Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2016 i Wisconsin Magazine of History

In August 1965, at the height of the civil rights movement—the same month President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law and the Watts Riots shook Los Angeles—the University of Wisconsin Regents voted to name a building on campus after Carson Gulley, a beloved longtime university chef. Carson Gulley Commons was the first UW–Madison building named after an African American, and the first building on campus named after a civil-service employee.1 Though now largely forgotten, Carson Gulley was a celebrated figure in the mid-twentieth century, known for his groundbreaking efforts crossing racial barriers in Wisconsin as a teacher, a radio and television personality, and a pioneer in the struggle for equal housing. The story of Gulley’s life sheds light on the persistent practices of racial segregation and exclusion…

An individual who saw life as a constant struggle without hope, Waldemar Ager has been identified as the archetypal headstrong hero who spent his life advocating for societal and national welfare, all the while never shying away from controversy. He is, in fact, one of the most prolific, important Norwegian American writers of the twentieth century. Although his opinions occasionally went against the national consensus, he is remembered for his strong convictions and accomplishments. Through his advocacy for temperance and his literary activity, he helped define the Norwegian American identity of the early twentieth century. During his lifetime, Waldemar Theodore Ager (1869–1941) became widely recognized as a major Norwegian American figure. In 1912, he was the first resident of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to appear in Who’s Who in America, an…

Each day, visitors to the Wisconsin Historical Society’s headquarters building in Madison routinely pause to examine an odd-looking “clock-desk” on display in the lobby. They get excited as they discover unique design elements, and the cadence of their exchanges often quickens. The desk’s front legs are designed like two giant wooden compasses, and the rear legs mimic stacked books of various sizes. The clock’s counterweights are made of fist-sized rocks and twine, and a brass bell is positioned to ring when the contraption closes one book before automatically thrusting another one forward. In the early 1860s, adventuresome Madison mothers entertained their children by taking them to see the desk and other inventions created by John Muir, then a student at the University of Wisconsin. They were jammed in Muir’s dorm…

While Wisconsin communities in the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries feared the prospect of death by disease, they understood it to be an aspect of daily life. Many people fell ill to malaria or influenza, which were seen as seasonal occurrences. Outbreaks of tuberculosis were not uncommon.1 In order to address the daily burdens of disease, physicians and quacks alike developed hopeful cures. Such cures often went hand in hand with the use of water for health and healing. Advertisements for miracle influenza cures ran frequently in local newspapers, along with directions for use. “Brandreth’s pills are a sure cure for influenza” occupied space in the Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette on April 1, 1839. “Swallow six or eight pills[;] a large dose is absolutely necessary to relieve the brain. .…

While clearing land for Triglav Park on Wisconsin’s Wind Lake in the 1960s, Ivan “John” Bambic cut down a linden tree. Recalling from his younger days in Slovenia a neighbor who would make wind-powered whirligigs to scare away birds, Bambic brought a piece of the tree home and began to carve. Thus began Bambic’s lifelong hobby, carving hundreds of whirligigs documenting scenes locked away in his memory: a blacksmith pounding on a forge, birds shuffling about on branches, a butcher cutting meat. In this piece, the wind sets in motion a saw blade for a worker cutting a board, while the arms of the other worker pull a drawknife across a piece of wood. Bambic (b. 1922) grew up on a farm in Slovenia but was drafted to fight against…