Mr. Raphael Baez, a well-respected violinist, pianist, composer, and music professor, and his wife Mrs. Mary Schoen Baez, a noted vocalist, performed together in various music halls in the city of Milwaukee since 1889. The Athenaeum, home of the Women’s Club of Wisconsin, hosted Mr. Baez and his students throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Signs like the one above would be posted throughout the city of Milwaukee in the week leading up to the performance, advertising recitals open to the general public. Baez was also one of the first Mexicans to ever call Milwaukee home. Decades later, the city would see its first Mexican immigrant community emerge when the Pfister and Vogel Leather Co. recruited laborers from Mexico in 1920 to break a strike.

Written by  Sergio González, October 2013.