The Milwaukee Public Museum’s latest exhibit invites guests to learn about MPM’s past, present and future. It’s called Groundbreaking: The Evolution of a Natural History Museum and it highlights how MPM set the standard for natural history museums.
Groundbreaking covers MPM's 142-year history from its roots as the German English Academy to the future museum slated to open in 2027. Amanda Kopp is MPM’s collections interpretation manager and she explains the concept for the exhibit.
"The idea came really almost nine years ago when I started here and I started learning all these little interesting tidbits from different people about the history of MPM," she says. "A lot of world's first."
One of MPM's accolades is being home to the world's first habitat diorama, created by taxidermist Carl Akeley. Akeley's diorama work was dubbed the Milwaukee-style.
"He wanted to show how a muskrat lived, how it lived in its natural environment rather than just kind of putting out a pedestal on all four legs, looking very stiff and un-life like," Kopp says. "He created that as a tester to show to the board, to make a whole series of these."
MPM is also one of the world's first museums to co-create a Native American exhibit with tribal members. Kopp says MPM was among the first handful of natural history museums established in the country. She attributes that and MPM's progressive directors to why the museum has always been "pushing the envelope, trying to think of new ways to do things and finding new and exciting ways to bring the history of the world and the cultures of the world to Milwaukee."
Kopp notes that despite MPM's efforts to collaborate with local tribes since 1916, there's still work to be done today. In 2022, MPM hired Tribal Liaison James Flores.
"A key part of his role here has been working with Wisconsin's 12 Native American communities to build out their stories that are going to be displayed at the future museum," Kopp says. "They've been involved from the beginning and saying these are the objects that highlight our lives and our stories and our culture."
Kopp details an item on display at the exhibit — a black ash basket from Oneida artist Liandra Skenandore.
"I put her basket on display because that really highlights the change in relationship with Native Americans and the museum," she says. "That is really continuing forward with the future museum."
MPM broke ground on the future museum site in May. The end of the exhibit explains why the move is necessary. Kopp says she wants the exhibit to answer two commonly asked questions: why the museum is moving and what is happening to its collections.
"This building is no longer really a safe place for our collections or our exhibits. But it's more than just safety. It's also just a building that is not in line with current accessibility standards."
Kopp adds that for Groundbreaking she wanted to explain the difference between exhibits and collections. The museum has over four million items in its collections.
"Those are all coming with us to the future museum," she says. "We aren't getting rid of anything that is part of our collections. For our exhibits, they are more the components. Those the things that make up the dioramas that we see."
Kopp says guest favorites like Samson, the howler monkey and Granny will have a spot at the future museum. She adds that museum staff have discussed the future of smaller components of exhibits, like the number trees from A Tribute to Survival.
"We are bringing many of those components with," Kopp says. "The ones that we don't, we are hoping we can find homes in new institutions and continue to educate in new places.
The Groundbreaking exhibit is open through Jan. 20, 2025, and is included with general admission.
