The land that became the Fromm Fur Farm was first settled by Joachim Nieman, a forester who came to Wisconsin as part of the mass immigration from Germany after 1848. He gave his daughter Alwina a quarter section of undeveloped wilderness near…
Probably the biggest reason for the success of the Fromm Brothers’ fur farm was the particular color of fur that they bred. As fashions shifted to favor the trademark Fromm “bright with silver” color, the Fromms were in a position to capitalize on their control of…
The End of the Old Fur TradeThe development of fur farms at the close of the 19th century was perhaps the most revolutionary change in North America’s fur industry, and fashion played a significant role in that change. Beaver pelts had been the…
One of the most formidable problems that fur farmers faced in in the early twentieth century were the epidemic diseases that would strike their herds each year. Many fur farmers had come to see losses to distemper and other diseases as a…
Prior to the Civil War, most of northern Wisconsin was inhabited by the Menominee and Ojibwe Indians and transient fur traders of European origin. Demand for wood in Chicago and Milwaukee after the Civil War brought lumbermen to the north woods. Initially,…
In 1933, with nearly a quarter of the civilian labor force unemployed, newly inaugurated President Franklin Delano Roosevelt initiated the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a cornerstone effort in his New Deal program.Under the direction of several governmental departments, including the Department of…