Founded in 1947 by Russell Hartley, a dancer and designer with San Francisco Ballet, the Museum of Performance + Design was incorporated and established as a charitable organization in 1976. Seventy years of collecting has made the Museum of Performance + Design a prominent living record of the history of the performing arts in the Bay Area and beyond. It aims to share artistic and humanistic values through a dynamic stewardship of its 3.5 million-item collection and an innovative approach to public humanities. The collection contains treasures of the performing arts ranging from the Gold Rush Era to the present time. It holds a part of the preeminent history of the performing arts and the unique history of San Francisco. The Museum's diverse collection includes books, periodicals, playbills, clippings, photographs, posters, sheet music, plays and librettos, radio interviews, videotapes, musical theater recordings, the Legacy Oral History Program, the Theater Film Archive, theater design research materials, costumes and set design renderings, personal papers of performers, patrons and critics, as well as the archive of several local performing arts organizations
The Museum of Performance + Design's digital collection at California Revealed consists of texts, moving images, and audio recordings from the 1920s to 2000s. The collection includes oral history interviews related to the arts, posters for San Francisco Ballet performances, and extensive performance documentation of choreographers like Anna Halprin, June Watanabe, and Ed Mock, as well as various Bay Area theater and dance companies.