Help us raise $150k to secure our future

Ecdysiast Arts Museum Launches $150,000 Campaign to Secure the Future of Burlesque History and Community Care in Davenport

DAVENPORT, Iowa, September 11, 2026 — Behind a pink door in downtown Davenport sits a 4,000-square-foot museum, archive, library, food pantry, performance space, and community gathering place dedicated to preserving histories too often left out of traditional cultural institutions.

Now, the Ecdysiast Arts Museum is launching a fundraising campaign with an initial goal of $150,000 to protect its archive, compensate the five-person team keeping the institution running, continue food distribution and public programming, and build the administrative infrastructure necessary for the museum to remain in Davenport for generations to come.

Founded by Davenport-based burlesque performer, historian, and American Pickers cast member Danielle Colby, the Ecdysiast Arts Museum preserves the history of burlesque and stripping while creating a space where people can learn, perform, organize, access food, connect with one another, and experience art and history that might otherwise remain inaccessible to a working-class Midwestern community.

The museum has also become a home for conversations about democracy, labor, gender, bodily autonomy, political power, and collective liberation. Its collections and programming illuminate the lives of women and gender-expansive performers who used burlesque and stripping not simply as entertainment, but as labor. Performers fed themselves, supported families, built communities, developed businesses, and created their own economies at times when traditional institutions and labor markets offered them few options.

“Burlesque history is labor history. It is women’s history, queer history, working-class history, art history, and American history,” said Colby. “We have already built a place where people can encounter that history while also receiving care and building community in the present. This campaign is about making sure that what exists here today can still exist for the people who need it tomorrow.”

Today, nearly all of this work is being sustained by a team of just five people. Together, they are responsible for operating a 4,000-square-foot museum, preserving and maintaining its archive and library, coordinating exhibitions and public programming, supporting artists and performers, distributing food to community members, welcoming visitors, maintaining the physical space, and handling the day-to-day administrative work required to keep the institution open.

The museum’s initial $150,000 fundraising goal is designed to move the organization from operating with limited capacity toward greater stability. Once that milestone is reached, the museum plans to pursue a second $150,000 goal focused on long-term growth and the infrastructure necessary to establish the Ecdysiast Arts Museum as an enduring cultural institution in Davenport.

The campaign builds on work already underway at the Ecdysiast Arts Museum. From its downtown Davenport space, the museum is actively preserving its archive, hosting artists and public programming, distributing food, and providing a gathering place for people to engage with burlesque history and its connections to labor, gender, art, and political life. The fundraiser will provide the financial and organizational foundation needed to sustain that work and strengthen the museum for the future.

Donations can be made through the Ecdysiast Arts Museum fundraising campaign at https://gofund.me/82d8f46a2. More information about the museum, its collections, programming, and mission is available at https://www.ecdysiastartsmuseum.com/.

About the Ecdysiast Arts Museum

The Ecdysiast Arts Museum is a museum, archive, library, performance space, food pantry, and community gathering place located in downtown Davenport, Iowa. Through preservation, education, performance, and community care, the museum documents the histories of burlesque and stripping and the artists, workers, and communities who shaped them.

Ecdysiast Arts Museum

322 Brady Street, Davenport, IA 52801

Media inquiries:

Ecdysiast Arts Museum

danielle@ecdysiastartsmuseum.com