Wisconsin 101

OBJECT HISTORY: Fromm Fox Fur Coat

This coat was made from the fur of foxes raised on the Fromm Fur Farm in Hamburg, Wisconsin. The jacket is covered in light-silver fox fur and lined with a taupe fabric. Straps allow the coat to also be worn as a cape. In the early decades of the 20th century, it was fashionable to use…

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December 9, 2017

Read more about the article The Fromm Fur Farm

Captive foxes on a pelting range. Date unknown. Photograph courtesy of the Marathon County Historical Society.

Clothing & Fashion / Related Stories / Hamburg / Marathon County / Manufacturing & Trade / Nature & Environment / 1900-1920 / Region 2 - North East / 1920-1940 / 1940-1960 / 1960-1980 / Fromm Fox Fur Coat

The Fromm Fur Farm

The land that became the Fromm Fur Farm was first settled by Joachim Nieman, a forester who came to Wisconsin as part of the mass immigration from Germany after 1848. He gave his daughter Alwina a quarter section of undeveloped wilderness near…

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January 1, 2017

An advertisement for Fromm furs using their “bright with silver” slogan and printed on metallic silver paper, Women’s Wear Daily, March 11, 1936.

Hamburg / Clothing & Fashion / Related Stories / Global Connections / Marathon County / Manufacturing & Trade / Region 2 - North East / 1920-1940 / 1940-1960 / Fromm Fox Fur Coat

The Fromm Brand and the Hamburg Fur Auction

Probably the biggest reason for the success of the Fromm Brothers’ fur farm was the particular color of fur that they bred. As fashions shifted to favor the trademark Fromm “bright with silver” color, the Fromms were in a position to capitalize on their control of…

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January 1, 2017

After the Fromm’s successfully supported development of a distemper vaccine in foxes, they started Fromm Laboratories as a commercial venture on their second property between Grafton and Thiensville, c. 1940s. Photograph courtesy of the Oazaukee County Historical Society.

Canine Distemper and the Fromm Vaccine

One of the most formidable problems that fur farmers faced in in the early twentieth century were the epidemic diseases that would strike their herds each year. Many fur farmers had come to see losses to distemper and other diseases as a…

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January 1, 2017