The Reading Historical Society Presents Tom Swormstedt, founder of the American Sign Museum

Please join the Reading Historical Society as they welcome Tod Swormstedt, founder and curator of the American Sign Museum. Tod Swormstedt spent 26 years on the staff of Signs of the Times magazine, which was founded in 1906. He became the fourth-generation editor of the "bible of the sign industry." Tod parlayed all of his knowledge and contacts into a self-proclaimed "mid-life crisis project" that would eventually become the American Sign Museum. In 1999, Tod founded the National Signs of the Times Museum. With accelerating support, the Museum was renamed and re-opened as the American Sign Museum in May 2005. Its temporary home within an arts center sufficed for several years, but growing pains ensued. The magnificent McDonald's and Holiday Inn signs couldn't be displayed to their full heights, and the collection was growing rapidly. Tod began searching for a more permanent home for the ever-expanding collection. He needed a space that could fulfill his vision for an interactive Museum experience. He found the Museum's new home in Camp Washington, an appropriately historic area of Cincinnati, at the century-old Oesterlein Machine Company-Fashion Frocks, Inc. Complex. Its doors opened in June 2012. Tod will speak about his experience of founding and curating this vital American Museum in the heart of Cincinnati.