Wisconsin 101

OBJECT HISTORY: Galena

Galena, the official state mineral of Wisconsin, is the raw material used to produce lead. During the Wisconsin “lead rush” of the 1820s-40s, lead was more valuable than gold. That is because just about everybody, rich or poor, used objects made of lead in their daily lives – products that ranged from plumbing to toothpaste!…

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October 15, 2018

Indigenous Wisconsin / Home Furnishings / Pre-1787 / Industry / Object Histories / 1787-1848 / Clothing, Apparel & Fashion / Everyday Life / Global Connections / Manufacturing & Trade / Fur Trade

OBJECT HISTORY: Trade Blanket

This blanket, ordinary though it may seem, tells the story of an important meeting of cultures that occurred in Wisconsin between 1634 and 1763. Not long after the explorer Jean Nicolet first set foot in Wisconsin, French traders saw an opportunity to make money by sending beaver furs back to Europe for use in stylish…

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October 15, 2018

Food & Cooking / Object Histories / Ethnicity & Identity / 1787-1848 / Everyday Life / Global Connections / Region 6 - South West

OBJECT HISTORY: Pasty

The lead mining industry of the 1830s and 1840s brought miners from Cornwall, England to southwestern Wisconsin. The miners brought Cornish traditions like the pasty, a filling food for hungry miners. The availability of pasties today demonstrates the lasting traditions of early European immigrants in Wisconsin. Pasties are folded pastries filled with meat and vegetables.…

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October 15, 2018

Grant County / Industry / Ethnicity & Identity / 1787-1848 / Iowa County / Related Stories / Platteville / Pleasant Ridge / 1848-1877 / Manufacturing & Trade / Society & Religion / Region 6 - South West / James D. Williams' Windlass

Slavery in Wisconsin

It may come as a surprise to learn that during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries slavery existed in the region that would become the state of Wisconsin. Over this period, thousands of enslaved African Americans or enslaved American Indians lived and…

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August 1, 2018

Broad History / Lake Koshkonong / Pre-1787 / Industry / Related Stories / 1787-1848 / Ethnicity & Identity / A Duck Decoy / 1848-1877 / Jefferson County / 1877-1900 / Manufacturing & Trade / 1900-1918 / Nature & Environment / 1918-1945 / Region 7 - South Center

When Lake Koshkonong was a Marsh

Maintaining practices like an annual visit to Lake Koshkanong to hunt and harvest food is an important way for indigenous knowledge and culture to be passed-on to the next generation.

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July 1, 2018

Education / Williams Bay / Related Stories / 1787-1848 / 1848-1877 / 1877-1900 / Walworth County / Nature & Environment / Science & Medicine / Region 7 - South Center / Yerkes Telescope

Williams Bay, Wisconsin

Captain Israel Williams founded Williams Bay, Wisconsin, in 1835. Williams and his two sons originally traveled to Wisconsin from their Massachusetts home to look for good farmland. Williams Bay was later named in honor of Captain Williams.Until 1890, only a few families…

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December 9, 2014