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…
During the 1880s bicycling became very popular, and many cycling clubs opened across America. The Badger Wheelmen was a cycling club based in Milwaukee. In clubs, cycling fans could meet and share their love for bicycles. In that era, many people joined social clubs to improve themselves or the world around them. Members wore pins…
Between the 1840s and the 1890s, logs meant money. Wisconsin had a large supply of trees. Lumber mills made money by cutting down trees. Logging was one of the largest industries in Wisconsin. There were more than 450 lumber camps across Wisconsin. If we study this log-marking hammer and think about the people that used…
As the lumber industry flourished in Wisconsin beginning in the 1840s, immigrants from all over Europe and Canada came to live and work in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. All winter, men called lumberjacks would cut down pine trees, preparing the timber to be used as building material, or sometimes to be turned into pulp or…
When the wheat crop failures of the late nineteenth century jeopardized the incomes of many of Wisconsin’s immigrant farmers, the region’s Swiss population transitioned to a trade that they knew from the Old World: dairying and cheesemaking. To do this, Swiss farmers…
Barns are a defining feature of the Wisconsin landscape, and hold a special place in the history of Wisconsin. Among the many barns that contributed to Wisconsin’s place as a major dairy producing state is a Swiss barn that was built in 1878 in Green County. This barn, the Hefty-Blum White Barn, was used to…