Science & Medicine

Le Maire Sundial / Green Bay / Region 5 - Center East / Brown County / Science & Medicine / Object Histories / Global Connections

OBJECT HISTORY: Le Maire Sundial

The Le Maire Sundial is a rare example of a mid-18th century French sundial (cadran solaire) compass (boussole). It was found near Green Bay in 1902 by a local antiquities collector, Frank Duchateau. The sundial is broken, missing its glass compass cover as well as the back of its gnomon holder. Located on the front surface,…

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March 9, 2019

Employers Mutual Audiometer / Wausau / Region 2 - North East / Marathon County / Science & Medicine / Object Histories / 1960-1980

OBJECT HISTORY: Employers Mutual Audiometer

This Maico Audiometer was one of many devices used by health and safety consultants of the Employers Mutual Liability Insurance Company of Wisconsin throughout the mid-to-late 1960s. Employers Mutual was the very first workers compensation insurance company in the United States. The company was founded in Wausau, Wisconsin, in 1911 shortly after the nation’s first workers compensation law was…

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March 9, 2019

Home Furnishings / Manufacturing & Trade / Science & Medicine / Object Histories / 1900-1920

OBJECT HISTORY: Vacuum

People in the early 20th century witnessed the invention of all kinds of household tools we take for granted today, such as the vacuum cleaner, laundry machine, and refrigerator. This is a manual vacuum cleaner from 1911 at the Wisconsin Historical Museum. This small upright vacuum was designed to be operated by hand and easy…

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September 10, 2018

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

Tools used in a cupping kit, from left to right: scarificator, cup, syringe. Image courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Outagamie County / Region 5 - Center East / Appleton / Cupping Kit / 1860-1880 / 1880-1900 / Science & Medicine / Object Histories

OBJECT HISTORY: Cupping Kit

Cupping therapy is a medical treatment in which local suction is created on the skin in an effort to increase blood flow to promote healing or restore humoral health balance. It was practiced as early as the Hippocratics and persisted in high medical popularity until the late nineteenth century. This particular kit belonged to Dr. James T. Reeve a physician…

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June 9, 2018

1600-1800 / Brown County / Region 5 - Center East / Green Bay / Le Maire Sundial / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Politics, Society & Government / Science & Medicine / Religion / Global Connections

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