Wisconsin 101

French Wisconsin at Fort la Baye

French explorers, voyageurs (fur traders), Jesuit priests, and other settlers began arriving in the Upper Great Lakes region of North America in the mid-1600s. Jean Nicolet supposedly landed near present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1634, naming the waterway La Baye des Puants, literally “Bay of…

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May 24, 2018

Region 2 - North East / Marathon County / Wausau / Employers Mutual Audiometer / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Politics, Society & Government / 1900-1920

The 1911 Workman’s Compensation Act and the Birth of an Industry

Wisconsin passed the nation’s first constitutionally upheld worker’s compensation law in 1911. It is one of the great successes of Progressive-era social legislation and a triumph of the Wisconsin Idea.[1]Previously, American workers toiling in industrialized workplaces had often faced the threat of injury at…

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May 24, 2018

Employers Mutual Audiometer / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / 1900-1920 / 1920-1940 / 1940-1960 / Education / 1960-1980

Promoting Workplace Safety

For an insurance company like Employers Mutual, it made sense to try to promote safety in the workplace. Reducing the number of industrial accidents would naturally lead to less money lost to claims. But Employers Mutual was also very adept at translating its…

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May 24, 2018

2000-2020 / 2020-2040 / Employers Mutual Audiometer / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Politics, Society & Government / Science & Medicine / 1940-1960 / 1960-1980 / 1980-2000

Preventing Hearing Loss

In 1953, Wisconsin added occupational hearing loss to the list of claimable conditions under workers compensation. Employers Mutual of Wausau quickly created a program that would make the company an industry leader in hearing loss prevention. Creating a hearing loss prevention program not only…

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May 24, 2018

The SS Meteor / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / 1880-1900 / 1900-1920 / 1920-1940 / Nature & Environment / 1940-1960 / 1960-1980 / Transportation & Tourism

Great Lakes Shipping and the SS Meteor

The SS Meteor sailed the lakes longer than most ships of her day, and in her many reincarnations she offers a portrait of how some of the industries on the Great Lakes changed– and what those changes meant for Wisconsin. Launched in 1896, the then-named Frank…

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May 21, 2018

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

The American Steel Barge Company

Duluth, MN and Superior, WI face each other across the Saint Louis Bay. In the mid-nineteenth century, as grain harvests of the northern plains expanded, logging grew, and as iron and copper mining developed in northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula, shipping…

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May 21, 2018