William F. Eisner Museum of Advertising & Design facts for kids

William F. Eisner Museum of Advertising & Design

The William F. Eisner Museum of Advertising & Design, also known as The Eisner, was a special museum all about advertising. It was located in a cool part of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, called the Historic Third Ward. This museum helped people understand how advertising and design have shaped our world.

The Museum's Story

The Eisner Museum opened its doors in the year 2000. It was named after William F. Eisner, a very creative designer and businessman who worked a lot with advertising in the 1900s. After William passed away in 1990, his wife, Elaine, had the idea for the museum. She worked with the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) to make it happen.

The museum itself was in an old building built in 1895. It had a beautiful style called Renaissance Revival, designed by architects Crane & Barkhausen.

Around 2004, the Eisner Museum took over the collections from another museum, the American Advertising Museum in Portland, Oregon. This helped save many important advertising items.

The Eisner Museum closed in 2010 because the building it was in was sold. As of 2025, William Eisner's daughter, Debra Eisner Hackbarth, is looking after the museum's collection and old records. She is working to find a new home for these important pieces of advertising history.

What the Museum Showed

The museum's exhibits explored how modern advertising and design affected American culture. They looked at how ads influenced society, history, and art.

Some past exhibits included:

• The famous Burma-Shave signs that used to be seen along roads.
• The work of Brooks Stevens, a pioneer in industrial design.
• 100 years of advertising for Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

The museum also had exhibits you could see online. These showed some of the most memorable types of advertising and design. For example, there were displays about the illustrations by Boris Artzybasheff and the art found on album covers.