Wisconsin 101

OBJECT HISTORY: Hearthstone House Chandelier

Known as Edison Light Fixtures, the original lighting fixtures of Appleton’s Hearthstone House, were created by Bergmann and Co., in association with the Edison Company for Isolated Lighting, out of New York. They designed the electric lights with the same general components…

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June 7, 2021

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 / Industry / Sheboygan / 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

Health & Medicine / Home Furnishings / 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

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Madison / Dane County / Sports & Games / Related Stories / Curators' Favorites / 1848-1877 / 1877-1900 / 1900-1918 / 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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October 1, 2020

Art & Design / Edgerton / Art, Sport & Entertainment / Home Furnishings / Object Histories / Dane County / Wisconsin Made / Everyday Life / 1877-1900 / Manufacturing & Trade / Region 7 - South Center / Pauline Pottery Covered Jar

OBJECT HISTORY: Pauline Pottery Covered Jar

Between 1888 and 1909 the city of Edgerton, Wisconsin was home to six different companies producing nationally recognized ceramic art. The art potteries of Edgerton were part of a late nineteenth and early twentieth century trend known as the American Art Pottery movement. This covered jar, made at Pauline Pottery, represents one example of this broad movement in American ceramics.

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September 10, 2020

Art & Design / Home Furnishings / Art, Sport & Entertainment / Industry / Ethnicity & Identity / Related Stories / Curators' Favorites / Everyday Life / 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