Showing 101-120 of 440 Entries
Author: William Dalhk
The “signal shot for the black freedom movement in Milwaukee” began as a routine traffic stop. On February 2, 1958, Daniel Bell, a twenty-two year old African American male, was pulled over for an inoperative taillight. Within moments he was fatally shot by Milwaukee patrolman Thomas Grady. The officer claimed that he chased and cornered…
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Author: Michael E. Stevens
As mayor from 1916 to 1940, Daniel Webster Hoan transformed Milwaukee from a graft-ridden, ineffective municipality to a well-governed city that received national recognition for its high-quality services. Winning ten consecutive citywide elections as a Socialist, Hoan joined the Democrats during World War II and helped reshape the modern state party. Born in Waukesha in…
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Author: Bethany Harding
Born in Darlington, Wisconsin on June 30, 1856, David Stuart Rose studied law and joined his father’s legal firm when he was twenty years old. In time, he served as mayor of Darlington and as a Lafayette County judge before moving to Milwaukee in 1888 There he spent years building up his own law practice…
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Author: Niles Niemuth
The City of Delafield is a residential and resort area centered on Lake Nagawicka in the Lake Country area of Waukesha County. The Town of Delafield was created in 1842, allowing local government functions. Approximately 25 miles west of Milwaukee, Delafield was incorporated as a city in 1959. In 2010 the city’s population was estimated…
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Author: John D. Buenker
The Milwaukee Democratic Party (MDP) has dominated the city’s politics during two very different chronological periods—separated by nearly a century. The first dated from the city’s 1846 incorporation through the Civil War and its immediate aftermath. MDP candidates handily bested their Whig opponents in virtually every mayoral, gubernatorial, and presidential contest. They also dominated the…
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Author: William I. Tchakirides
“Digital Milwaukee” is the online presence of metropolitan Milwaukee. It emerged with the opening of the Internet to commercial traffic and the advent of the World Wide Web as a system for visualizing, organizing, and disseminating digital content in the early 1990s. The development of the Web has transformed how Milwaukeeans understand, discuss, share, market,…
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Author: Karalee Surface
Officially opened in 1984, Discovery World emphasizes hands-on learning and scientific exploration for both children and adults. Its founder, Robert Powrie Harland, Sr., was inspired to create such a facility following Apollo 13 astronaut James Lovell’s visit to Milwaukee. Harland, director of the Todd Wehr Foundation, worked with business leaders to establish the original museum…
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Author: William I. Tchakirides
A world-renowned continuing education and recreation pioneer, Dorothy Enderis was born in 1880 to Swiss immigrant parents in Elmhurst, Illinois. The following year, her family moved to Milwaukee. After graduating from the Milwaukee Normal School in 1901, Enderis worked for eight years as that institution’s assistant librarian and then as a fourth-grade teacher. In 1911,…
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Author: Alan Borsuk
The Indigenous Peoples of North America have always claimed Milwaukee as their own. Known as the “gathering place by the waters,” the “good earth” (or good land), or simply the “gathering place,” Indigenous groups such as the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Odawa (Ottawa), Fox, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sauk, and Oneida have all called Milwaukee their home at some…
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Author: Bill Reck
Milwaukee’s Dutch population first appeared in the records of the 1860 United States Census when some 500 people reported their birthplace as the Netherlands. There is ample evidence, though, that they arrived considerably earlier. One account of the early Dutch suggests that, by 1832, a printer by the name of Lukwilder had moved to Milwaukee…
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Author: Michele Saltzman
Eagle, Wisconsin is a community in the Kettle Moraine State Forest, about 35 miles west of Milwaukee. Eagle consists of two legal entities: the Town of Eagle and the Village of Eagle. Although they are legally separate, they are closely linked by shared official services as well as community history and recreational attractions. Like most…
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Author: Mary Hallick
Eastern Orthodox Christians from Eastern and Southern Europe endured centuries of wars in an attempt to gain freedom from powerful, conquering countries. In these regions there was a great deal of political oppression that led to unstable governments. The outcomes of these wars not only changed national boundaries, but changed the nationality of citizens. There…
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Author: Anthony Orum
The Early Years In many ways Milwaukee is a metropolitan area typical of the industrial Midwest. The arc of its development and growth mirrors the arc of other cities in the region, including Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. Milwaukee had its beginnings in the 1830s when a few settlers established residence on the western banks of…
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Author: James K. Nelsen
The Milwaukee metropolitan area is often classified as the most racially segregated metropolitan area in the United States. This segregated residence pattern resulted in racially segregated schools in the Milwaukee area. African Americans began to settle in Milwaukee increasingly after 1900. Most rented homes in a nine-square block area north of downtown. They were employed…
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Author: Michael A. Gordon
An eight-hour day movement flourished for several decades after the Civil War and united thousands of Milwaukee and other American workers who otherwise differed by skill, occupation, race, gender, and ethnicity. Often working ten or twelve hours a day, workers said they needed more time for rest and to be with their families, and insisted…
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Author: Matthew J. Prigge
Eldon Murray (1930-2007) was a nationally-recognized figure in the gay rights movement. Murray was born and raised in Vincennes, Indiana. He relocated to Chicago at age 18 and later served in the Korean War. He settled in Milwaukee in 1955, where he began a career as a stockbroker. Murray’s local activism began in 1969, after…
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Author: Peter Borg
With over 3,200 members and more than 5,500 people attending any one of four weekend services, non-denominational Elmbrook Church in suburban Brookfield is the largest unaffiliated religious congregation in the state of Wisconsin. What began in 1956 with five families gathering for prayer in hopes of starting “a gospel-preaching church,” initially operated as the First…
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Author: Bethany Harding
The first socialist to govern a major American city, Emil Seidel (1864-1947) served as mayor of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912. “Earnest, upright, and plain-spoken,” the former pattern-maker and alderman was a pragmatic politician who appealed to working-class voters. Seidel’s administration focused on efficiency and economy. Working closely with organized labor, the mayor and his…
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Author: Robert Balmer
Energy has many different forms. Over the years, businesses and homes in the Milwaukee region have relied on a broad variety of energy types to fuel daily activities, from illuminating, heating and cooling homes, for travel and transport, and for manufacturing and commercial activities. Energy has the remarkable quality that it can be neither created…
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Author: John N. Vogel
The Episcopal Church traces its establishment in Wisconsin to the early 1820s, when the Oneida Indians of New York were relocated to a reservation at Duck Creek, Wisconsin—very near Green Bay. Accompanying the Indians was Eleazer Williams, who in 1826 was ordained a deacon in the church and who ministered to the Duck Creek community.…
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