Wisconsin 101

Read more about the article OBJECT HISTORY: Trade Blanket

A trade blanket, with the "points" visible on the right side of the picture. Image courtesy of Ron Dennis.

OBJECT HISTORY: Trade Blanket

This blanket, ordinary though it may seem, tells the story of an important meeting of cultures that occurred in Wisconsin between 1634 and 1763. Not long after the explorer Jean Nicolet first set foot in Wisconsin, French traders saw an opportunity to make money by sending beaver furs back to Europe for use in stylish…

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September 10, 2018

Douglas County / Region 1 - North West / Superior / The SS Meteor / Manufacturing & Trade / 1880-1900 / Object Histories / Transportation & Tourism

OBJECT HISTORY: The SS Meteor

The SS Meteor was launched as the SS Frank Rockefeller in Superior, Wisconsin by the American Steel Barge Company in 1896. The last remaining of only 44 “whaleback” ships ever built, she was designed by a Scottish immigrant named Alexander McDougall. She is 380 feet long, 45 feet wide and 26 feet deep. You may notice that the SS Meteor looks somewhat different…

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September 10, 2018

Read more about the article The Record Production Process

Disc-cutting lathe, 1930s.

Ozaukee County / Grafton / Paramount Records 78 / Region 8 - South East / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Art, Sport & Entertainment / 1920-1940

The Record Production Process

Paramount Record’s parent company, the United Phonographic Corporation, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company, decided to begin recording and pressing records to include with their phonograph cabinets in the early 1920s. Paramount initially recorded in studios throughout the United States. They…

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August 24, 2018

Ozaukee County / Port Washington / Paramount Records 78 / Region 8 - South East / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Art, Sport & Entertainment / 1900-1920 / 1920-1940

Paramount Records

The Wisconsin Chair Company’s (WCC) decision to enter the record label industry was an economic one. With their subsidiary company, the United Phonographic Corporation (UPC), picking up steam, management at the WCC began pressing records. The UPC’s first record labels, Puritan and…

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August 24, 2018

Horlick's Malted Milk / Related Stories / Food & Cooking / Manufacturing & Trade / Science & Medicine / 1880-1900 / Global Connections

Malted Milk and Infant Nutrition

Although known today mostly as a flavoring for milk shakes and chocolate-covered malt balls, malted milk made its first appearance in the 1880s as a substitute for human breast milk. At that time, breastfeeding babies began to lose its appeal among both…

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August 3, 2018

The Wisconsin Chair Company

Founded in 1888 by Frederick A. Dennett, the Wisconsin Chair Company (WCC) was perhaps the most important business in Ozaukee County at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. The company, located along the northern shore of the…

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July 16, 2018