th The alumni can culture. Louis Lochner ’09, who was university “birthday parties” that function 1899–1924 magazine the editor from 1910 to 1913, went on to even today as the main annual event for Happy debuted when the university was in the become the Pulitzer Prize-winning head WAA’s alumni clubs around the country. midst of change. The November 1899 of the Berlin Associated Press bureau. Some early editions were full of issue carried an article by Dean John One early editor gave the magazine tedious articles penned by professors Birthday Johnson of the College of Mechanics and a literary bent, while others focused on about dry academic topics. We couldn’t Engineering, who argued that it was the campus advocacy. Still others added var- wade through all of “The Broadening proper function of a state university to ious departments1899-1924 and news of what Field of Engineering,” by Professor M.C. teach sanitary science, chemical engi- other publications had to say about the Beebe. But if you’d like to try it, check neering, and commerce, as well as the university. Max Loeb ’06, who typical classical curriculum. University took the helm in 1906, brought 100 enrollment had reached almost two with him some solid journalistic thousand, an unprecedented level. And integrity. In his first editorial, he ON WISCONSIN! Robert La Follette, Sr. 1879 was elected stated, “This magazine is going governor the following year, kicking off to say just what it thinks con- the start of the Progressive era. cerning matters connected with n 1899, the creation of the UW Graduate School was five years The first issue was only six by nine the University. Possibly it will away, and the Red Gym was five years old. William McKinley was inches in size and bore a canary yellow make some enemies. Plain cover. Leading stories dealt with Profes- speaking almost always necessi- president of the United States, Jell-O and aspirin were invented, sor Stephen Moulton Babcock, to whom tates treading on somebody’s and the Wisconsin Alumni Association published its first journal the legislature had just granted a medal toes. But we are going to speak for UW graduates, fittingly called the Wisconsin Alumni magazine. for his celebrated butterfat test; and the plain.” Loeb called for alumni to The 1899 baseball Team was quite a dapper crowd. IIt was not until the magazine got its start that the alumni associa- Poughkeepsie crew race, which the recruit athletes, pushed for an tion truly came into its own and found a focus for its activities, now Wisconsin team had just lost because alumni directory, which he got in 1907, the February 1913 edition in the Below it rowed into a floating berry crate. and frowned on the growing university Alumni Center’s library. that it had a vehicle to mobilize Wisconsin graduates. Several prominent figures were asso- emphasis on laboratories (speaking But, technical topics aside, the older ciated with the magazine’s early years. plainly, in this instance, on his personal issues also captured a poignant sense of For one amazing century, On Wisconsin Magazine has connected alumni with The committee that had been appointed priorities). real people, as did an obituary for a to start the publication included Charles For more than two decades, the young German professor, Harriet Rem- each other, with the university, and with the many ways that UW-Madison has Van Hise 1879, who later became univer- Wisconsin Alumni editors doubled as ington Laird 1888, who died after giving helped to shape our modern world. sity president. The first editor, Charles “general secretaries” or heads of the birth. “Athough she has gone from before Allen 1899, had been editor of the Daily alumni association. Robert Crawford ’03, our eyes, we can still feel the charm of her presence and the gentle grace of her Through twenty-one editors and several changes in size, publishing Cardinal, and later became a UW by the magazine’s own admission an unre- professor of botany. His magazine staff markable editor who “threw the book personality,” read the tribute. By the time frequency, style, and name, the magazine has kept alumni up to date on included none other than Frederick together,” nevertheless distinguished him- the reader reaches the passage about her university happenings. It has met the challenge of conveying “what the Jackson Turner 1884, the historian who self by building membership in young son never getting to know her, it’s university really is and what it really does,” a charge outlined by uni- originated the concept of Western expan- the association and start- hard to hold back a tear for this alumna versity president Charles Adams in its first issue. Indeed, our readers sion as a formative influence on Ameri- ing Founders Days, who died nearly a century ago. have great faith in the magazine and its publisher, WAA, to keep them connected with the life of the campus and with each other.

