Wisconsin Historical Images

Once known almost exclusively as a brewing powerhouse, Milwaukee owes part of its reputation to the Falk Corporation, an innovative leader in the manufacture of gears and gear trains for a variety of industry worldwide. Browse a photographic overview of the company's history in pictures in this gallery.

The Prairie du Sac Dam on the Wisconsin River has been powering communities in the area since 1914. Images of the dam and power plant's construction, taken by local photographer Frank S. Eberhart, are the subject of this month's featured gallery.

September 25, 2007, marked the 50th anniversary of a pivotal event in the history of civil rights in America, the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. In honor of this anniversary, Daisy Bates and the "Little Rock Nine" are the subject of this month's featured gallery.

From 1957 to 1988, Democratic Senator William Proxmire represented the state of Wisconsin in Congress. Widely regarded as a political maverick, Proxmire was known for his devotion to curbing governmental waste and mismanagement and his support of the international genocide treaty.

Since their unremarkable beginnings as cheap shacks and curbside pumps at the dawn of the automobile age, gas stations have taken many forms and worn many guises. See how gas stations became icons of modern car culture! A selection of service station images from the WHS collections.

Light houses, fishing boats, ferries, windsleds, picnics, celebrations and of course the people at the heart of it all, are chronicled in this gallery of images documenting life on and around the the 22 islands that comprise the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior, Wisconsin's northernmost location and one of its most historic places.

May 2nd marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who for four years in the early 1950s, held the nation in his grasp with his anti-Communist rhetoric. To his enemies, McCarthy was evil incarnate, but to his supporters, he was an ardent champion of freedom.

Although largely forgotten today, the "Teenie Weenies" cartoons enchanted readers of all ages for more than 50 years. Created by William Donahey, the diminutive Teenie Weenies, a self-sufficient group of hardworking and courteous two-inch-tall people, appeared in newspapers, books, and on a variety of licensed products between 1914 and 1970.

The ninety-five portraits within this gallery portray acquaintances of pioneering Wisconsin scientist and antiquarian Increase Allan Lapham. All are from an album of carte-de-visite photographic portraits collected from 1862-75 and depict many notable 19th century geologists and botanists — and a handful of authors and artists — from America and Europe.

The drawings featured in this gallery are 50 of the original 200 or so created by artist James F. Wilkins on his 151-day journey from Weston, Missouri (near Independence), to the California gold fields in 1849. Wilkins captured the landscapes and events along the way and the sketches became the foundation for an enormous panorama depiction of the route known as "The Moving Mirror of the Overland Trail."

Photographer Alfred Stanley Johnson, Jr. specialized in the tall-tale postcard, extolling Wisconsin's agricultural abundance through images of oversized produce and animals. Johnson's tall-tale postcards affirmed the American myth of abundance — a myth often at odds with reality.