Wisconsin 101

OBJECT HISTORY: CCC Pillow Sham

Created in 1933, this commemorative pillow sham was just one of a number of textiles created by second-generation Hungarian immigrant Rose Mary Drab to honor her brother Edward’s service in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Rose Mary appliquéd the black cotton sateen sham with a small cotton tent, a blue eagle and two small stars, and hills, pine…

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October 1, 2015

Home Furnishings / Antigo / Related Stories / Langlade County / Ethnicity & Identity / Everyday Life / Global Connections / 1900-1918 / 1918-1945 / Region 2 - North East / Politics & Government / CCC Pillow Sham

An Immigrant Family in Rural Wisconsin

Rose Mary Drab was born in southeastern Langlade County on April 23 of 1913. Her family had settled there the year before on a small farm south of Antigo. Originally named Drabowski, Rose Mary’s parents left Hungary for Chicago a few years…

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October 1, 2015

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

Paramount Records

The Wisconsin Chair Company’s (WCC) decision to enter the record label industry was an economic one. With their subsidiary company, the United Phonographic Corporation (UPC), picking up steam, management at the WCC began pressing records. The UPC’s first record labels, Puritan and…

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February 24, 2014

Music, Theatre & Cinema / Related Stories / Ethnicity & Identity / 1900-1918 / 1918-1945 / Recital Poster

Raphael Baez

Raphael Baez, Sr. can be counted as one of the first Mexicans ever to call Milwaukee home. Born in Puebla, Mexico in 1863, Baez began his musical education at the age of nine. From the start, the youngster displayed a remarkable ability…

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October 15, 2013

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Music, Theatre & Cinema / Milwaukee / Object Histories / Milwaukee County / Ethnicity & Identity / 1900-1918 / Region 8 - South East / Recital Poster

OBJECT HISTORY: Piano and Song Recital Poster

Mr. Raphael Baez, a well-respected violinist, pianist, composer, and music professor, and his wife Mrs. Mary Schoen Baez, a noted vocalist, had performed together in various music halls in the city of Milwaukee since 1889. The Athenaeum, home of the Women’s Club of Wisconsin, had hosted Mr. Baez and his students throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth…

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October 15, 2013