For instance, a few years ago, someone found a 1963 UW class ring The airplane Academic credit was with the initials PMW engraved on it, and asked if WAA could return was first flown given to UW students by the Wright Vernon and Irene who enlisted in the it to the owner. Thanks to a series of searches on our database of four Brothers. Castle invented the war effort. hundred thousand alumni records, we were able to return the ring to 1903 fox trot. 1918 ᮡ ᮡ surprised WAA life member Paul Martin Wolff ’63, who thought it was 1899 ᮢ ᮢ gone forever when he lost it in the ocean twenty years ago. 1906 1924 That anecdote epitomizes what On Wisconsin is all about — reunit- Barbershop 15 states had The UW’s Harry ing Badgers with their most treasured UW memories and experiences. quartets and automobile Steenbock discovered that vaudeville speed limits of irradiating food with We hope you enjoy this journey through the pages of past maga- were big. 20 miles per ultrviolet light increases zines and the campus history they recorded. Here’s to the next century hour. its vitamin D content. of keeping Wisconsin alumni connected!

WINTER 1999 21 Advances in am, in the heart of Oregon’s great out- help produce a university handbook, solicited alumni help to build up a stu- the Badger men and women who were 1925–1949 printing technol- doors, in the Cascade mountains, forty which was included in the next issue and dent loan fund. serving overseas. ogy make the past issues pale in compari- miles from another cabin and sixty miles distributed throughout the state. It con- Thoma changed the name of the Once the war was over, Clay from a railroad. Congratulations on the tinued to hammer on the crisis theme, monthly from the Wisconsin Alumni to the Schoenfeld ’41, MA’49, another former best issue of the Alumni Magazine I have with a cover exhorting alumni to “Do Wisconsin Alumnus, and in the late thir- Cardinal editor, assumed the editorship, ever seen, and I haven’t missed an issue Your Utmost for Wisconsin,” and pro- ties, the Alumnus began to focus on the and promptly took advantage of the end for twenty years.” claiming, “the time to pussyfoot is past.” new ROTC program as U.S. involve- of rationing. He returned the size to Letter writer Margaret Purcell ’25 The legislature relented and appropriated ment in World1925-1949 War II seemed increas- forty pages and introduced more feature said her issues were even of interest to a respectable operating budget, as well ingly likely. Articles also alluded to stories with plenty of photos. The UW students of other institutions. “When I as $1.5 million for a building secret projects in the chemistry and engi- was bustling, as enrollment mushroomed was attending George Washington fund. neering labs. from 11,000 to 23,500, and new University during the past semester, I In 1928, the Wisconsin The February ‘screwed up courage’ enough to bring my Alumni Association moved 1942 cover featured UW Undergraduate Tuition ‘Mag’ to classes with me. It was not long out of its quarters on State university president Through the Ages (Per Year) before I had a group of interested specta- Street to the Memorial Clarence Dykstra tors waiting each month to see my copy, Union, and magazine head- commissioning four Resident Non-Resident and I was always quarters moved with it. As young second lieu- 1900: $20.00 $50.00 proud to show it. the Roaring Twenties came tenants. For several 1925: $31.00 $155.00 1950: $120.00 $420.00 I need not add was threatening to reduce the university’s to a close, the publication years, the magazine that pictures of again turned to the pool of was dominated by 1975: $630.00 $2,206.00 budget, and the overcrowded campus had 1999: $3,737.70 $13,051.70 this great insti- not received any building funds for more recent grads and found an articles about Badgers tution ‘out west’ than a decade, a special article detailed editor in Harry Thoma in the service and lists were sought the crisis. The magazine stated none too ’28, who had been presi- of those who had been campuses were set up virtually overnight with avidity.” subtly that in 1924, Wisconsin residents dent of his class and edi- killed in action. In to accommodate the influx of veterans. By its spent twice as much money on candy and tor of the Badger. Aided 1942, the editor himself In a fiftieth-anniversary edition, son to today’s graphically dynamic, twenty-fifth by a long tenure that left for active duty. For editor Schoenfeld wrote that the maga- four-color editions. And the great chewing gum as the university received birthday, the lasted from 1929 until the remainder of the zine had “remained steadfastly an alumni emphasis given to meticulously report- from the state; about eight times as much ing each action of the administration Wisconsin for rouge and lipstick and other “personal 1942, Thoma brought war, the Alumnus was publication rather than simply a univer- proves deadly to modern sensibilities. Alumni had adornment”; and more than thirty times more credibility to the headed by Jeanne Lam- sity administration publication, stooping But in spite of this, the early journals become a as much for “pleasure automobiling.” Tax- magazine and presided oreaux Leonard ’40, and neither to petty criticisms nor to insipid inspired great loyalty in their readers. powerful payers could afford these luxuries, went over a period of much then by Polly Coles praise.” Best of all, the Alumnus earned Would you take your alumni maga- tool for the reasoning, but they could not afford change. As he took Haight Burgess ’39. Paper many national awards for editorials, zine on vacation with you? In 1926, one shaping opinion. (Not by coinci- to support their state university. office, the stock market had shortages cut the magazine features, and art during this era, and was alum wrote: “Just before starting on a dence does the term “magazine” also Walter Frautschi ’24, the late crashed, and soon the Depression began back to twenty-four pages, but the named one of the “ten best alumni publi- fishing trip, the Magazine came and I refer to a place to store ammunition.) In campus benefactor and printing scion, to affect the university. Enrollment alumni association did its part to build cations in the country” by the American chucked it into my pack sack and here I 1925, when the legislature temporarily joined the editorial staff to dropped, and Thoma and others morale by sending free magazines to all Alumni Council in 1948 and 1949.

