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

New Object Histories / Art & Design / 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 / Related Stories / Ethnicity & Identity / 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

Greendale / Milwaukee County / Related Stories / 1918-1945 / Politics & Government / Society & Religion / Region 8 - South East / Slaske's Tools

The New Deal in Wisconsin (and Beyond)

In October of 1929, the United States suffered a stock market crash that would alter the course of history. The American economy came to a screeching halt, with economic impacts that came to reverberate around the world. In Wisconsin, particularly in the…

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August 14, 2024

Greendale / Milwaukee County / Related Stories / Nature & Environment / 1918-1945 / Politics & Government / Society & Religion / Region 8 - South East / Slaske's Tools

Greendale, Greenhills, and Greenbelt: The Government’s “Green” Towns

The Greenbelt towns were the brainchild of Rexford Guy Tugwell, an economist who served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Undersecretary of Agriculture in 1934 and 1935. A policy advisor to President Roosevelt, Tugwell believed that he could effectively combat the Depression-era issues…

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August 14, 2024

Greendale / New Object Histories / Milwaukee County / Object Histories / Manufacturing & Trade / 1918-1945 / Politics & Government / Society & Religion / Region 8 - South East / Slaske's Tools

OBJECT HISTORY: Jack Slaske’s Tool Set

In the holdings of the Greendale Historical Society is an unassuming set of tools, comprised of hand saws, planes, braces and drill bits, among other items. Though these were mass manufactured and similar tools exist all across the country, these particular tools…

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August 14, 2024