Wisconsin 101

OBJECT HISTORY: Le Maire Sundial

The Le Maire Sundial is a rare example of a mid-18th century French sundial (cadran solaire) compass (boussole). It was found near Green Bay in 1902 by a local antiquities collector, Frank Duchateau. The sundial is broken, missing its glass compass cover as well as the back of its gnomon holder. Located on the front surface,…

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March 9, 2019

Object Histories / Ethnicity & Identity / Clothing, Apparel & Fashion / Oshkosh / Everyday Life / Global Connections / Winnebago County / Region 5 - Center East / 1965-1987 / A Hmong Baby Sash

OBJECT HISTORY: Hmong Baby Carrier

This Hmong cloth baby carrier was hand-stitched in Thailand around 1987, and its history helps tell part of the story of the Hmong community in this State. A young woman named Kia Vang crafted the carrier inside a refugee camp located in Loei province to transport her unborn child to Oshkosh, Wisconsin after the Vietnam…

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January 9, 2019

Read more about the article OBJECT HISTORY: Cupping Kit

Tools used in a cupping kit, from left to right: scarificator, cup, syringe. Image courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Health & Medicine / Appleton / Object Histories / 1848-1877 / Outagamie County / Science & Medicine / Region 5 - Center East / Cupping Kit

OBJECT HISTORY: Cupping Kit

Cupping therapy is a medical treatment in which local suction is created on the skin in an effort to increase blood flow to promote healing or restore humoral health balance. It was practiced as early as the Hippocratics and persisted in high medical popularity until the late nineteenth century. This particular kit belonged to Dr. James T. Reeve a physician…

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June 9, 2018

Industry / Fur Trade / Brown County / Pre-1787 / Green Bay / Le Maire Sundial / Related Stories / Global Connections / Manufacturing & Trade / Politics & Government / Society & Religion / Region 5 - Center East

French Wisconsin at Fort la Baye

French explorers, voyageurs (fur traders), Jesuit priests, and other settlers began arriving in the Upper Great Lakes region of North America in the mid-1600s. Jean Nicolet supposedly landed near present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1634, naming the waterway La Baye des Puants, literally “Bay of…

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May 24, 2018

Green Bay / Pre-1787 / Brown County / Le Maire Sundial / Related Stories / Global Connections / Nature & Environment / Transportation & Tourism / Region 5 - Center East

French Cartography in the Great Lakes

French mariners and explorers using the Le Maire Sundial Compass depended on both their own specialized navigational expertise and maps produced by French cartographers. Many such maps were created based on explorer accounts of the navigable waterways between the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi…

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May 21, 2018

Maritime Industry / Manitowoc / Kenosha County / Racine / Kenosha / Milwaukee / Port Washington / Two Rivers / Sheboygan / Milwaukee County / Door County / Ozaukee County / Related Stories / Racine County / 1848-1877 / Manitowoc County / Nature & Environment / Sheboygan County / Politics & Government / Region 5 - Center East / Transportation & Tourism / Region 8 - South East / Lifesaving Medal

Early Lifesaving Stations in Wisconsin

A Slow BeginningAs maritime commerce grew in the early 19th century, the loss of vessels and crews to shipwreck increased. In 1848, the federal government, through the United States Revenue Marine, established its first lifesaving stations along the New Jersey coast. The system…

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May 21, 2018