We take for granted freezers filled with ice cream, meats and more, and refrigerators packed with milk, eggs and leftovers. But it really wasn’t that long ago that keeping food and drink cold (and safe) for transport was a difficult business. States like Wisconsin — with cold temperatures, plenty of fresh water and breweries with… Read More…
Guest curator Katherine Quanz received her PhD from the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her work on sound design history and aboriginal media has appeared in Velvet Light Trap and the anthology Cinephemera. She is currently completing her Masters of Library and Information Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Despite… Read More…
The following is an excerpt from Madison Food: A History of Capital Cuisine by Nichole Fromm & JonMichael Rasmus (Arcadia, 2015), shared here with permission of the authors. This section from Chapter 5, “Soul Proprietors: African American Restaurant Owners and Chefs,” recounts the stellar career and civil rights struggles of Carson Gulley, the first celebrity… Read More…
In 2012, guest curator Melinda Roberts set out to visit every one of the state’s 532 Wisconsin Historical Society “official” historical markers. Since then, she has photographed and researched more than 5,500 Wisconsin historical markers and sites, museums, lighthouses, and veterans memorials, all documented on her website, Wisconsin Historical Markers (now defunct). Read more about… Read More…
This exhibit was created in collaboration with Emily Nelson, who completed her B.A. in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Spring 2015. Several necessary establishments occupied Wisconsin towns at the turn of the 20th century: a blacksmith shop, a tavern, a bank, a drugstore. Other locations were novelty treasures, such as the ice cream… Read More…
This exhibit was created in collaboration with Emily Nelson, an undergraduate History major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A tour of 19th century Wisconsin architecture brings up lumber baron’s mansions, dairy barns, and . . . octagon houses? It was once a craze among the stylish to structure their homes in the shape we now… Read More…
This exhibit was created in collaboration with Emily Nelson, an undergraduate History major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. More than a thousand years ago, Indigenous people in southern Wisconsin sculpted the landscape into the shapes of the creatures they saw around them. These mounds in the earth continue to watch over the people of the… Read More…
Guest curator Nichole Fromm is a librarian who blogs about restaurants at Eating in Madison A to Z with her husband JM. She was also the proud recipient in 1986 of a Golden Arches Good Taste Award. For better or worse, McDonald’s has built up a place in American hearts and minds. This exhibit uncovers… Read More…
This exhibit was created in collaboration with Emily Nelson, an undergraduate History major at UW-Madison graduating in May 2015. She’s volunteering with Recollection Wisconsin in order to gain experience in historical writing and social media. Emily is a native of Ladysmith, Wisconsin and her Norwegian heritage inspired her to explore the art of rosemaling. Rosemaling… Read More…
Guest curator Terese Allen has written scores of articles and books about Wisconsin’s food traditions and culinary culture, including the award-winning titles The Flavor of Wisconsin and The Flavor of Wisconsin for Kids. She is food columnist for Edible Madison and Edible Door magazines, vice-president of the Culinary History Enthusiasts of Wisconsin (CHEW) and a… Read More…
