Wisconsin 101 is proud to collaborate with Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life, an award-winning radio show that celebrates what makes Wisconsin unique. Every few weeks, Wisconsin Life will feature a new object from the Wisconsin 101 collection. Enjoy those radio segments below, ordered by most recent air date.
Jolly Good
by Rachael Vasquez
What would a Southeastern Wisconsinite grab on a hot summer day in the 1970s and 80s? Jolly Good soda of course! This local brand was celebrated as the cornerstone of cookouts, family reunions, and get-togethers.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Pasty
Miners from Cornwall, England flocked to Wisconsin in the 1800s. They settled in places like Mineral Point and Miner’s Grove as more lead was needed for things like paint, pipes, and lead shot. Cornish miners brought their mining expertise for extracting galena, which is a mineral used to make lead. They also brought a piece of their European culture — the pasty.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Door County Book Mobile
Bookmobiles have long dotted Wisconsin’s roadways and parking lots. The state has a long history of bringing books and movies to people living anywhere from Wisconsin Dells to Green Bay. The Door County Bookmobile provided books to rural residents of Door County starting in the 1950s. Today, that tradition is carried on by bookmobiles like the Madison Public Library’s Dream Bus.
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Babcock Ice Cream Carton
They don’t call Wisconsin “America’s Dairyland” for nothing. The Babcock ice cream carton symbolizes both Wisconsin’s dairy farming past and its appeal as a summer destination for tourists from around the world.
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Migrant Workers' Cabin
What can this tiny migrant workers’ cabin tell us about the history of Wisconsin’s pickle industry?
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Settlement Cookbook
Practical, economical, reliable: the unlikely origins of a hundred-year-old cookbook that still graces kitchens across America.
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Sterling Safety Bicycle
In the 1890s, everyone from Annie Oakley to the Badger Wheelmen participated in Wisconsin’s cycling craze. The blue drop-tube safety bicycle represents two sides of Wisconsin’s bicycling story: bike manufacturing and recreational uses.
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Lifesaving Medal
Awarded to six Milwaukee rescue boat volunteers in 1875, this medal is a reminder of the history of risk and heroism along Wisconsin’s shores.
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Employers Mutual Audiometer
Founded in Wausau, WI, in 1911, America’s first workers compensation insurance company started using equipment like the Employers Mutual Audiometer to develop new standards of workplace safety.
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Le Maire Sundial
The mid-eighteenth century equivalent of today’s GPS, this Le Maire Sundial, would have guided French officers along maritime highways.
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Paramount Records 78
An old 78 record spins a tune about Port Washington’s Paramount Records, one of the leading blues music production studios of the 1920s.
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Yerkes Telescope
Built in 1895, the 40-inch refracting Yerkes Telescope in Williams Bay marks one of the birthplaces of modern astrophysics.
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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.
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The Wilson Place Door
Open the front door at Menomonie’s Wilson Place Mansion to discover a world of educational innovation and an artistic movement devoted to social responsibility and quality craftsmanship.
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CCC Pillow Sham
Memories of European immigration, the Depression, and the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps are woven into the fabric of this commemorative pillow sham.
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Babcock Butterfat Tester
The Babcock Butterfat Tester, developed at the University of Wisconsin in 1890, transformed the US dairy industry and helped Wisconsin become the Dairy State.
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Cassel Soda Bottle
Pop open a bottle from the old Cassel Soda Company and you’ll find surprising stories about Prohibition, Milwaukee’s resort towns, and urbanization in early-1900s Wisconsin.
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Piano and Song Recital Poster
A tattered music recital poster sings songs of Milwaukee’s late-nineteenth century music scene, the women’s movement, and early Mexican immigration to Wisconsin.
Listen to the poster’s segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Fromm's Fashionable Furs
Five brothers from Hamburg, Wisconsin, built a fox-fur empire that transformed the fur industry and played a major role in the development of a canine distemper vaccine.
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The Vulcan Bowling Pin
Hewn from Northwoods maple, this Vulcan Corporation pin reminds us that Milwaukee was once the bowling capital of America. From Wisconsin’s lumbering heyday, to Japan’s abandoned alleys, explore history in the bowling lane.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life: