Odd Wisconsin Archives: Curiosities
Printing presses were not something that pioneer settlers wanted to carry west. They were made of cast iron and weighed as much a winter's worth of provisions. To be useful, they had to be accompanied by an equally heavy load of lead type. Hauling them overland was impossible and shipping them down the Great Lakes was problematic. So it was... :: Posted on August 7, 2013
After a long weekend up north recently, we hunted down some memoirs by Wisconsin loggers. Everyone knows the stereotype -- flannel shirt, heavy boots, cheap tobacco, hearty appetite, maybe a blue ox -- but what was the reality? Among the best recollections was one by James Holden, who started his career in the Chippewa Valley in the winter of 1862.... :: Posted on August 1, 2013
Wisconsin had both real giants and mythological ones. The best known of the latter was probably Paul Bunyan, but 1,000 years earlier the Ho-Chunk had crafted tales about the hero Red Horn battling a race of giants: "In the early days there were Giants tall as trees and their bodies in proportion to their height; and their especial food seemed... :: Posted on July 18, 2013
In July 1854, John W. Quinney (1797-1855) returned home from Wisconsin. A leader of the Stockbridge (Mohican) Indians who helped organize the tribe's emigration to Wisconsin in the 1820s, Quinney had been invited to speak at July 4th celebrations in Reidsville, N.Y. In his speech there to 2,000 listeners, he described how to him the festivities marked "the triumphal days... :: Posted on July 3, 2013
The start of summer has been hot, wet, and sunny all at the same time. Wisconsin is a riot of plants bursting up from fertile ground and brimming streams pressing their banks. As a popular 19th-century emigrant handbook put it, "Summer seems to burst at once upon us, and when it comes, the full and gorgeous foliage of the woods,... :: Posted on June 25, 2013
Now that summer's undeniably here at last, most of us head for the outdoors. Whether it's a cottage up north or a tent in a state park, we turn to nature to restore our souls. This is why Henry Thoreau claimed that "in wildness is the preservation of the world." But it's also true that in wildness lies the destruction... :: Posted on June 19, 2013
Tornado season has arrived in full force with this week's hot, humid and volatile weather. Click over to Ready Wisconsin to learn how to protect yourself (and see some amazing pictures and video). You can also follow Ready Wisconsin on Twitter for local severe weather alerts as they happen. Many local media outlets will send a text message to your... :: Posted on May 30, 2013
"Growing crops cut off and chopped up. Orchards and groves riddled. Pigs and chickens killed and windows beaten in." So ran the headline in a Madison paper on July 10, 1878, describing a thunderstorm that passed across southern Wisconsin the previous day. April 15-19 is Severe Weather Awareness Week in Minnesota and Wisconsin, so let's have a look at Ghosts... :: Posted on April 16, 2013
Back in 1950, the irate owner of a Wisconsin summer resort "accosted the executive secretary of the Governor's Commission on Human Rights, shook his finger in her face, and demanded to know the names of the legislators who were responsible for the state's civil rights act." He was angry that he couldn't decide for himself who to serve or not... :: Posted on March 20, 2013
March is Women's History Month, so for the next few weeks Odd Wisconsin will occasionally focus on the lives of Wisconsin women. American Indian women, of course, have been making history here for thousands of years. Passing references to them occur throughout the 17th-century Jesuit Relations, but one of the earliest detailed accounts occurs in this 1702 letter by outraged... :: Posted on February 28, 2013
Every year for several decades, students have approached the Society's staff to learn about the Underground Railroad in Wisconsin. Slavery itself can be an awkward topic, especially for younger students. White kids often wonder how their ancestors could have owned other people as slaves and feel guilty or embarrassed, and black kids wonder how their ancestors could have put up... :: Posted on February 21, 2013
Here's a pop quiz for anyone who thinks they know Wisconsin history. The record of African-American life in our state begins in the year: a. 1967, with Milwaukee's fair housing marches; b. 1866, when Ezekiel Gillespie won the right to vote; c. 1792, when Black fur traders settled at Marinette; d. 1724, when an African-American slave was killed by the... :: Posted on February 1, 2013
In Germany they speak German; in China, Chinese. So how come, here in the center of No. America, we speak English? When the French and Indian War (1755-1763) broke out, the French controlled the interior of North America and the English the Atlantic seaboard. Here are a French map from 1757 and an English one from 1754 showing what they... :: Posted on February 1, 2013
One of the most profound differences between our own lives and those of earlier people is that we spend many hours awake after the sun sets. For nearly all of the 12,000 years that humans have lived in Wisconsin, sunset marked the end of each day. To work after dark required artificial light. Available fuels, usually wood or animal fats,... :: Posted on January 24, 2013
Stressed out by holiday parties, cooking, shopping, travel plans, house cleaning, and the whole annual onslaught of holiday obligations? Relax for a minute, and consider how people used to cope with the holidays. Our earliest French settlers devoted Christmas to celebrations at home and piety at church, especially midnight mass. Achille Bertrand, who arrived in Superior in 1857, recalled that... :: Posted on December 16, 2012
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