Current Issue of the Wisconsin Magazine of History
Fall 2019, Volume 103, Number 1
Wisconsin Magazine of History Cover Image
Olivia Monona (née Goldenberger) of Madison with singing partner, Menotti Frascona, ca. 1905. Monona would join the Chicago Civic Opera in 1910 and have a thirty-year career in opera, ending as a member of New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
Table of Contents
Olivia Monona
Olivia Monona in costume, possibly for her role in La bohème, an opera she performed numerous times. View the original source document: WHI 143476
Homegrown Diva: The Early Life of Olivia Monona
By Rachel S. Cordasco
From Madison, Wisconsin, to the Metropolitan Opera, Olivia Monona’s life was marked by serendipity and unexpected fame. Her unlikely rise, first as a chorister and comprimaria with the Chicago Grand Opera Company (CGOC), and then as a member of New York’s Metropolitan Opera Company, developed in tandem with the rising tide of operatic enthusiasm in the United States at the start of the twentieth century.
Green Bay High School Football Rivalry
Green Bay’s West High announces its intention to triumph over East High in the 1925 annual rivalry game, a contest arguably more important than any by the still-nascent Packers. SNAP SHOTS, COURTESY OF BROWN COUNTY LIBRARY
When East Met West, and a High School Football Rivalry Ruled Green Bay
By Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen
In late November 1925, football fever swept through Green Bay—but it wasn’t for the Green and Gold. That Thanksgiving Day, the West High Wildcats would meet their rival, the East High Hilltoppers, at the newly opened City Field. The winner would claim the title of the Fox River Valley Conference—a contest arguably more important to Green Bay than any by the still-nascent Packers.
Freedom Seekers Pioneer Cabin
This pioneer cabin, located behind the Milton House inn, is connected to the house by a tunnel that was dug by Joseph Goodrich with the intention of hosting freedom seekers. MILTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Milton House and the Underground Railroad
By Doug Welch
Many documented and undocumented Underground Railroad sites exist in southern Wisconsin and northern and western Illinois, yet each site is limited to tell its own story in isolation because the historical record is scant. The article explores two recent revelations that affect the telling of the Underground Railroad narrative at the Milton House Museum, adding to our understanding of the regional workings of the Underground Railroad in the years prior to the Civil War.
The Bay View Rolling Mill
The Bay View Rolling Mill, ca. 1885. Although its workers were treated more fairly than those at other factories, the mill became the location for the bloodiest event in Wisconsin’s labor history. View the original source document: WHI 7015
NHD Entry: The Bay View Massacre
By Anna Pearse
Each year, 16,000 Wisconsin middle and high schoolers compete in the National History Day competition. This entry, written by eighth-grader Anna Pearce, won the Junior Paper category for Wisconsin and a Labor History award at the national competition in Washington, DC. In it, she describes the May 1886 labor strike at Bay View Rolling Mill that led to the death of seven people but raised awareness for the eight-hour workday movement.
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