Wisconsin 101

Images of a Treasured Childhood: At Home in Wauwatosa with the Lefebers

In the first decades of the 20th century, Wauwatosa was well on its way to becoming a bedroom suburb of Milwaukee. Families were moving into newly developed subdivisions built on land that once grew grain, fruit, and vegetables for the large Milwaukee…

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February 21, 2024

Wauwatosa / Milwaukee County / Related Stories / Everyday Life / Manufacturing & Trade / 1877-1900 / 1900-1918 / 1918-1945 / Region 8 - South East / Lefeber Glass Plate Negatives

Wauwatosa’s Lefeber Brothers Department Store

“A clerk had to show Mother each item. She retrieved a pair of folded silk stockings and carefully inserted her hand to show how the color looked against the skin.”--Jean Lobe, from her memoir recounting her experiences growing up in Wauwatosa in…

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January 25, 2024

Agriculture / Industry / Dairy Industry / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / 1918-1945 / Society & Religion / National Guard Nightstick

The Wisconsin Milk Strikes of 1933

As the effects of the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression rippled through the United States, many working-class Americans felt the economic impacts, including Wisconsin’s farmers. Midwestern farmers were already suffering even before the Depression, and since Wisconsin served as…

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June 27, 2023

Agriculture / Industry / Shawano / Food & Cooking / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Politics & Government / Region 2 - North East / 1918-1945 / Shawano County / National Guard Nightstick

The Consolidated Badger Cooperative and the Shawano Milk Strike of May 1933

In the aftermath of the 1929 Wall Street Market Crash and the subsequent Great Depression, Wisconsin farmers struggled to meet the costs of production associated with dairy commodities. As a tool to improve their standard of living, some of Wisconsin’s farmers turned…

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June 27, 2023

Industry / Agriculture / Shawano / Object Histories / Manufacturing & Trade / Region 2 - North East / Society & Religion / Shawano County / 1918-1945 / National Guard Nightstick

OBJECT HISTORY: National Guard Nightstick

In mid-May 1933, battles, clashes, and strikes erupted throughout Wisconsin. The catalyst? Milk. On the orders of Governor Albert G. Schmedeman and Adjunct General Ralph M. Immell, an army of 600 National Guardsmen, 800 special deputies, and local law enforcement marched into…

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June 27, 2023

Schoolhouse of District #5 in Pleasant Ridge. Both Blacks and whites built, attended, and taught at the school, circa 1890. Image ID: 4239, WI Historical Society.

Beetown / Grant County / Ethnicity & Identity / Iowa County / Related Stories / Pleasant Ridge / 1848-1877 / 1877-1900 / 1900-1918 / Society & Religion / 1918-1945 / Region 6 - South West / Ingersoll-Sergeant Pneumatic Rock Drill

Pleasant Ridge: Southwest Wisconsin’s Integrated Pioneer Community

Pleasant Ridge was a rural agricultural community located near present-day Beetown in central Grant County that was founded in 1850 by formerly enslaved African Americans. Pleasant Ridge is unique in that it was one of the first fully racially integrated communities in…

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December 21, 2022