Tuition boosts — blamed on The Kinsey Report revealed The popular comic legislative budget cuts — brought that 85 percent of married strips Little Orphan Wisconsin residents’ tuition up men had had premarital Billie Holiday, Annie, Flash Gordon, The Charleston from $96 per year to $150, and sex, and 50 percent were Ella Fitzgerald, and Buck Rogers, and went out; swing non-residents’ from $296 to $450. unfaithful. Frank Sinatra were Dick Tracy debuted. dancing came in. 1948 1949 favorites. ᮡ ᮡ 1925 ᮢ ᮢ ᮢ “Amos ’n’ Andy,” Jack Mid-1930s 1945 1949 55 percent of Benny, and George The first American homes Modern plastics Burns and Gracie Allen Beetlemania: atomic bomb had indoor were invented. made radio audiences The first Volks- was tested. plumbing. laugh. wagen appears in America (price: $800).

Broadway was the last word in entertainment.

22 ON WISCONSIN WINTER 1999 23 Circulation was of thing.” Apparently, powder puff foot- the once-a-week cleaning of individuals’ In addition to the challenge of Paul Soglin ’66, JD’72, the well-known 1950–1974 up to eighteen ball took a great deal more exertion than, rooms by maids, something provided “feeling the excitement that came student activist who was later elected to thousand readers by mid-century, and say, giving birth. only for men’s dormitories. with the times and finding a way to two terms as mayor of Madison. the pages of the magazine were filled To commemorate the The sixties brought yet pass that electricity on to the read- In 1967, WAA finally had its own with reports of an increase in married UW STUDENT first time Wisconsin went to another decade of massive ers,” Hove was also faced with campus home, in the form of a new and graduate students, steeper tuition ENROLLMENT: prices, and the advent of teacher assess- the Rose Bowl, the maga- change to campus. Chroni- describing the new “multiversity” Alumni House at 650 North Lake Street. zine printed its January 1900: 1,848 cling the rising protest and the growing complexity of acad- One year later, Thomas Murphy ’49, the ment. 1924: 7,632 They also included lighter fare, such 1953 issue with rose-scented movement fell to Arthur emic life 1950-1974that it represented. As cam- magazine’s longest-tenured editor at as an item that noted the cancellation of a ink. Editor George Richard 1925: 7,760 Hove ’56. Like most of the pus research began to play a more twenty years, inherited the challenge of so-called “powder bowl” girls’ football ’47 covered topics such as 1949: 18,623 editors before him, Hove important role in the national econ- presenting a positive, yet objective, view game. The game was called off because the UW’s civil defense plan, was a one-man publishing omy, the university was expanding its which was slated to house 1950: 15,766 house, handling all the edit- mission to become a major force in infirmary director John Brown called 1974: 35,931 football “too strenuous a sport for girls and feed nearly five thou- ing, layout, photography, transforming day-to-day life. . . . they just aren’t in training sand evacuees on twenty- 1975: 38,545 proofreading, and Class And then there was the building for that sort four hours’ notice, and the 1999: 40,610 Notes writing for eleven program. “In the sixties,” says Hove, installation of milk vending issues per year. He devel- “you couldn’t build the buildings fast machines on campus. The oped the publication’s enough, and there was an explosion of machines boosted the university’s milk photos in his bathtub at home. One of our enrollment, going from roughly fif- consumption so much that the magazine Hove’s goals was, “as objectively and teen thousand at the end of the 1950s speculated that the milk break would to well beyond thirty thousand by the become as popular as the coffee break. It comprehensively as possi- middle of the sixties. Everything was was during the Richard era that the ble, to tell our readers what was begin- happening at once, everywhere!” Alumnus got a new cover, which included ning to happen as the antiwar movement Hove has a favorite anecdote from a much larger central image designed to grew in size and culminated in the bomb- those tumultuous years. One day, a be “less strain on the bifocals.” ing [of Sterling Hall].” group of students were marching from The magazine reported that in There are always people who frown the Memorial Union to the engineering the fall of 1955, a new course was on covering any news that can be con- campus to protest military recruiters offered — housekeeping. “It’s not an strued as negative, says Hove, who is there. Hove and a few other reporters actual course,” ran the report, “but now retired from his most recent position walked along with the group, and then men living in dormitories will as a special assistant to the provost. “And decided to get ahead of them, the better of the university as student riots contin- undergo a preinduction lesson in bed I never believed that — that our readers to see what would happen once the pro- ued. In an article titled “They Never making and housekeeping. Each were so unsophisticated that they didn’t testers arrived. “So we started walking Tried That Stuff in My Day,” Murphy resident will be responsible for want to know what was going on,” he really fast,” says Hove, “and this fellow presented the reality of a new campus no keeping his room clean at all other says. “What we tried to do was provide who was one of the organizers who was longer governed by in loco parentis. times and for making his bed at all them with enough information to make in the front said, ‘Hey, you guys, slow times.” The new plan eliminated up their own minds.” down, slow down!’ ” That fellow was

