Wisconsin 101

Wisconsin’s Migrant Housing Laws

Before World War II, most of the migrant workers in Wisconsin’s pickle fields were single young men, and pickle companies provided housing for workers in large dormitories. After World War II, however, farmers began to hire more families to harvest pickles in…

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September 1, 2017

Read more about the article Migrant Labor and Door County Cherries

Oliver, Sheldon, and Glen Fardig help in the Fardig Orchard in Ephraim, WI, c. 1930. Photograph courtesy of the Ephraim Historical Foundation.

Door County / Cherryland T-Shirt / Region 5 - Center East / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Food & Cooking / Politics, Society & Government / Nature & Environment / 1920-1940 / 1940-1960 / Transportation & Tourism

Migrant Labor and Door County Cherries

Early Door County cherry orchards relied heavily on local workers, and all members of the family that owned a cherry orchard were expected to contribute. From the planting process, spraying of fungicides, pruning, and finally cherry picking, each cherry tree required a…

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July 1, 2017

Read more about the article The Cherry Industry in Door County

Image courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Image ID: 48771.

Door County / Cherryland T-Shirt / Region 5 - Center East / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Food & Cooking / 1880-1900 / 1900-1920 / Nature & Environment / 1920-1940 / 1940-1960 / Transportation & Tourism

The Cherry Industry in Door County

While early European immigrants in Door County survived by subsistence farming, efforts in later years to grow cash crops proved challenging, due in large part to the area’s rocky landscape. Despite little success with traditional crops, Door County residents continued to look…

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July 1, 2017

Read more about the article The Fromm Fur Farm

Captive foxes on a pelting range. Date unknown. Photograph courtesy of the Marathon County Historical Society.

Marathon County / Region 2 - North East / Related Stories / Hamburg / Fromm Fox Fur Coat / Manufacturing & Trade / Clothing & Fashion / 1900-1920 / Nature & Environment / 1920-1940 / 1940-1960 / 1960-1980

The Fromm Fur Farm

The land that became the Fromm Fur Farm was first settled by Joachim Nieman, a forester who came to Wisconsin as part of the mass immigration from Germany after 1848. He gave his daughter Alwina a quarter section of undeveloped wilderness near…

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January 1, 2017

The history of fur and fashion runs deep in North America. October 1953 issue of Vogue.

Fashion and Fur

The End of the Old Fur TradeThe development of fur farms at the close of the 19th century was perhaps the most revolutionary change in North America’s fur industry, and fashion played a significant role in that change. Beaver pelts had been the…

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January 1, 2017

Read more about the article Canine Distemper and the Fromm Vaccine

After the Fromm’s successfully supported development of a distemper vaccine in foxes, they started Fromm Laboratories as a commercial venture on their second property between Grafton and Thiensville, c. 1940s. Photograph courtesy of the Oazaukee County Historical Society.

Marathon County / Region 2 - North East / Related Stories / Hamburg / Fromm Fox Fur Coat / Manufacturing & Trade / Science & Medicine / Nature & Environment / 1920-1940

Canine Distemper and the Fromm Vaccine

One of the most formidable problems that fur farmers faced in in the early twentieth century were the epidemic diseases that would strike their herds each year. Many fur farmers had come to see losses to distemper and other diseases as a…

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January 1, 2017