Mr. Raphael Baez, a well-respected violinist, pianist, composer, and music professor, and his wife Mrs. Mary Schoen Baez, a noted vocalist, had performed together in various music halls in the city of Milwaukee since 1889. The Athenaeum, home of the Women’s Club of Wisconsin, had hosted Mr. Baez and his students throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth…
entertainment
OBJECT HISTORY: Penguin Server
A penguin-themed serving bowl dishes out stories about the aluminum industry, postwar consumer culture, and home entertainment in mid-twentieth century Wisconsin.
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.
OBJECT HISTORY: Paramount Records 78
Created by the management of the Wisconsin Chair Company, a furniture making business based in Port Washington, Wisconsin, Paramount Records was initially incorporated to help sell phonographic cabinets in the late 1910s. Relying on resourceful talent recruiters and a relatively cheap production process, Paramount Records became one of the leading blues music record producers in the 1920s, and is today recognized by…
OBJECT HISTORY: Fiddle
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…
OBJECT HISTORY: Mepps Fishing Lure
The classic Mepps fishing lure the Aglia, was invented in France in the 1930s and patented in 1938. (Mepps is a French acronym for Manufacturier d’ Engins de Precision pour Peches Sportives, translated as “Manufacture of Precision Equipment for Sport Fishing”.) It was introduced to northern Wisconsin, and to the U.S., by a G.I. returning from France.…
OBJECT HISTORY: Madison-Style Ice Boat Model
This miniature ice boat was originally built in Madison, Wisconsin about 1916-1917 by a member of the Bernard family. Carl Bernard grew up in the culture of ice boating and began making models of them at a young age. Creating models helped the Bernards try new innovative building techniques and were also raced for fun.
OBJECT HISTORY: A Twenty-sided Die
Dice are used in games around the world to generate a random number. Traditionally the die is cubical; however there are multiple forms of non-cubicle die, such as, the 20-sided die. Ancient die were typically made from bones, wood, or rock. Today, die of all shapes are usually made from resin. The 20-sided die can…
OBJECT HISTORY: Earlene Fuller’s Bowling Shirt
This shirt, which features an African kente cloth print, was designed, made and worn in the mid-1990s by Milwaukee’s Earlene Fuller, an African American bowler and seamstress.
OBJECT HISTORY: Polka Rhythms Bandstand
This bandstand, used by Chad Przybylski and his band the Polka Rhythms, represents Wisconsin’s polka tradition.