Milwaukee Public Museum

Milwaukee Public Museum ( eng. MPM ) is a natural history museum in Milwaukee , USA . ^[one]

Milwaukee Public Museum
Established	1882 year
Address	USA : Milwaukee , Wisconsin
Site	mpm.edu

External Images
	IMAX Cinema

It was founded in 1882 and opened to the public in 1884. It is a non-profit organization operated by Milwaukee Public Museum, Inc. The museum building has three floors with exhibits and includes the first in Wisconsin IMAX cinema .

The Milwaukee Public Museum was one of the few major American museums created at the end of the 19th century. Officially formed in 1882, it has a history since 1851, from the day the German-English Academy (now the University School of Milwaukee ) was founded. The head of the academy, Peter Engelmann, encouraged student field trips that collected the first samples of the organic, geological, and archaeological artifacts that were stored at the academy. Later, already graduates of the academy, the museum was presented with various historical and ethnological exhibits.

By 1857, the collection of the academy had grown to such an extent that Engelman organized a society of natural history at the academy, which was engaged in the classification and maintenance of exhibits. As a result, the unofficial “museum” began to exceed the academy's ability to host it. The city alderman August Stirn, who received permission from the state legislature to create a “free public museum,” became the impetus for organizing an independent museum. ^[2]

The formed Board of Trustees hired Karl Dorflinger as the first director of the museum and rented a space to house his exhibits. The museum was opened to the public on May 24, 1884 . Prior to his resignation in 1888, the first director of the museum, in addition to his current activities, contributed to the acquisition by the city authorities of a land plot on which to build a building that was supposed to be used for the museum and library. The new building was built in 1898. Anthropologist Samuel Barrett ran the museum during the difficult years of the Great Depression . The construction of the new modern museum building began in 1960 and was completed in 1962. Since 2010, the Milwaukee Public Museum has been run by director Jay B. Williams , who previously worked in the banking sector.