Turner Hall at 1034 North 4th Street takes its name from the German word for gymnastics. Named from the German word "Turnen," meaning gymnastics or physical fitness, this building speaks to the energetic, civic life of German-American Turners — an athletic, cultural, and political association. The Milwaukee group was founded here in 1853 under the title "Socialist Turnverein," a society whose leaders included Socialist Congressman Victor Berger.
Step closer and you can sense why this is one of the largest and most distinctive surviving buildings associated with the Turner movement; it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1996 and is now used as a performance and meeting venue. Its origins reach back even farther: the Turner movement began in Germany in 1811 by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn as a Turnverein to encourage a harmonious development of mind and body, in part a reaction to French domination during the Napoleonic Wars. After the failed revolutions of 1848, German political and economic refugees brought those Turner ideas to America, organizing in Milwaukee as the "Sozializer Turnveirein Milwaukee," later renamed Turnverein Milwaukee.
Performances and meetings still fill this hall, a National Historic Landmark since 1996 and one of the largest Turner buildings still surviving.