Business, Industry and Labor

New in Recollection Wisconsin, Spring 2022

This quarter, we added four new collections from both new and existing content partners! Milwaukee Public Library has been working hard on these two new collections: The CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) Arts Program Photographs collection includes photographs taken between February and May of 1976 in Milwaukee, documenting life during the 1976 Bicentennial. After… Read More…

Wisconsin Fish Stories

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote, “In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” But in much of Wisconsin, once the lakes thaw, some thoughts turn to sport fishing, particularly on the first Saturday in May which signals the opening of fishing season. Watch this online video exhibit on the history of recreational fishing… Read More…

Where We Get Our Food

Guest curator, Joe Hermolin, is the Langlade County Historical Society president (a Recollection Wisconsin content partner) and Steering Committee member. Hermolin worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for many years in the Department of Biomolecular Chemistry in the Medical School. In retirement, he moved to rural Langlade County and developed an interest in the region’s history. Indigenous… Read More…

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal Programs

FDR New Deal Exhibit Image

Guest curator, Joe Hermolin, is the Langlade County Historical Society president (a Recollection Wisconsin content partner) and Steering Committee member. Hermolin worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for many years in the Department of Biomolecular Chemistry in the Medical School. In retirement, he moved to rural Langlade County and developed an interest in the region’s… Read More…

We’ve Got the Power!

Did you know that two major energy sources – hydro and solar power – have deep roots in Wisconsin history?  It’s true. You might even say a current of energy-related ingenuity surged through our great state throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Read on if we’ve ignited your curiosity. Don’t go chasing waterfalls… Hydroelectric energy,… Read More…

Pass the Peas, Please: Wisconsin’s Canning History

The story of commercial canning in Wisconsin turns out to be the story of the pea. The canning of beets, corn, cucumbers and other crops has been an important part of Wisconsin industry since the late 1800s. However, it was a native Pennsylvanian and his peas that started it all. The first commercial canning operation… Read More…

The Coldest Crop: Ice Harvesting in Wisconsin

The frozen La Crosse waterfront with five men harvesting ice, ca. 1913.

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…

CCC Camp 657, Langlade County Historical Society

In March 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of the first New Deal programs designed to create jobs for Americans during the Great Depression. From 1933-1942, the CCC put nearly three million unemployed young men to work building parks, planting trees, stocking streams and rivers, and other environmental conservation projects. The… Read More…

Ice cream parlors

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…

Kewaunee Ships of War, Kewaunee Public Library

During World War II, Wisconsinites contributed to the war effort in many ways. Wisconsin’s shipbuilding industry flourished in communities along the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, where manufacturers such as the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company and Globe Shipbuilding of Superior built submarines, cargo ships, and other vessels for the United States military. In 1941,… Read More…

Wisconsin department stores

Our guest curator for this exhibit is Michael Leannah, author of the new book Something for Everyone: Memories of Lauerman Brothers Department Store from the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. Leannah has had a long career in the public schools of Milwaukee and Sheboygan and also works as an author and editor. He grew up in Marinette, Wisconsin… Read More…

Railroad and logging photographs, Langlade County Historical Society

The Langlade County Historical Society in Antigo recently made a major addition to its digital collections: more than 400 photographs documenting railroads and the lumber industry in northwoods Wisconsin from the late 19th century up to the 1990s. Some photographs were taken by Antigo-based professional photographer Arthur J. Kingsbury for his picture postcard business, but… Read More…

Portraits of Wisconsin workers

The thirteen photographs in this slideshow depict farm laborers, factory employees, and other Wisconsin workers from the 1890s to the 1970s. Looking at these images, we wonder: what was on the minds of these now-anonymous men and women as they posed for the photographer? Were they proud of their work, their uniforms, their employers? Were… Read More…

Stories from city directories

This exhibit highlights a selection of advertisements from Wisconsin city directories published between 1857 and 1930. City directories are commercially-published compilations of the names, addresses and professions of people in a particular town or city. The earliest formal city directories published in the United States document major urban areas on the East Coast and date… Read More…