Valders Memorial Park, Hwy. J, Valders, Manitowoc County 

One of Wisconsin's most controversial figures, Thorstein Bunde Veblen, was born near here July 30, 1857. In 1865 the Veblen family moved to Minnesota, where Thorstein graduated from college in 1880. He was a deep thinker, usually lonely and always in debt. After receiving a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale in 1884, Veblen taught in several colleges. He was not a popular teacher but attracted dedi­cated followers to his extreme social and economic ideas. In 1899, his book The Theory of the Leisure Class created immediate controversy. During much of his life, Veblen remained estranged from society. His pale, sick face; beard; loose-fitting clothes; shambling gait; weak voice; and desperate shyness enhanced this estrange­ment and deepened his loneliness. Yet the society which did not accept Veblen the man did come to value the products of his penetrating mind. His books and arti­cles have been described as perhaps "the most considerable and creative body of social thought that America has produced."

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[Source: McBride, Sarah Davis. History Just Ahead (Madison:WHS, 1999).]