Cincinnati Museum Center is gearing up to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence. As part of our Past Forward at CMC series, we'll post a handful of podcast shorts diving into topics across American history through the lens of our collections.

Today, we're talking about Cincinnati Museum Center's collection of over 6 million objects with Registrar Maat Manninen and Bob Genheimer, our George Rieveschl Curator of Archaeology. Why do museums collect? What do we collect? What is the process of bringing new objects into the collection? We'll dig into those questions, as well as talk about CMC's roots in the early 1800s.

After spending some time in the museums at CMC, there's nothing like grabbing some grub from one of the cafes, or browsing the gift shop for a souvenir or gift! Our partners at SSA Group manage our food at retail in Union Terminal. And our guest today, Megan Dillon, manages the SSA team at CMC. Megan has a long history in hospitality, but she's also a singer-songwriter with experience playing around Nashville. We'll talk to Megan about her journey to CMC, what makes a good museum menu, and that time she opened for Dolly Parton.

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. is an incredible opportunity for people in Cincinnati and the surrounding regions to experience hundreds of authentic artifacts from Auscwhitz. In this episode, we're talking to Paweł Sawicki, Deputy Spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum about the the mission of the museum, the importance of remembering this history and the power of experiencing authentic history in person.