Innholdsfortegnelse for Fall 2020 i Wisconsin Magazine of History

TAIL GUNNER JOE. It was the perfect nom de guerre for this pugilistic Marine, Joseph Raymond McCarthy, as he launched his first run for statewide office in 1944—casting himself as a World War II warrior fending off Japanese Zeroes as his crew navigated the perilous skies near their Pacific Islands, and a GI Joe keeping safe pint-sized Jacks and Jills back in the Badger State. This battle-tested veteran knew not just how to command attention with his very name, but how to offer up the kind of unflinching, stabilizing leadership that postwar Wisconsin craved. And it worked, at first. The campaign literature for Joe’s Senate run touted his handle and his heroism, and so did the newspapers. “Appleton Captain Has Triple Exploit While Off Duty,” screamed a headline in the…

I enjoyed reading Matthew Noojin’s article about Zona Gale in the summer issue. Though I was born in Madison, I grew up in Grinnell, Iowa, as Hannah Gale before returning to live in Madison as an adult. My grandmother, Floy Van Dusen, lived in Portage and attended the UW–Madison from 1887–1891. She moved north and married Charles I. Gale (from Brooklyn, New York) in 1892 in Prentice. I asked my father, Grant O. Gale (UW–Madison 1926) if we were related to Zona Gale. He said, “We were not related but occasionally confused. We sometimes got her mail at home.” This would have been sometime between 1911 and 1916, confusing Floy Gale in Prentice with Zona Gale in Portage. I have one Zona Gale book and have often wanted to know…

We have had deep snow. No teams passed for over three weeks, but as soon as the drifts could be broken through Mary Scott sent her boy Frank around to say she was going to have a quilting. Everybody turned out. Letter dated February 7, 1841, Ohio1 Quilting and quilts have had a powerful hold on the hearts and imaginations of Americans for more than two centuries. Since the late eighteenth century, quilting has represented a form of community for American women, a way to bring them together when they spent much of their time isolated in their homes, especially as families moved farther west. Later, quilts came to symbolize a romanticized version of that past, one that glorified a hardy, self-sufficient, frugal, and resourceful lifestyle. As a result, quilts…

On November 27, 1923, the last surviving Wisconsin veteran of Company F, Twenty-Ninth Regiment, United States Colored Infantry (USCI), was laid to rest in Walnut Hill Cemetery in Baraboo. Aaron Roberts’s adult life began early when he lied about his age in order to volunteer to fight for the Union and against slavery in the Civil War. After his service, he was a farmer, husband, father and grandfather, carpenter, entrepreneur, minister, and a respected member of every community in which he lived. He was buried in the veterans’ section of the cemetery by his white comrades of the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic and his black brothers of the Madison Masonic Lodge.1 Aaron Roberts came from a community of multiracial families with roots in northern North…

FROM TIK-TOK, THE MECHANICAL MAN IN L. FRANK BAUM’S WIZARD OF OZ books, to BB-8, the rolling droid in the recent Star Wars films, robots have long been a part of our popular culture. In the 1930s, the International Harvester Company introduced a robotic ambassador named Harvey Harvester, pictured at top at the 1938 Iowa State Fair. Built from IH tractor parts, the friendly automaton greeted visitors at state and local fairs. While the mechanics were rudimentary—Harvey was little more than an IH employee’s voice projected through a strategically positioned intercom system—he was, no doubt, an eye-catching attraction that provided some fun banter for fairgoers. By 1960, Harvey needed an upgrade, so IH introduced the very impressive Tracto, pictured at bottom. Built using 227 IH parts and standing eight feet…

FROM TIK-TOK, THE MECHANICAL MAN IN L. FRANK BAUM’S WIZARD OF OZ books, to BB-8, the rolling droid in the recent Star Wars films, robots have long been a part of our popular culture. In the 1930s, the International Harvester Company introduced a robotic ambassador named Harvey Harvester, pictured at left at the 1938 Iowa State Fair. Built from IH tractor parts, the friendly automaton greeted visitors at state and local fairs. While the mechanics were rudimentary—Harvey was little more than an IH employee’s voice projected through a strategically positioned intercom system—he was, no doubt, an eye-catching attraction that provided some fun banter for fairgoers. By 1960, Harvey needed an upgrade, so IH introduced the very impressive Tracto, pictured at right. Built using 227 IH parts and standing eight feet…