Wisconsin 101

Industry and Manufacturing in the Whitewater Area

Since the earliest settlers arrived in the Whitewater area in the 1830s, industry and manufacturing have played important roles in the establishment and continued growth of the area.One of the earliest industries in Whitewater was grain milling, performed at the Old Stone…

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June 29, 2020

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Ethnicity & Identity / Related Stories / Curators' Favorites / Global Connections / 1840-1860 / 1860-1880 / 1880-1900 / 1900-1920 / 1920-1940 / 1940-1960 / 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

Read more about the article Ice Boating in Madison: A Bernard Family Tradition

A gathering of gaff-rigged, stern-steering ice boats and their captains on Lake Mendota, 1896. Source: WHI 2074

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Dane County / Madison / Ethnicity & Identity / Related Stories / Curators' Favorites / Global Connections / 1840-1860 / Transportation & Tourism / Region 7 - South Center / Madison-Style Ice Boat

Ice Boating in Madison: A Bernard Family Tradition

Ice boating for sport began along New York's upper Hudson River around the Civil War and soon spread to other cold weather locations. An 1878 article in Harper's Weekly includes an engraving of ice boating in Madison. The city quickly became a center for ice boating in North America, a distinction held for over a century.

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March 27, 2020

Food & Cooking / Ethnicity & Identity / Global Connections / 1840-1860

OBJECT HISTORY: Lefse Stone

Can you think of a time when someone wanted you to eat something new? Did you eat it? For many people, if they saw lefse on a plate, they would not know what it was. Lefse looks like a tortilla, but it…

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March 9, 2019

Read more about the article When Lake Koshkonong was a Marsh

An Ojibwe man and woman harvesting wild rice in 1966 near Ashland, WI. Image courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society, image ID 133699.

Pre-1600 / Lake Koshkonong / 1600-1800 / Related Stories / 1800-1820 / Ethnicity & Identity / 1820-1840 / 1840-1860 / Jefferson County / Nature & Environment / A Duck Decoy / Politics, Society & Government / 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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September 30, 2018

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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September 11, 2018