Museum Facts
Natural history museum in downtown Milwaukee exhibits human history, paleontology, zoology, botany, geology and anthropology.
Guests walk among hundreds of live butterflies in the indoor "Puelicher Butterfly Garden." The year-round exhibit features butterflies from Central and South America, Africa, the Philippines and Malaysia.
"A Tribute to Survival" features more than 30 life-size models of actual tribal members in ceremonial vestments in a Wisconsin Woodlands Indian Powwow, featuring the present-day tribes of Wisconsin: Chippewa (Ojibwe), Menominee, Oneida, Potawatomi, Stockbridge-Munsee and Winnebago (Ho-Chunk).
The "Streets of Old Milwaukee" exhibit remains a landmark of American museum techniques. Visitors step into a recreated autumn evening as they follow wooden sidewalks and brick paved streets to peer into the windows of homes and businesses of a gaslight-era Milwaukee neighborhood at the turn of the 19th century.
The Humphrey IMAX® Dome Theater features the largest dome theater in Wisconsin. The 60-foot screen envelopes visitors with Academy Award nominated films such as "Everest" and "The Living Sea."
The Daniel M. Soref Planetarium is the largest planetarium in Wisconsin, and one of the most technologically advanced planetariums in the Midwest. It projects onto the Milwaukee Public Museum's 74-foot diameter, hemispheric IMAX® screen, using cutting-edge video technology to bring audiences to the deepest reaches of the universe.
Daniel M. Finley was named president and chief executive officer of the museum in August 2005. The museum attracts nearly two-thirds of a million visitors including 300,000 schoolchildren annually, making it one of the state's most popular tourist attractions. The museum was founded in 1882 and is home to a collection of more than 4.6 million objects and artifacts.