The Museum of American Finance, coming to the Seaport next summer, tries to put the ‘fun’ in mutual funds

What do Civil War soldiers in Boston, the Red Sox, and South Station have in common?

At one time or another, they all had to be financed. The soldiers required provisions to fight their battles, the baseball team needed its shares divvied up to get on the field, and the transit hub demanded an infusion of capital to start shuttling passengers. While often opaque, it’s the movement of dollars and cents that is the lifeblood of modern life — and the focus of a museum slated to arrive in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood next July.

“Through the objects, we tell stories. And that’s one way to break through, to really make finance more understandable,” said David Cowen, president and CEO of the Museum of American Finance. “Finance leads the way. Finance is the horse to the economy’s cart, and everything, everywhere is finance. And we have hundreds of objects from Massachusetts to show how you build an economy.”

Objects like an 1897 bond certificate from the Boston Terminal Company that helped fund the creation of South Station. Or a stock certificate from 1912 for 25 shares of the Boston American League Base-Ball Club (better known as the Boston Red Sox). Or a blank check signed by John F. Kennedy that was in the possession of his Secret Service agents when he was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.

All of those and more memorabilia from the worlds of banking, investment, and currency will be on display in a 5,400-square-foot space in the soon-to-debut Commonwealth Pier, a revamp of the old Seaport World Trade Center. The museum signed a 10-year lease in the complex, which is being developed by real estate firm Pembroke, an affiliate of Fidelity.

News of the move comes at a time of great economic angst, echoing the museum’s debut back in 1989, in the wake of the Black Monday stock market crash. But that kind of relevance is part of the reason Pembroke saw the museum as the right tenant for a ground-floor space nestled next to the Pier’s new 25,000-square-foot public plaza.

“It just rings true to who we are,” said Kristan McLaughlin, director of asset management at Pembroke. “Financial literacy is something that is worldwide, and understanding it, and the need for it — it’s on top of everyone’s mind.”

McLaughlin knows there might not be immediate buy-in. After all, finance is not the most obvious touchpoint for a cultural institution. But she believes, in time, interest will grow.

“I think everyone has that same, like, ‘Hmm’ type of moment,” she said. “But if you take away the name, and you just look at what’s in it, it’s history.”

The Boston debut will be the museum’s first permanent location since 2018, when a flood ravaged its previous headquarters, on Wall Street in Manhattan. Visitors can expect a revival of the museum’s popular “America in Circulation” currency room, a colorful display of US legal tender stretching back centuries. “We bring it about in a way that it looks like artwork, and it really pops,” Cowen said.

The museum, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, will work with design firm Gallagher & Associates to build out the exhibits that will draw from its collection, which is being stored and digitized at Heritage Werks in Georgia. Through the years, the museum has featured exhibits on the likes of the women of Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and the legacy of Alexander Hamilton. It will also be getting an assist from the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology to help create “interactive, immersive exhibits, virtual platforms — all the stuff that’s happened now that are making museums really much more cutting edge,” Cowen said.

Despite the subject matter of the museum, you needn’t bring your wallet there. Admission will be free of charge, unlike the standard $8 fee there was in New York, a change financed by the museum’s Board of Trustees.

Also free of charge is the museum’s other programming, such as its personal finance academy for high school students and its public events on topics ranging from bitcoin to sports investing. It plans to bring this extra-credit education to Boston when it moves, Cowen said, ideally partnering with area school and library systems.

The museum is one of the first tenants announced for the Commonwealth Pier redevelopment, which has been undergoing construction since 2020. It will share the building at 200 Seaport Boulevard — a longtime event space — with two restaurants courtesy of Union Square Hospitality Group, other yet-to-be-announced retail tenants, and Fidelity’s office headquarters. (Fidelity’s current headquarters, at 245 Summer Street near South Station, is now available for lease.)

Commonwealth Pier — sitting on land owned by the Massachusetts Port Authority — is surrounded by a complex that includes two office towers, the Seaport Hotel, and the Harborwalk, which is also getting a facelift as part of the redevelopment. Spokesperson Michael Aalto said the project will open in phases, but that Pembroke is aiming to wrap up all construction in the second half of next year.

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Dana Gerber can be reached at dana.gerber@globe.com. Follow her @danagerber6.