Poodle skirts and Chubby In a campus-wide referendum, Checker somehow metamor- students were asked whether coeds McDonald’s opened phosed into love beads and Andy Warhol’s Richard Nixon resigned should be permitted to stay out its first franchise. the Doors. Afternoon stops Campbell’s soup Neil Armstrong amid calls for impeach- later on weekends. Men students A burger cost at the soda fountain were cans put the took his first steps ment following the voted yes, but women voted no. fifteen cents. replaced by afternoon bra spotlight on on the moon. Watergate scandal. 1952 1955 burnings. pop art. 1969 1974 ᮡ ᮡ ᮡᮡ 1950 ᮢ ᮢ ᮢᮢ 1952–1955 “I Love Lucy” 1969 1970 and drive-in The first 1967 More than The bombing of movies typified polio vaccine 400,000 Sterling Hall on the fifties enter- The first major protest against the was created. young people UW campus killed a tainment. Vietnam War took place on campus. Students marched on the chemistry gathered at graduate researcher. building, where Dow Chemical repre- Woodstock. sentatives were holding job interviews.

24 ON WINTER 1999 25 Street to the pink flamingos on Bascom and later, from the Communist Chinese. Wisconsin is a world-class institution, matriculated. Now it is a read-cover- Hill and the visit of the Statue of Liberty. It recorded a building boom to match the and its magazine should reflect that.” to-cover magazine with fascinating, But there were also more serious topics sixties, including the opening of Grainger In celebration of the university’s well-reported articles that I truly look to tackle, such as the growing financial Hall, the new Red Gym, and the Kohl sesquicentennial, the joint production forward to.” problems of higher education, rising Center, among others. effort expanded from its original two What more can we add? Tell us tuition costs, and drug abuse. The maga- In September 1990, a new joint issues to encompass the entire magazine. what topics will continue to make you zine continued to win national awards, effort saw two issues per year produced The fall of 1998 marked the debut of the look forward to On Wisconsin. Write us at including one from Harper’s Magazine in conjunction with the Office of News new On Wisconsin1975-1999, which has been rein- 650 North Lake Street, Madison, WI for a story by the editor on Gertrude and Public Affairs and the UW Founda- carnated as a quarterly, expanded from 53706, or e-mail us at Stein’s visit to campus in the thirties. tion, and the Wisconsin Alumni magazine forty-eight to sixty pages, and is now [email protected]. When he began in 1968, says became On Wisconsin. The nineties also sent to every UW-Madison graduate.

