American Sign Museum

I’ll admit it, I didn’t really know anything about Cincinnati before I drove there on a whim last Saturday afternoon. I knew that it had a baseball team. I also thought it was named after Cincinnatus. It is, but only indirectly, deriving its name from the Society of the Cincinnati. Other than that, I had no expectations. Then I stopped in the American Sign Museum and had a fabulous time.

Now, I’ll say up front that Cincinnati has a lot of sights to see. The zoo is world famous, there are art museums and national parks and more. I chose to spend my short time there at the American Sign Museum and I was not disappointed.

The collection demonstrates the history of signs in Amercan, from early trade signs and goldleaf signs of the early 1900s up to the neon age and the plastics used in the 1950s. There’s a free tour, which I recommend. Our tour guide was a volunteer who is studying graphic design. She gave descriptions of each type of sign and pointed out subtle differences that denoted innovations and technological advances.

The finale of the tour is a re-created American main street. This was a very cool place to stop. Big hat tip to Atlas Obscura, which is where I heard about it.