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Milwaukeeans love to boast about their weather almost as much as they love to complain about it. I’m reminded of an old song by John Martyn, “Bless the Weather.” It’s a love song of lament—the refrain noting that what the weather giveth, the weather taketh away: “Bless the weather that brought you to me//Curse the… Read More

This political party’s influence in Milwaukee, first apparent in the late 1830s, was circumscribed because of the city’s substantial foreign-born population. German and Irish voters tended to align themselves with the Democratic Party against the Yankee-dominated Whigs, who were seen as nativists and temperance advocates. Over the course of the 1840s and 1850s, Milwaukee Whigs… Read More

Hoping to revitalize downtown Milwaukee, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce spearheaded the drive in the 1990s to replace the outdated convention hall of the MILWAUKEE EXPOSITION CONVENTION CENTER AND ARENA with a larger meeting space. A team of six firms eventually developed the 189,000 square foot Flemish and German-inspired Midwest Express Center, which opened… Read More

The Wisconsin Conservatory is among the nation’s oldest community-based arts schools. Founded by William Boeppler, Hugo Kaun, and Dr. Louis Frank in 1899, the institution provides music education to community members, both amateur and professional. While flourishing in the first half of the twentieth century, the conservatory suffered financial problems at mid-century, and again in… Read More

Designed by the local ESCHWEILER AND ESCHWEILER architectural firm, the Wisconsin Gas Building (also known as the Milwaukee Gas Light Building) opened in 1930. Located at 626 E. Wisconsin Ave., the Art Deco building originally served as headquarters for the Milwaukee Gas Light Company. It continued to do so through several rounds of corporate restructuring… Read More

Milwaukee was buzzing with activity in late June and July of 1865, as the month-long fair to raise money for the local soldiers’ home packed Main Street with crowds of fairgoers. The event was an extension of work undertaken early in the Civil War by women from the west side of the Milwaukee River who… Read More

“Milwaukee is a workingman’s city,” wrote Frank Flower in his massive 1881 History of Milwaukee. Flower described a community of tradesmen, machinists, and laborers where a typical worker could enjoy, even on wages of a dollar or two a day, “good air, good water, cheap living, and a chance to found a home of his… Read More

Yankee-Yorkers began settling the Milwaukee metropolitan area in the mid-1830s. These Protestant, English-speaking, and highly mobile pioneers, mainly of British descent, hailed from New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and other Mid-Atlantic states. Following completion of the Erie Canal’s western terminus, Yankee-Yorker migrants inundated the midwestern frontier, including Milwaukee, in search of open land to speculate… Read More