Ukrainian Museum-Archives Cleveland

The Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland was founded in 1952 by displaced scholars who took on the mission of collecting and preserving items from Ukrainian history and culture during an era when this kind of material was being deliberately destroyed in Soviet Ukraine. Over the course of its first quarter century, the UMA compiled a huge collection that includes many rare, even unique items.

The UMA has been located in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood throughout its entire existence. In the late 1970s, and throughout most of the ’80s, the UMA mirrored the neglect of the Tremont neighborhood. Starting in the early 1990s, the institution and the neighborhood began to experience renewal and growth. Much of the work is done by volunteers.