Music, Theatre & Cinema

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Music, Theatre & Cinema / Ethnicity & Identity / Related Stories / Curators' Favorites / Global Connections / 1945-1965 / 1965-1987 / Polka Rhythms Bandstand

Polka’s Popularity in the United States

After World War II, polka made its first mainstream American appearance thanks to Cleveland, Ohio’s celebrated “Polka King,” Slovenian-American Frankie Yankovic. The genre remains popular today, especially with the older crowd in the Midwest.

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May 17, 2020

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Object Histories / Pulaski / Music, Theatre & Cinema / Ethnicity & Identity / Oconto County / Region 2 - North East / 1965-1987 / Polka Rhythms Bandstand

OBJECT HISTORY: Polka Rhythms Bandstand

This bandstand, used by Chad Przybylski and his band the Polka Rhythms, represents Wisconsin's polka tradition.

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May 10, 2020

Home Furnishings / Art, Sport & Entertainment / Music, Theatre & Cinema / Object Histories / Everyday Life / 1877-1900

OBJECT HISTORY: Graphophone

The graphophone was one of the first ways to record and play sound. And without this invention we would not have things like voicemail, iTunes, or Spotify.

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May 1, 2019

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Industry / Object Histories / Music, Theatre & Cinema / Lumber Industry / Ethnicity & Identity / 1877-1900 / Manufacturing & Trade

OBJECT HISTORY: Fiddle

As the lumber industry flourished in Wisconsin beginning in the 1840s, immigrants from all over Europe and Canada came to live and work in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. All winter, men called lumberjacks would cut down pine trees, preparing the timber to be used as building material, or sometimes to be turned into pulp or…

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October 15, 2018

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Port Washington / Music, Theatre & Cinema / Ethnicity & Identity / Ozaukee County / Related Stories / 1918-1945 / Region 8 - South East / Paramount Records 78

Recruiting Talent

With a roster that included Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Ethel Waters, Paramount Records became perhaps the most important blues recording company of the 1920s. Their success was dependent on their ability to recruit black performers and reach a broad Black…

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February 24, 2014

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Grafton / Industry / Music, Theatre & Cinema / Related Stories / Ozaukee County / Manufacturing & Trade / 1918-1945 / Region 8 - South East / Paramount Records 78

The Record Production Process

Paramount Record’s parent company, the United Phonographic Corporation, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company, decided to begin recording and pressing records to include with their phonograph cabinets in the early 1920s. Paramount initially recorded in studios throughout the United States. They…

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February 24, 2014