Current Issue of the Wisconsin Magazine of History
Fall 2018, Volume 102, Number 1
Wisconsin Magazine of History Cover Image
COPYRIGHT 2017 FAVIANNA RODRIGUEZ, FAVIANNA.COM
COPYRIGHT 2017 FAVIANNA RODRIGUEZ, FAVIANNA.COM
Favianna Rodriguez, Freedom. Justice. Voice. Power., monotype collage, 12 x 17.5 inches, 2017.
Rodriguez’s piece appears on the cover of Somos Latinas: Voices of Wisconsin Latina Activists by Andrea-Teresa Arenas and Eloisa Gómez, excerpted in this issue. Somos Latinas shares the powerful narratives of twenty-five Latina activists who have worked for community change in Wisconsin. The stories are drawn from interviews conducted as part of the Somos Latinas Digital History Project housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society. The book includes in-depth exploration of key themes like the activists’ role models, support systems, motivations, and risk-taking.
Table of Contents
Aerial view of Camp Randall, 1910.
The football field was surrounded by a running track, while wooden bleachers and a wooden grandstand provided seating for spectators. These wooden structures were already in need of improvement but would be in use for several more years. COURTESY OF THE UW-MADISON ARCHIVES, CLP-B0031X
"On, Wisconsin!": Camp Randall at 100
By John Zimm
On any given autumn Saturday, tens of thousands of men, women, and children pack the bleachers of Camp Randall Stadium to cheer on their favorite team, the Wisconsin Badgers. The massive bowl of concrete and steel, enclosed on the south by the stone walls of the Field House, has been home to the Badger football team for over one hundred years and has hosted a multitude of memorable events, athletic and otherwise. From a training camp for 70,000 Wisconsin Civil War Soldiers to the home of the Badgers, Madison’s Camp Randall, whose stadium was completed one hundred years ago, has been an iconic location in our state’s history.
Fauerbach's Brewery
This promotional poster, created in 1884 for Fauerbach’s Brewery in Madison, emphasizes the German character of early brewing in Wisconsin. View the original source document: WHI 3489
They Brought Their Beer: Brewing on the Wisconsin Frontier
By Dirk Hildebrandt
Of all the immigrant groups to arrive on the American shore, Germans had the strongest and most established brewing traditions. In the mid-nineteenth century, a wave of German immigrants to the Midwest provided not only a market for beer but also the expertise and capital needed to provide a quality product to the masses. The perfect storm of a ready market, the right materials, and the means came together in 1840s Wisconsin to launch a surge of brewing that would one day make Wisconsin and Milwaukee synonymous with brewing expertise and quality beer.
Win Brockmeyer
In his thirty-four years as head football coach at Wausau Senior High School, Win Brockmeyer won 230 games, lost 33, and tied 9. He coached thirteen undefeated teams at Wausau High School, including the 1942 team. THE WAHISCAN (1942)
"The University of Wausau" and the Perfect Season
By Matt Foss
Bright lights on a crisp fall evening combined with the sound of pads and helmets crashing together is a familiar Friday night attraction across Wisconsin. While many high schools have a strong football history, one of the most successful teams in state history hailed from Wausau. From 1937–1971, the Wausau High School football team went a combined 230-33-9, won twenty-five conference championships, had 13 undefeated seasons, and boasted two future Pro Football Hall of Famers among their many talented players—all under coach Win Brockmeyer. In 1942, the team—known by many as the “University of Wausau”—accomplished a feat managed only a few times in Wisconsin high school football history, going not only undefeated and un-tied, but un-scored upon.
Emancipation Proclamation Engraving
Thomas Nast published this engraving in Harper’s Weekly in January 1865 celebrating the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation with scenes depicting slavery’s past and an optimistic view of future possibilities for African Americans. Like Nast, abolitionists in Wisconsin wanted to believe their efforts would lead to opportunities for the formerly enslaved. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS LC-DIG-PGA-03898
Abolition and the Law in Civil War-Era Wisconsin: From Glover to Gillespie
By Grace Castagna
For anyone well-versed in Wisconsin history, the names Joshua Glover and Ezekiel Gillespie go hand-in-hand with two major race-related events in the mid-nineteenth century: Glover’s escape to freedom in 1854, aided and abetted by abolitionists opposed to the Fugitive Slave Law, and Ezekiel Gillespie’s attempt to vote in an 1865 election, which led to Wisconsin becoming the first state in the Midwest to pass black suffrage. Behind these stories is the work of two prominent white abolitionists: Sherman M. Booth, owner and editor of the Wisconsin Free Democrat, and Byron Paine, a Milwaukee lawyer. Through their efforts to fight racial inequality, they set new precedents for promoting civil rights through the legal system, using, as Booth wrote, “facts and arguments adapted to impress the public mind with a sense of the impolicy, unprofitableness and wickedness of slave-holding, and by urging those who exercise the right of suffrage to employ the moral suasion of the ballot-box to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free.”
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