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.
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.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Migrant Workers’ Cabin
by Antonio SaldañaWhat can this tiny migrant workers’ cabin tell us about the history of Wisconsin’s pickle industry?
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Settlement Cookbook
Practical, economical, reliable: the unlikely origins of a hundred-year-old cookbook that still graces kitchens across America.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Sterling Safety Bicycle
by Thomas RademacherIn 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.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Lifesaving Medal
by David DriscollAwarded to six Milwaukee rescue boat volunteers in 1875, this medal is a reminder of the history of risk and heroism along Wisconsin’s shores.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Employers Mutual Audiometer
by Ben ClarkFounded 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.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Le Maire Sundial
by Kevin CullenThe mid-eighteenth century equivalent of today’s GPS, this Le Maire Sundial, would have guided French officers along maritime highways.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Paramount Records 78
by Sergio GonzalezAn old 78 record spins a tune about Port Washington’s Paramount Records, one of the leading blues music production studios of the 1920s.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Yerkes Telescope
by Kelsey CorriganBuilt in 1895, the 40-inch refracting Yerkes Telescope in Williams Bay marks one of the birthplaces of modern astrophysics.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
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.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
The Wilson Place Door
by James E. BryanOpen 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.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
CCC Pillow Sham
by Joe HermolinMemories of European immigration, the Depression, and the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps are woven into the fabric of this commemorative pillow sham.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
Babcock Butterfat Tester
by David DriscollThe Babcock Butterfat Tester, developed at the University of Wisconsin in 1890, transformed the US dairy industry and helped Wisconsin become the Dairy State.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
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.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
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.
Listen below to the segment on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life:
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: