OBJECT HISTORY: Jack Slaske’s Tool Set

In the holdings of the Greendale Historical Society is an unassuming set of tools, comprised of hand saws, planes, braces and drill bits, among other items. Though these were mass manufactured and similar tools exist all across the country, these particular tools are a piece of Greendale’s history as well as a piece of the larger American story of the New Deal and the Greenbelt community program of the 1930s. Originally, these tools were the property of Milwaukee carpenter Jack Slaske, who used them during the construction of Greendale following his 1936 recruitment by the federal Works Project Administration. For two years, every Monday morning, Jack left his home on Milwaukee’s south side in an open truck alongside other Milwaukee carpenters and craftsmen and drove 10 miles to the site of Greendale; and every Friday he returned to Milwaukee after a week of building Greendale Originals (a term used to refer to the identical houses designed by the federal government) on what had formerly been humble farmland. From 1936 to 1938, under sweltering heat or freezing snow, Milwaukee-area men like Jack labored tirelessly to build the homes, schools, and main street buildings that would provide the groundwork for one of America’s most unique “green” towns, with many of the structures that Jack and his fellow workers built in the 1930s continuing to serve the people of Greendale today. Slaske’s toolkit serves as a physical reminder of the men who built Greendale from the ground up by the sweat of their brow and the tools in their hands. Looking at the tools that built Greendale, one can imagine the people that came together to build this community.