While I was in Millwaukee in August for Typecon, I had the opportunity to spend a wonderful day at the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in nearby Two Rivers with good friends and fellow typomaniacs.

What’s special about the Hamilton — aside from simply housing one of the largest and most impressive collections of wood type anywhere, is that it’s a working museum. Visitors can work with a large portion of their collection of more than 1.5 million pieces of wood type, and if you’ve lucky as we were, also get a glimpse behind the scenes to see how wood type has been produced for decades by one of the last pantograph operators in the United States.

Recently the Hamilton was notified that they must move out of the original Hamilton building which dates back to 1927. And so the staff is now tasked with the difficult challenge of raising the $250,000 they need to preserve this important historical collection and locate a new home for the museum and workshop by mid-February — a daunting task and timeline.

Even after only a short visit, it’s easy to see why the Hamilton captures the imagination of designers — and it would be truly tragic for such a magical place to disappear.

I encourage you to join me as a member of the museum or to make a dontation of any size to help ensure that no part of the great history of the Hamilton is lost.