Wisconsin 101

OBJECT HISTORY: World’s Largest Six-Pack

Located in La Crosse, Wisconsin, the “World’s Largest Six-Pack” is a popular tourist attraction and landmark structure representative of the city’s renowned brewing history. At 54 feet tall, the six steel storage tanks, shaped and arranged to resemble a six-pack of beer,…

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August 17, 2021

Home Furnishings / Health & Medicine / Industry / Object Histories / Sheboygan / Wisconsin Made / Everyday Life / Manufacturing & Trade / 1900-1918 / Sheboygan County / Region 5 - Center East / The 1904 Kohler “Armeda” Toilet

OBJECT HISTORY: The 1904 Kohler “Armeda” Toilet

By the year 1904, when the “Armeda” toilet pictured here appeared in the Kohler Company’s product catalogue, Sheboygan-based Kohler had become one of the largest makers of bathroom furnishings in the United States. Even at this early date in its history, as…

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November 10, 2020

Read more about the article The Early History of the Kohler Company

Kohler advertisement from the April 15, 1916 edition of 'The Saturday Evening Post.'

Home Furnishings / Sheboygan / Industry / Related Stories / Everyday Life / 1877-1900 / Manufacturing & Trade / Sheboygan County / Science & Medicine / Region 5 - Center East / The 1904 Kohler “Armeda” Toilet

The Early History of the Kohler Company

As was so often the case with major American businesses in the 1800s, the Kohler Company grew from modest roots. The company’s founder, John Michael Kohler, began his working life first as a delivery truck driver and then a salesman. Born in…

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November 10, 2020

Home Furnishings / Health & Medicine / Industry / Related Stories / Everyday Life / 1877-1900 / Manufacturing & Trade / Science & Medicine / The 1904 Kohler “Armeda” Toilet

The Bathroom as a Household Space

When we think of a “bathroom,” we usually imagine a room containing three standard fixtures—a bathtub, a sink, and a toilet. Bathrooms such as these are so universal in homes today that we can hardly imagine a time when they did not…

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November 10, 2020

Home Furnishings / Art, Sport & Entertainment / Art & Design / Industry / Related Stories / Ethnicity & Identity / Everyday Life / Curators' Favorites / 1877-1900 / Manufacturing & Trade / Pauline Pottery Covered Jar

Women in the American Art Pottery Movement

Women played a central role in the American Art Pottery movement, both as leaders like Pauline Jacobus and as workers like Lulu Deveraux Dixon.

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September 10, 2020

Home Furnishings / Edgerton / Art, Sport & Entertainment / Art & Design / Industry / Dane County / Related Stories / Curators' Favorites / Everyday Life / 1877-1900 / Manufacturing & Trade / Region 7 - South Center / Pauline Pottery Covered Jar

The Pauline Pottery

Chicago-born artist and entrepreneur Pauline Jacobus was the central figure of Edgerton, Wisconsin's art pottery movement. In 1888, Jacobus and her husband Oscar relocated the Pauline Pottery from Chicago to Edgerton to take advantage of the area's quality clay.

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September 10, 2020