Earlene Fuller designed and made bowling outfits for numerous black and white teams in Milwaukee and elsewhere from 1970 through the mid-1990s. She was a member in two African American bowling organizations — the National Bowling Association and the Milwaukee Bowlers Guild, Inc. — and in the 1990s began incorporating kente cloth and other African-inspired fabric patterns into the shirts she made for her own teams.
Milwaukee
The Rise and Fall of Shoe Fitting Fluoroscopes
Shoe-fitting fluoroscopes were invented almost simultaneously in the United States and England. Milwaukee quickly became a center of the new technology.
Happy Days and 1950s Sentimentality
The television show Happy Days helped contribute to a nostalgia for sentimental 1950s culture that lasted throughout the 1970s.
Wisconsin’s 1918 Special Election for Senate and the Trial of Victor Berger
In 1918, Wisconsin held a special election to fill the seat of recently deceased Senator Paul Husting, who had been elected in 1914. The election was a three-way race between Democrat Joseph E. Davies, Republican Irvine L. Lenroot, and Socialist Victor L. Berger. Running under federal indictment, Berger placed third. He won 26% of the vote statewide in the April Senate election, winning 11 counties.
Victor Berger and the Sewer Socialists
Victor Berger, one of the “Sewer Socialists,” became the first Socialist to serve in the United States House of Representatives, winning the election in Wisconsin’s 5th congressional district in 1910.
Recruiting Talent
With a roster that included Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Ethel Waters, Paramount Record became perhaps the most important blues recording company of the 1920s. Their success was dependent on their ability to recruit …
The Record Production Process
Paramount Record’s parent company, the United Phonographic Corporation, decided to begin recording and pressing records to include with their phonograph cabinets in the early 1920s. Paramount initially recorded in studios throughout the United States. They …
Paramount Records
The Wisconsin Chair Company’s (WCC) decision to enter the record label industry was an economic one. With the United Phonographic Corporation (UPC) picking up steam, management at the WCC began pressing records. The UPC’s first …
Early Lifesaving Stations in Wisconsin
A Slow Beginning As maritime commerce grew in the early 19th century, the loss of vessels and crews to shipwreck increased. In 1848, the federal government, through the United States Revenue Marine, established its first lifesaving …
The Wreck of the Tanner
The Wrecked Vessel The Tanner was a barque, or three-masted ship whose foremast was square-rigged and whose main-and mizzenmasts were fore-and-aft rigged. She measured 156.38 feet long by 31.75 feet in breadth. She was built in 1863 by the Milwaukee …