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Plains ledger art was adopted as a means of historical representation for the Indian peoples of the Great Plains during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Although the Plains Indians had no written language in which to record their history, they did have a long tradition of preserving oral histories pictorially. For centuries, Plains Indian men kept historical records of their tribes, first with petroglyphs and pictographs on rock walls, and then painted on buffalo hides.

The 12 samplers of the ABCs of Schoolgirl Samplers exhibition are drawn from more than 40 examples within the Milwaukee Public Museum’s extensive textile and clothing collection. They are representative of school-related samplers during a narrow 66 year period of time, 1790-1856, and include examples from the United States, England, Germany, and Mexico.

Why is MPM moving? 

There are several reasons why MPM is pursuing a new facility, but the most important is that the Museum will not be able to sustain operations into the future in the current building.

The building, constructed in the early 1960s, has approximately $100 million deferred capital maintenance. Milwaukee County, despite its best efforts, simply does not have funds available to maintain the building — akin to the situation at the Domes and other county-owned facilities.

Cosmic Curiosities

“A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.” ~Madeleine L'Engle, Writer

Sky & Space Preview for 2017

The new year is a great time to explore some prime time space events – after all, 2017 is a good prime number. Let’s take an in-depth look at three exciting celestial happenings and preview the entire 2017 calendar.

Cosmic Curiosities

“To me, NASA is kind of the magical kingdom. I was sort of a geek, and you go there,
and there are just these wondrously strange things and people.”
~ Mary Roach, American Author

When the first European explorers came to North America, they hoped to find vast amounts of gold and silver.

This was not an unrealistic expectation, for when Hernando Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire in Mexico in 1518 and 1519, he found incredible quantities of precious metals, as did Francisco Pizarro when he conquered the Inca Empire in 1534. A French explorer, Jacques Cartier, explored the St.