A new exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum explores MPM’s history and explains why opening a new museum is essential.

The Milwaukee Public Museum has more than four million artifacts in its collections, including many rocks and fossils that tell the history of the world. If you head to the geology department in the basement of the current museum space, you'll find wall-to-wall cabinets filled with rocks, fossils, and minerals.

At the Milwaukee Public Museum, millions of artifacts that aren’t on display are stored in back-room drawers and cabinets. As part of our series, Behind the Scenes at MPM, we’ll explore the zoology department’s vast bird collection.

The back rooms of the Milwaukee Public Museum are stashed with millions of items from its collection. In the anthropology department, a rare painting called “Menominee Women” serves as an uncommon record of how Native American women used European goods.

Packing for a move can be complicated. Now think about what it would be like to move an entire museum, with its fragile and sometimes ancient artifacts. That’s what’s happening at the Milwaukee Public Museum as it prepares to move to its new location in 2027.