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In the history of American natural history museums, few stories carry more irony—or heartbreak—than the divergent paths of the Chicago Field Museum and the Milwaukee Public Museum, two Midwestern institutions born within a decade of each other and shaped, in their earliest days, by the same taxidermy genius: Carl Ethan Akeley. Akeley arrived in Milwaukee in 1886 as a young, ambitious taxidermist hired by the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM), then barely a decade old. During his six-year tenure,...

Courtesy of the University of Minnesota and Bell Museum  A massive taxidermied moose is hoisted by crane, wrapped and secured for transport to the new Bell Museum. When the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) insists that its large, historic habitat dioramas cannot be moved safely into the new Wisconsin Museum of Nature & Culture, it is worth looking north to a museum that has already done exactly that. In 2017–2018, the Bell Museum in St. Paul, Minnesota relocated ten full-size natural history...

For nearly a century, the Milwaukee Public Museum was known around the world for its “Milwaukee Style” dioramas — intricate, hand-crafted habitats that married science and art in perfect balance. Built from the 1930s through the 1990s, these exhibits weren’t just displays; they were immersive, truthful reconstructions of real ecosystems, shaped by field data, taxidermy artistry, and painterly depth. Each one served as both a teaching tool and a love letter to the natural world. Beaver Pond...