Wisconsin 101

Elsa Ulbricht: A Pioneer for Women’s Work

Due to its longevity and the number of women employed, historians consider the Milwaukee Handicraft Project to be one of the most successful programs sponsored by the Works Project Administration (WPA). The WPA funded many public works projects during the Great Depression as a…

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April 23, 2025

Art & Design / New Object Histories / Object Histories / Milwaukee County / Milwaukee / 1918-1945 / Society & Religion / Region 8 - South East / Milwaukee Handicraft Project Portfolio

OBJECT HISTORY: Milwaukee Handicraft Project Portfolio

A seagull is eating fish for lunch, disrupting the regularity of the water’s waves as it splashes around. This is a scene so common on the Milwaukee shores of Lake Michigan that it served as design inspiration for local craftsmen, and in…

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April 23, 2025

Milwaukee County / Milwaukee / Ethnicity & Identity / Related Stories / 1848-1877 / Politics & Government / Region 8 - South East / John Potter's Monster Knife

Ezekiel Gillespie, Black Suffrage, and the Wisconsin Idea

The Wisconsin Idea can be a lofty political goal, and it’s one that the state it is named after hasn’t always lived up to. Like so many other places in the United States, Wisconsin has a history of discriminating against its citizens…

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October 30, 2024

New Object Histories / East Troy / Object Histories / 1848-1877 / Walworth County / Politics & Government / Region 8 - South East / John Potter's Monster Knife

OBJECT HISTORY: John Fox Potter’s “Monster Knife”

Measuring over six feet in length and weighing thirty-two pounds, this gigantic folding knife belonged to Wisconsin representative John Fox “Bowie Knife” Potter who was famous as a dedicated abolitionist and infamous for his willingness to use physical force on the United…

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October 29, 2024

Nelson Hawks and Delafield’s Beginnings

When Nelson P. Hawks first arrived in the area that is now Delafield, there were no hotels, no mills, churches, or stores of any kind—only a few cabins and the pioneers that occupied them. This would greatly change in the twenty-three years…

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September 25, 2024

Delafield / New Object Histories / Object Histories / 1787-1848 / 1848-1877 / Waukesha County / Politics & Government / Transportation & Tourism / Region 8 - South East / Hawks Inn

OBJECT HISTORY: Hawks Inn

Standing at two-and-a-half stories, with a side-gabled roof and paired end chimneys, and painted white with black shutters, the image of Hawks Inn would have filled travelers with hope and relief during their trek along the stagecoach route from Milwaukee to Madison,…

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September 25, 2024