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…
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…
The Ringling Theatre featured many forms of entertainment throughout the years, including live theatrical performances as well as silent films. At the time when the theatre was built in 1915, silent films were becoming more popular because advancements in film technology allowed…
General View from the South, Al Ringling Theatre. Photo by Douglass C. Green for HABS (Survey #WI-261), ca. 1970. Albert (“Al”) Ringling was the eldest brother of the Ringling family and was credited with both the creation of the famous Ringling Brothers Circus and…
When the Scottish migrated to the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they brought more with them then just bagpipes; they brought the growth of curling, a winter sport in which the players slide heavy granite blocks across icy terrain…
How do you bring leisure and fun to a newly founded city? Build a curling club of course! At least that’s what James Otis Eaton did just over a decade after the small Wisconsin town of Lodi was officially founded in 1869.…