Hist Of Wisconsin

Rediscover Wisconsin history from the very beginning. A Short History of Wisconsin recounts the landscapes, people, and traditions that have made the state the multifaceted place it is today. With an approach both comprehensive and accessible, historian Erika Janik covers several centuries of Wisconsin's remarkable past, showing how the state was shaped by the same world wars, waves of new inhabitants, and upheavals in society and politics that shaped the nation. Swift, authoritative, and compulsively readable, A Short History of Wisconsin commences with the glaciers that hewed the region's breathtaking terrain, the Native American cultures who first called it home, and French explorers and traders who mapped what was once called "Mescousing." Janik moves through the Civil War and two world wars, covers advances in the rights of women, workers, African Americans, and Indians, and recent shifts involving the environmental movement and the conservative revolution of the late 20th century. Wisconsin has hosted industries from fur-trapping to mining to dairying, and its political landscape sprouted figures both renowned and reviled, from Fighting Bob La Follette to Joseph McCarthy. Janik finds the story of a state not only in the broad strokes of immigration and politics, but also in the daily lives shaped by work, leisure, sports, and culture. A Short History of Wisconsin offers a fresh understanding of how Wisconsin came into being and how Wisconsinites past and present share a deep connection to the land itself.

A haven for summer tourists and winter sport enthusiasts, Wisconsin is famed for its physical beauty and its prodigious production of cheese and dairy products. Richard Nelson Current's compact history reveals the colorful past of America's Dairyland, from early explorers and gangsters to sports heroes and cheeseheads. Both the Ringling Brothers' "World's Greatest Shows" and Barnum & Bailey's "Greatest Show on Earth" originated in Wisconsin, along with the typewriter, Johnson's Wax, and the first automatic assembly line (for manufacturing automobile frames). Wisconsin inventors contributed to the mechanization of American farms by developing harvesters, reapers, cultivators, threshers, and other machinery. Sen. Robert M. ("Fighting Bob") La Follette brought progressive reform to the state; a few decades later another Wisconsin native, Joseph McCarthy, revealed his agenda as a U.S. senator. The Gideons, who place Bibles in hotel room nightstands, got their start in Wisconsin, and the state's factories produced most of the 107 steam shovels that dug the Panama Canal. Even before American Motors in Kenosha became Wisconsin's largest employer, Wisconsinites were responsible for such car-related developments as the first four-wheel-drive vehicle and an early tire-patching kit. To football fans, the capital of Wisconsin is Green Bay, where in 1919 Earl Louis Lambeau organized the Packers. Even during the team's fifteen-year losing streak, Green Bay consisted, as one reporter observed, of "nearly 50,000 wild-eyed maniacs [who] know more about football than any other 50,000 people on the face of the earth." Fast-paced and entertaining, Current's history chronicles how Wisconsin's homegrown ideas, from the "Wisconsin Idea" of efficient state government to ski-tows and speedometers, made their way into the broader marketplace of American culture.

Wisconsin History Highlights encourages middle and high school students, including National History Day participants, to use Wisconsin topics and resources as they research American history. The book guides students on their way, drawing them in with the topics most likely to spur their curiosity and enthusiasm. Wisconsin History Highlights introduces students to essential skills for historical research, including locating primary and secondary materials, choosing and narrowing a topic, and avoiding plagiarism. The text includes nine chapters: Discovering the Past; Immigration; Agriculture; Industry; Environment; Social Issues; Government; Tourism; and Arts, Entertainment, and Sports. Each chapter has a variety of concise historical vignettes about specific events, people, or places in Wisconsin history, and within each vignette, students will find hints to get started with research on that or a related topic. The chapters contain many illustrations of sample source materials, and each closes with a detailed bibliography of available primary and secondary resources. Students will find ample guidance in many places, from the helpful introductory material, the table of contents, and the topical chapters to the thorough index, which together make Wisconsin History Highlights an essential tool for expanding students' conceptions of history and refining their research skills.

The atlas features historical and geographical data, including full-color maps, descriptive text, photos, and illustrations.

Stories of sportsmen past come to life in History Afield, an account of the many and varied sporting pursuits that are part of the Wisconsin tradition. Author and outdoorsman Robert Willging shares more than two dozen tales of Wisconsin sporting history, highlighting the hunt for waterfowl, upland birds, and deer; trout fishing in wild north Wisconsin rivers; and recreating at early Wisconsin lakeside resorts. Anecdotes of fishing exploits on our plentiful waterways and presidential visits to northern Wisconsin reveal a unique slice of sporting culture, and chapters on live decoys and the American Water Spaniel demonstrate the human-animal bond that has played such a large part in that history. Tales of nature’s fury include a detailed account of the famous Armistice Day storm, as well as the dangers of ice fishing on Lake Superior. These historical musings and perspectives on sporting ethos provide a strong sense of the lifestyle that Willging has preserved for our new century. Featuring first-hand interviews and a variety of historic photos depicting the Wisconsin sporting life, History Afield shows how the intimate relationship between humans and nature shaped this important part of the state’s heritage.

This second volume in the History of Wisconsin series introduces us to the first generation of statehood, from the conversion of prairie and forests into farmland to the development of cities and industry. In addition, this volume presents a synthesis of the Civil War and Reconstruction era in Wisconsin. Scarcely a decade after entering the Union, the state was plunged into the nationwide debate over slavery, the secession crisis, and a war in which 11,000 "Badger Boys in Blue" gave their lives. Wisconsin's role in the Civil War is chronicled, along with the post-war years. Complete with photographs from the Historical Society's collections, as well as many pertinent maps, this book is a must-have for anyone interested in this era of Wisconsin's history.

Published in Wisconsin's Sesquicentennial year, this fourth volume in The History of Wisconsin series covers the twenty tumultuous years between the World's Columbian Exposition and the First World War when Wisconsin essentially reinvented itself, becoming the nation's "laboratory of democracy." The period known as the Progressive Era began to emerge in the mid-1890s. A sense of crisis and a widespread clamor for reform arose in reaction to rapid changes in population, technology, work, and society. Wisconsinites responded with action: their advocacy of women's suffrage, labor rights and protections, educational reform, increased social services, and more responsive government led to a veritable flood of reform legislation that established Wisconsin as the most progressive state in the union. As governor and U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., was the most celebrated of the Progressives, but he was surrounded by a host of pragmatic idealists from politics, government, and the state university. Although the Progressives frequently disagreed over priorities and tactics, their values and core beliefs coalesced around broad-based participatory democracy, the application of scientific expertise to governance, and an active concern for the welfare of all members of society-what came to be known as "the Wisconsin Idea."