest running dime museums in San Francisco was the Pacific Museum of Anatomy and Natural Science. One of the first exhibits at the museum featured a preserved head of Joaquin Murietta. Joaquin Murrieta was a famous Mexican outlaw who fought against Western dominance and expansion. Dime museums also focused on differences between peoples' bodies, including bodies that transgressed gendered and racialized expectations. In 1895, Milton B. Matson, a transgender crossdresser was arrested in San Francisco for suspected fraud and eventually began working at a local dime museum. Having been offered a position by Frank Clifton (a dime museum manager), Matson, out of necessity for work and money, took up the job of sitting upon a platform while wearing men's clothing.

San Francisco was also home to the Museum of Living Wonders and Woodward's Gardens. These were located on Kearny Street and in the Mission district respectively.

In Baltimore, Maryland, Peale's Museum is credited as one of the first serious museums in the country. This type of attraction was re-created in the American Dime Museum in 1999, which operated for eight years before closing permanently and auctioning off its exhibits in late February 2007.

Kimball's Museum and Austin & Stones Museum in Scollay Square were both well-known attractions, the former having a friendly connection to, and sometimes competition with, P. T. Barnum.^{[citation needed]} Barnum and Moses Kimball even shared "Fee Gee Mermaids" on a regular basis.