Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2020 i Wisconsin Magazine of History

Just how wide is the lens of history? From detailed family genealogy to the bold strokes of a nation’s founding era, we often think of history in terms of humans. Who we are is based on who we have been; our ancestry and experiences have shaped us. Even prehistory—the term for the period before written records—assumes a human connection. It isn’t “history” until it is written down. At the Wisconsin Magazine of History, we tend toward stories with people at their center, and, of course, our geographical and chronological scope is determined by our title. This is why, when author Marcia Bjornerud approached us with a story based in geologic time, we had to think about widening our lens. Could we run a story whose origin goes back 4.5 billion…

LATE AT NIGHT ON JUNE 30, 1920, JOSEPH DUNBAR and two friends left their cabins at George Williams College Camp in Williams Bay on popular Geneva Lake and set off in a canoe for a night paddle. What should have been a carefree diversion went tragically wrong. The three friends found themselves in the lake, their boat capsized. Just the previous day, the twenty-year-old Dunbar had won a swimming competition at the camp, so he attempted to swim to shore while his friends clung to the hull of the canoe calling for help. A neighbor, John A. Slocum, heard their screams and jumped in his rowboat (wearing only his pajamas) to assist the stranded boaters, but it was too late for Dunbar. He drowned trying to swim to shore.1 Dunbar’s…

THE NO. 45 SILSBY STEAM ENGINE HAS COME A LONG WAY. It was in active use in Berlin, Wisconsin, from 1886 to 1929. In those years, pulled by a pair of horses, the No. 45 sped down the streets with an assortment of whistles and bells that alerted everyone within a couple blocks. The Silsby steam engine was also a powerful fire engine, one that could pump five hundred to six hundred gallons of water every minute at distances of more than two hundred feet. This was thanks, in part, to its manufacturers, the Silsby Manufacturing Company in Seneca Falls, New York, who installed a rotary twin steam turbine to power the engine. Over time, the No. 45 fell into disuse, and dirt and clay were allowed to solidify inside…

THE NO. 45 SILSBY STEAM ENGINE HAS COME A LONG WAY. It was in active use in Berlin, Wisconsin, from 1886 to 1929. In those years, pulled by a pair of horses, the No. 45 sped down the streets with an assortment of whistles and bells that alerted everyone within a couple blocks. The Silsby steam engine was also a powerful fire engine, one that could pump five hundred to six hundred gallons of water every minute at distances of more than two hundred feet. This was thanks, in part, to its manufacturers, the Silsby Manufacturing Company in Seneca Falls, New York, who installed a rotary twin steam turbine to power the engine. Over time, the No. 45 fell into disuse, and dirt and clay were allowed to solidify inside…

Among the many benefits I enjoy with my membership in the Wisconsin Historical Society is your wonderful magazine. My interest was really piqued when I saw the Winter 2019 article about the Mikadow Theater in my hometown of Manitowoc. I had been an usher there in the 1950s and as I read on, I realized the story was set at the same time and that I knew the writer, Ken Neuser. Ken states that the staff became a close-knit group and that one of the ushers eventually married the candy girl. “Hmmmm,” I thought, “that would be me.” Ken remembers that he was paid forty-five cents per hour. I started the year before Ken at thirty-five cents. When I was asked to sweep out the theater between the matinee and…

Among the many benefits I enjoy with my membership in the Wisconsin Historical Society is your wonderful magazine. My interest was really piqued when I saw the Winter 2019 article about the Mikadow Theater in my hometown of Manitowoc. I had been an usher there in the 1950s and as I read on, I realized the story was set at the same time and that I knew the writer, Ken Neuser. Ken states that the staff became a close-knit group and that one of the ushers eventually married the candy girl. “Hmmmm,” I thought, “that would be me.” Ken remembers that he was paid forty-five cents per hour. I started the year before Ken at thirty-five cents. When I was asked to sweep out the theater between the matinee and…