In 1938, Jennie E. Wustum honored her husband’s memory by donating their house, property and a small trust fund to the city of Racine, Wisconsin. She wanted to create an art museum and park that would benefit future generations. In 1941, her donation formally became the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts through the cooperative efforts of the City of Racine and the Racine Art Association (now the Racine Art Museum Association). The Wustum Museum campus includes 13 acres of park, a one-acre formal garden, designed by famed Wisconsin landscape architect Alfred Boerner, and a 1966 classroom/studio addition. The former Wustum home, an 1856 Italianate-style farmhouse, is the center of the campus that originally housed the museum’s permanent collection. By the 1990s, the collection had grown so large that the museum’s galleries could only exhibit about 10% of it in one year. That inspired the museum’s plans for a future location, which is now the Racine Art Museum in downtown Racine. Her act of generosity inspired the growth of what is now one of the largest and most impressive contemporary craft collections of its type in any museum in North America. Jennie Wustum’s vision now impacts a community of more than 11 million people in the Chicago-Milwaukee area who can experience the museum’s collections at Racine Art Museum. RAM’s Wustum Museum continues to play a vital role in arts education by offering community outreach programs and studio art classes taught by regionally and nationally known artists.