Murphy, “I had the luxury of writing inspired a series about illustrious gradu- The redesign included a new cover — By Niki Denison with Jill Cornell x’99, Sonya Jongsma primarily about a smaller university ates of bygone days, known affection- design, new departments, and an Knauss MA’99, and Kira Winter ’99. that had a more familial feeling.” ately around the office as “Famous Dead upgrade in paper stock. Pigorsch is now During the mid-eighties, enrollment Alumni,” and an award-winning cover co-editor along with Cindy Foss of the maxed out at forty-five thousand, and story on the hazards of lawn chemicals. university’s Office of News and Public Murphy admits that it was harder to In recent issues, the magazine has cov- Affairs. Thanks to this arrangement, On maintain an intimate tone with that ered tough topics such as binge drinking Wisconsin, which is still published by the large a campus. on campus, the ethics of corporate fund- Wisconsin Alumni Association, now It can be hard to keep the sense ing, and freedom of speech. It has pub- reaches more alumni than ever before of tradition and campus lore, and yes — lished profiles of accomplished alumni — some 253,500 — giving it the largest Editor Tom Mur- even campus identity. That challenge has ranging from author Stephen Ambrose circulation of any alumni magazine in 1975–1999 phy, now a paint- fallen to the magazine of the nineties. ’57, PhD’63 to movie producers David the latter persisted right up until the lake the country. ing instructor and artist, brought a folksy, Susan Schwanz Pigorsch ’80 became ’70 and Jerry ’72 Zucker. And the maga- had started to melt, and had to be res- With this increase in distribution conversational tone to the magazine and editor in 1987, and with her came a zine has enjoyed an increase in letters to cued when their section of frozen real came a renewed promise to “publish a portrayed the post- redesign, more color, a new cover, and the editor in the last several years, strik- estate became an island. It’s inspiration magazine that engenders feelings of sixties legacy by featuring contemporary like that that reminds us how wacky campus photography and art. As had edi- a return to the title Wisconsin Alumni. ing a chord with articles ranging from pride, strengthens connections with tors before him, he gave students a forum It’s been an eventful decade, one pain management to the history of WHA Badgers can sometimes be (see the late our alumni and other key constituents, by having them write about various topics wrought with much discussion about radio and high-tech teaching. seventies). and increases awareness of the Uni- ranging from Big Ten athletics to the not- race, diversity, and inclusivity. The maga- In 1996, the Alumni House was Long-time reader Fannie Taylor ’38, versity of Wisconsin-Madison as a life- so-glamorous world of being a TA. zine reported on the Madison Plan and remodeled into the stunning Below who was a professor of social education long resource.” In the late seventies, the magazine WAA’s efforts to help recruit promising Alumni Center, which, unlike the previ- on campus and the director of the Wis- One reader wrote, “Not too many fondly chronicled the infamous escapades students from inner-city Chicago, as well ous building, has real windows that dis- consin Union Theater, says that over the years ago, On Wisconsin was a publica- of Leon Varjian and his co-conspirators as on the Chinese alumni who hid three tract editors with tantalizing views of years, the magazine has increased its tion displayed on the coffee table so in the Wisconsin Student Association — thousand years’ worth of art treasures windsurfers in the summer, and ice fish- scope, “and it covers the campus in a all one’s friends would know you from the boom box parade on State from the Japanese during World War II, ermen in the winter. One year, several of much broader way. The University of

Personal Compact discs, computers cable and MTV, are used in Louise Brown, camcorders, The drinking age in 50 percent The United States the first test-tube tabloid TV, video the state changed of American celebrated its baby, was born in games, and from 18 to 19, and in The Berlin Wall bicentennial. England. aerobics came 1986, from 19 to 21. came down. homes. 1976 1978 on the scene. 1984 1989 1999 ᮡ ᮡ ᮡ ᮡ ᮡ 1975 ᮢ Moviegoers The Hustle, the The university approved a speech Music evolved 1997 flocked to The Bus Stop, and code in 1981, rewrote it in 1988, from rock to Dolly the sheep Graduate, Sat- break dancing all and significantly revamped it in punk, new became the first urday Night had their day. 1999. The issue of being politically wave, rap, hip cloned mammal. Fever, and E.T.; correct weighed heavily on hop, and “Cheers” was a university professors as well techno. hit on TV. as students.

