Wisconsin 101

OBJECT HISTORY: Employers Mutual Audiometer

This Maico Audiometer was one of many devices used by health and safety consultants of the Employers Mutual Liability Insurance Company of Wisconsin throughout the mid-to-late 1960s. Employers Mutual was the very first workers compensation insurance company in the United States. The company was founded in Wausau, Wisconsin, in 1911 shortly after the nation’s first workers compensation law was…

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March 9, 2019

Home Furnishings / Manufacturing & Trade / 1900-1920 / Science & Medicine

OBJECT HISTORY: Vacuum

People in the early 20th century witnessed the invention of all kinds of household tools we take for granted today, such as the vacuum cleaner, laundry machine, and refrigerator. This is a manual vacuum cleaner from 1911 at the Wisconsin Historical Museum. This small upright vacuum was designed to be operated by hand and easy…

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September 10, 2018

Food & Cooking / Related Stories / Global Connections / Manufacturing & Trade / 1880-1900 / Science & Medicine / Horlick's Malted Milk

Malted Milk and Infant Nutrition

Although known today mostly as a flavoring for milk shakes and chocolate-covered malt balls, malted milk made its first appearance in the 1880s as a substitute for human breast milk. At that time, breastfeeding babies began to lose its appeal among both…

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August 3, 2018

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.

Appleton / Object Histories / 1860-1880 / 1880-1900 / 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

Brown County / Green Bay / 1600-1800 / Le Maire Sundial / Related Stories / Global Connections / Manufacturing & Trade / Politics, Society & Government / Religion / Science & Medicine / 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

Preventing Hearing Loss

In 1953, Wisconsin added occupational hearing loss to the list of claimable conditions under workers compensation. Employers Mutual of Wausau quickly created a program that would make the company an industry leader in hearing loss prevention. Creating a hearing loss prevention program not only…

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May 24, 2018