Wisconsin 101

Read more about the article Ice Boating in Madison: A Bernard Family Tradition

A gathering of gaff-rigged, stern-steering ice boats and their captains on Lake Mendota, 1896. Source: WHI 2074

Ice Boating in Madison: A Bernard Family Tradition

Ice boating for sport began along New York's upper Hudson River around the Civil War and soon spread to other cold weather locations. An 1878 article in Harper's Weekly includes an engraving of ice boating in Madison. The city quickly became a center for ice boating in North America, a distinction held for over a century.

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March 27, 2020

Jewish Immigration from Russia to Sheboygan

The first Russian Jews arrived in Sheboygan in the 1880s. Like many other immigrants, they often followed their "landsleit" (fellow townsmen) to settlements in the new world, with the result that many of Sheboygan's Jewish immigrants came from a relatively small area east of Vilna and north of Minsk in current-day Belarus. They settled on the northwest side of Sheboygan, in a neighborhood bounded by 13th and 15th Streets, Geele Avenue on the north, and Bluff Avenue on the south.

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March 20, 2020

Read more about the article How Does a Babcock Tester Work?

Grade-school children using a Babcock butter fat testing device, Balsam Lake, Wisconsin, c. 1915. Courtesy of the University of Wisconsin Archives.

Agriculture / Industry / Dairy Industry / Education / Dane County / Madison / Related Stories / Curators' Favorites / Manufacturing & Trade / 1877-1900 / Science & Medicine / Region 7 - South Center / Babcock Butterfat Tester

How Does a Babcock Tester Work?

Simplicity, Simplicity, SimplicityIn 1890, few farmers had ever taken a science class, and even if they understood the potential benefit, most lacked the cash to pay an expert for laboratory testing. Babcock’s great accomplishment was to develop a powerful, reliable test that was simple…

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December 1, 2013

Read more about the article The Babcock Tester and the Wisconsin Idea

Handlers exhibit the University dairy herd for students at the Farmers Course, UW Stock Pavilion, 1900-1920. Part of the Frank N. Campbell Slide Collection. Courtesy of the University of Wisconsin Archives.

Industry / Dairy Industry / Agriculture / Education / Food & Cooking / Dane County / Madison / Related Stories / Curators' Favorites / Manufacturing & Trade / 1877-1900 / Science & Medicine / Region 7 - South Center / Babcock Butterfat Tester

The Babcock Tester and the Wisconsin Idea

Free As Well WaterIn 1894 Adolph Schoenman of Plain, Wisconsin, published a booklet extolling the virtues of the Babcock butterfat test. In a parable explaining its benefits, an astonished Farmer Jones exclaims, “Isn’t that a dandy little machine, though? I suppose, of…

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December 1, 2013