October 2008 Odd Wisconsin
During the last week of October 1836, Wisconsin's first elected officials took office. By today's standards, the state's first elections were informal. Voters and candidates generally knew one another personally. No party machines organized to get out the vote, no advertisements flooded the non-existent media, and no bumper stickers adorned the backs of ox-carts and horse-drawn wagons. The major ideological...
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Posted in Curiosities on October 22, 2008
William DeSteese of Fond du Lac County enlisted in the Union Army in the spring of 1864, one month shy of his 14th birthday. In this short memoir (from Turning Points in Wisconsin History), he recalls sneaking out of camp in Virginia with other young soldiers to call on President Lincoln. The youngest woman from Wisconsin in the war was...
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Posted in Children on October 16, 2008
Columbus has been much romanticized over the years, as in this 1893 catalog art and in annual parades on innumerable main streets like this one. Communities all around the nation even named themselves after him to celebrate his role as a great hero. But in recent years the dark side of his career has become better known, and some communities...
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Posted in Odd Lives on October 11, 2008
Twenty years after the Panic of 1837 (described in a previous entry), Wisconsin suffered again when the nation plunged into another depression. The economy had boomed for a decade. Railroads extended their reach all across the nation, cutting the cost and time required to move people and goods. The population grew dramatically as European immigrants entered Atlantic ports and...
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Posted in Curiosities on October 5, 2008
Did You Know?
The Wisconsin Historical Museum is currently featuring Odd Wisconsin objects in the latest exhibit: Odd Wisconsin. And don't miss the Odd Wisconsin book by author Erika Janik published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
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