26 ON WISCONSIN WINTER 1999 27 CRAIG SCHREINER

“People often don’t know the difference between an offset poster Munio Makuuchi (opposite) first drew his concept celebrating Wiscon- and a handmade, hand-printed etching,” says Renee Balkin, co-pub- sin’s wildness with drypoint on mirrored copper. With his keyplate lisher of Wisconsin’s Sesquicentennial Portfolio. “Once they see the (top left) complete, he collaborated with master printer and publisher succession of proofs — and the many steps it takes not just in the Andrew Balkin to bring his idea to life. The alchemy of Moon Catchers platemaking process, but in the printing process as well — they get a was created with eight inks on four plates pulled through Balkin’s better insight into this Old World tradition.” Alumnus and artist press four times to build a lasting impression on paper.

Prosser had sponsored the legisla- works by fifteen artists, that’s 2,812 t first impression, Seattle artist tion to create the Wisconsin Sesquicen- hours in press time alone. Munio Makuuchi MFA’75’s tennial Commission, but the former Perhaps contrary to good reason, sesquicentennial commission speaker of the state assembly hadn’t a Andrew Balkin and his co-publisher, A doesn’t look like much. After all, plate clue as to what it takes to bring fifteen Renee Koch Balkin ’77, ’87, jumped at number one in his twenty-two-by-thirty- Wisconsin printmakers collaborate to create an artists with Wisconsin connections — the opportunity. inch print reveals little more than including those of international renown For nearly twenty years, they’ve scratchy lines made on a piece of copper, — together for a project of this scale. He been pursuing perfection, producing fine enduring tribute to the state’s sesquicentennial. surrounded by a few stenciled fish. But didn’t know then that most other states art prints with invited artists in their by the time printers Rick Love and had only managed to commission a medal unassuming, but well-equipped, work Nikki Vahle Schneider MFA’98 make a or a stamp in honor of their statehoods, space. “Our publishing is a searching,” B Y S USAN P IGORSCH ’80 “I was just astounded at what I saw,” and that a collector’s portfolio of fine art says Andrew Balkin. “If an artist is will- second impression, the Japanese- Prosser recalls of that January 1997 visit. prints was basically a three-quarter- ing to collaborate with me, ideas will American’s mythical tiger muskie begins hen David Prosser, Jr. JD’68 He’d only intended to look at the work of million-dollar undertaking requiring an evolve as fine works of art.” So fine, in to leap forth from a Northwoods lake. It walked into the a.g.b. graphics one of his favorite artists. But upon seeing enormous investment of time. Each fact, is the emerging reputation of his arches toward an unknown orb, soon to Wworkshop on Madison’s South the rest of the fine art produced by master artist’s work could take up to five months printshop that even Bruce Nauman ’64 become — after a third and fourth time Park Street, the Wisconsin supreme court printer Andrew Balkin ’71, MA’76, to create and prepare for printing, and — one of a handful of America’s most through the press — the moon, lit by the justice had no idea that he’d change the lives MFA’77, he blurted out an idea: “Why don’t then ninety minutes to ink the plates and successful artists — has signed on as a strobe of the aurora borealis. Into the of the proprietors — and the history of Wis- you do a portfolio in honor of Wisconsin’s run just one print through the press. For contributor to Wisconsin’s Sesquicenten- curve of the fighting fish appears a consin printmaking — for years to come. sesquicentennial?” an edition of portfolios with individual nial Portfolio. female, round with child.

28 ON WISCONSIN WINTER 1999 29 “Attempting to paint or artists Käthe Kollwitz and

print the northern lights is PASKUS PHOTOGRAPHERS Otto Dix, and into an almost like trying to touch the face new medium that reflects of God,” says Makuuchi. “In the here and the now. Fit to Print Moon Catchers, the woman is “They are indeed a non- nature. She’s pregnant with lethal, gentle mafia,” writes absolutely no question that this will be true. The portfolio possibilities for Wisconsin’s Hove, “a widespread dias- will probably have more than doubled.” next 150 years.” pora that has found an entry A longtime print collector, Prosser recalls the story of Makuuchi’s former into the professions that are the New Republic magazine, which issued a portfolio that mentor at UW-Madison, part of print art: teaching, would be free to people who bought subscriptions in the

