The beaver felt hat was one of the main reasons for the success of the fur trade in northern states, such as Wisconsin, and Canada. But why was this hat more popular than others? Clothing …
Home Life
OBJECT HISTORY: Norwegian Trunk
In the 1800s, European immigrants had to find a way to preserve the objects that built their life, bringing their most precious belongings on an ocean voyage to a far-away new home. Most families were …
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…
OBJECT HISTORY: Penguin Server
A penguin-themed serving bowl dishes out stories about the aluminum industry, postwar consumer culture, and home entertainment in mid-twentieth century Wisconsin.
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.
OBJECT HISTORY: Pasty
The lead mining industry of the 1830s and 1840s brought miners from Cornwall, England to southwestern Wisconsin. The miners brought Cornish traditions like the pasty, a filling food for hungry miners. The availability of pasties today demonstrates the lasting traditions of early European immigrants in Wisconsin. Pasties are folded pastries filled with meat and vegetables.…
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…
OBJECT HISTORY: Bark Spud
The bark spud is an iron tool used to remove bark from cut timber. Most bark spuds have a steel head with a hard wooden handle. The head is rounded or dish-shaped and has one cutting edge. The sharp wedge on the end of the bark spud slides between bark and wood on a log…
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.
OBJECT HISTORY: Nash Car
By the beginning of the twentieth century, horses and wagons were quickly giving way to new horseless carriages, or automobiles—and the landscape of Wisconsin’s towns and roadways began to change as well. Wagon shops, once part of one of the largest industries in Wisconsin, began making automobile parts instead. By 1925, motor vehicle manufacture had…