Innholdsfortegnelse for Autumn 2016 i Wisconsin Magazine of History

Less than a year after Republican revolutionaries seized control of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections, eight-term Wisconsin 3rd District representative Steve Gunderson laughed as he admitted to cable news show host Chris Matthews that he knew he was Republican before he knew he was gay.1 First elected to Wisconsin’s 91st Assembly District in 1975, Gunderson could not have foreseen the political events that would drive such an intense national interest in his personal life at the twilight of his political career. He later admitted that had he known the trials he would face in the 1990s, he would never have run for the US Congress.2 By the fall of 1995, though, Gunderson had grown accustomed to the pressure-cooker political atmosphere his identity attracted, both from antigay elements within the…

Letters Thanks to Matt Blessing and the Wisconsin Magazine of History for the article in the Spring 2016 issue on young John Muir’s brilliant but brief career as an inventor. For me, the article raised the question of whether future naturalist Muir (1838–1914) encountered Wisconsin’s first environmental advocate, the multifaceted Milwaukeean Increase Lapham (1811–1875), biologist, geologist, archeologist, meteorologist, and writer. While I found no mention of Muir in Lapham’s correspondence and journals in the WHS archives, I did find evidence that the two men were likely in the same room at the same time during the Wisconsin State Fair in Madison in 1860. In The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, Muir tells how, upon entering the fairgrounds in Madison, he was directed to the Fine Arts Hall as the place to display…

When it comes to circus heritage, few states compare with Wisconsin. Over one hundred shows originated from within its borders. Communities including Antigo, Wonewoc, Sparta, Racine, and Janesville can all claim to be the hometown of a circus. Delavan served as the home base, at one time or another, to twenty-six shows.1 Some circuses lasted only a few weeks, while others, like the Ringling Brothers Circus, grew to be the standard bearer of the industry. Some were innovators, like the Barnum & Bailey Circus, which started when Dan Castello convinced P. T. Barnum to come out of retirement and lend his name to a new railroad-based circus. It was such an incredible commercial and financial success that it transformed the circus profession forever. Then there were the Lindemann brothers, Pete,…

“Though today we are citizens—loyal citizens— of the great United States, we do feel a deep connection to our dear home country.”1 These words introduced a new German-language newspaper, Germania, on June 18, 1873. The weekly paper, which was published in Milwaukee, was one of the many German-language newspapers scattered throughout the state of Wisconsin that served the numerous German American communities that had formed here. What arose as a side effect of German immigration and declined under the rise of US patriotism during World War I mirrors the state’s transition from a loose agglomeration of European immigrant groups to a society developing a shared state identity influenced by journalistic efforts to preserve facets of beloved Old World culture. Almost five and a half million German immigrants arrived in the…

When it comes to circus heritage, few states compare with Wisconsin. Over one hundred shows originated from within its borders. Communities including Antigo, Wonewoc, Sparta, Racine, and Janesville can all claim to be the hometown of a circus. Delavan served as the home base, at one time or another, to twenty-six shows.1 Some circuses lasted only a few weeks, while others, like the Ringling Brothers Circus, grew to be the standard bearer of the industry. Some were innovators, like the Barnum & Bailey Circus, which started when Dan Castello convinced P. T. Barnum to come out of retirement and lend his name to a new railroad-based circus. It was such an incredible commercial and financial success that it transformed the circus profession forever. Then there were the Lindemann brothers, Pete,…

One spring morning in 1855, Father Florimond J. Bonduel, Catholic missionary to the Menominee at Keshena, took an ax and chopped down the large cross he had erected in front of the mission chapel three years before. Furiously, he shouted that the Menominee were an ungrateful people who didn’t deserve the services of a priest.1 The Office of Indian Affairs had been notorious for its venality since its organization in 1834. All of its employees, from the commissioner down to the agents in the field, were political appointees, chosen for their party loyalty more than their honesty. They handled large amounts of money, paid to the various tribes in exchange for the lands on which they had lived for generations. Traders paid agents for licenses to trade with the tribe,…