Professor Emeritus War- publishing, exhibiting, and RICHARD G.B. HANSON II early part of this century. “Edward Hopper produced a rington Colescott, says that evaluating.” Their influence print for that portfolio,” Prosser explains, “and so did John Moon Catchers has “that cer- is of national import, he says, Sloan, among six or seven others.” The magazine’s subscrip- tain Wisconsin stamp,” like filling what co-author Cole- tion drive fell short of expectations, but now those prints are the work of Bruce Nauman scott calls the “aesthetic vac- worth thousands. “You couldn’t get the Edward Hopper — another one of his former uum” between narrowly print alone for less than $15,000,” says Prosser. “That is, if students. “It’s integrity,” says focused workshops, such as you could even find it.” the dean of the university’s the well-known Tamarind in The escalating value of art is also nothing new to mas- printmaking dynasty. “Each New Mexico, which focuses ter printer Andrew Balkin ’71, MA’76, MFA’77, who is cre- artist works to his own stan- on lithography, and the high- ating Wisconsin’s Sesquicentennial Portfolio with fourteen dards. They don’t soften profile University of Iowa The art of printmaking has changed little since Dürer’s day, requir- ing precise handwork and ideas that stand the test of time. What’s other artists who accepted his invitation to join this collabo- their work to make it com- print shop, which is solely changed is the value of art, which has appreciated considerably. rative effort. His first fine art collection, agb 1 + 10, which mercial. Prints aren’t neces- devoted to intaglio — sold to subscribers for $2,075, included a print by the sarily supposed to be another form of printmaking. “There’s sort of an understanding that the value of the recently deceased Chicago artist Roger Brown. “Now that decorative works of art.” “Madison began to sesqui prints will actually double between the time they’re print is worth $3,000 alone,” says Prosser, adding that the Instead, they often deal with attract kindred spirits,” purchased and the time they’re produced,” says David Jim Nutt print in agb Encore is probably selling for $3,000, hard-edged reality, he says, Colescott notes. “The Prosser, Jr. JD’68, the Wisconsin supreme court justice and maybe more. and they can be as prickly as Following the “recipe” of master printer Andrew Balkin (center), Rick Love unorthodox, the experimen- who inspired the idea of a fine art project to commemorate In other words, the $7,500 subscription price to the burrs that arise on their and Nikki Vahle Schneider spend 90 minutes to prepare and pull each print of tal, and the adventuresome.” th Makuuchi’s Moon Catchers at the a.g.b. workshop on Park Street. When the Wisconsin’s 150 anniversary. “I’m not sure if that’s totally Balkin’s Sesquicentennial Portfolio may lure investors as etched copper plates. “But I two complete the Sesquicentennial Portfolio — 125 prints of each of fifteen That spirit is exactly what accurate. But by the time several years go by, there’s well as art lovers. — S.P. expect the artists who have invited artists with Wisconsin ties — they will have spent 2,812 hours at the the Sesquicentennial Portfo- joined this project will, like press. And that’s after Balkin has spent months with each artist, experiment- lio aims to capture. ing with the components of their images to achieve depth and emotion. Munio, most likely take a For the members of the Certainly, the list of participating Munio Makuuchi MFA’75 The Sesquicentennial Portfolio also softer approach to celebrate Wisconsin mafia who have country, at other universities, and in their UW-Madison alumni and faculty Seattle, Washington includes the works of the following the state.” taken on the challenge to salute their own studios, UW printmakers continue is impressive, including: artists with connections to the state: Printmaking is an enduring Wiscon- state — whether native or adopted — to transform their art, inventing new Frances Myers ’58, sin tradition. It’s been practiced in and thereby compete with former class- processes to add color and texture to line, Andrew Balkin ’71, MS’59, MFA’65 Susan Hunt-Wulkowicz Milwaukee since statehood, fostered by mates and faculty in the process, print- and to make the medium not only a ven- MA’76, MFA’77 Current chair of the UW-Madison Janesville, Wisconsin an influx of skilled German lithogra- making is not a stepsister to some higher erable form of artistic expression, but Madison printmaking program phers. Many of the immigrants who set- art form. Rather, it is a process of revela- also a forum for social commentary, and Hollandale, Wisconsin Martin Levine, Setauket, New York tled in the Midwest gained their first tion, the antithesis of a Renoir or Miró even satire. And it is from this uniquely Nancy Ekholm Burkert glimpse of the region through Milwau- “print” that’s sold by the thousands as a Wisconsin tradition that Balkin has ’54, MS’55, East Orleans, Massachu- Bruce Nauman ’64 Gladys Nilsson, Wilmette, Illinois kee-made etchings and prints. Then, fol- poster on State Street. “In creating an tapped the talent for what promises to be setts (formerly of Milwaukee) