Wisconsin 101

OBJECT HISTORY: Racine Belles Movie Costume

This Racine Belles costume was worn in the 1992 film "A League of Their Own." The film focused on the Rockford (Illinois) Peaches, tracking a season in the All-American Girls' Professional Baseball League. The Peaches played the Belles several times during the film.

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September 10, 2020

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Milwaukee / Object Histories / Milwaukee County / Ethnicity & Identity / Migrant Worker's Cabin / 1880-1900 / Region 8 - South East

OBJECT HISTORY: Piano and Song Recital Poster

Mr. Raphael Baez, a well-respected violinist, pianist, composer, and music professor, and his wife Mrs. Mary Schoen Baez, a noted vocalist, had performed together in various music halls in the city of Milwaukee since 1889. The Athenaeum, home of the Women’s Club of Wisconsin, had hosted Mr. Baez and his students throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth…

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September 10, 2020

Home Furnishings / Art, Sport & Entertainment / Edgerton / Dane County / Object Histories / Manufacturing & Trade / 1880-1900 / Region 7 - South Center / Pauline Pottery Covered Jar

OBJECT HISTORY: Pauline Pottery Covered Jar

Between 1888 and 1909 the city of Edgerton, Wisconsin was home to six different companies producing nationally recognized ceramic art. The art potteries of Edgerton were part of a late nineteenth and early twentieth century trend known as the American Art Pottery movement. This covered jar, made at Pauline Pottery, represents one example of this broad movement in American ceramics.

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September 10, 2020

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Port Washington / Object Histories / Ozaukee County / Paramount Records 78 / Manufacturing & Trade / 1900-1920 / Region 8 - South East

OBJECT HISTORY: Paramount Records 78

Created by the management of the Wisconsin Chair Company, a furniture making business based in Port Washington, Wisconsin, Paramount Records was initially incorporated to help sell phonographic cabinets in the late 1910s. Relying on resourceful talent recruiters and a relatively cheap production process, Paramount Records became one of the leading blues music record producers in the 1920s, and is today recognized by…

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September 10, 2020

Read more about the article OBJECT HISTORY: Fiddle

A fiddle from a lumberjack camp. Image courtesy of Ron Dennis.

Art, Sport & Entertainment / 1840-1860 / Manufacturing & Trade

OBJECT HISTORY: Fiddle

As the lumber industry flourished in Wisconsin beginning in the 1840s, immigrants from all over Europe and Canada came to live and work in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. All winter, men called lumberjacks would cut down pine trees, preparing the timber to be used as building material, or sometimes to be turned into pulp or…

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September 10, 2020

Read more about the article OBJECT HISTORY: Norwegian Genealogical Plaque

Photo by Jared Schmidt.

Home Furnishings / Art, Sport & Entertainment / Object Histories / 1860-1880

OBJECT HISTORY: Norwegian Genealogical Plaque

Created in 1879, this beautiful plaque features the genealogy of Sara Magelssen's family, including the story of her and her husband's immigration to Wisconsin in the 1860s.

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September 10, 2020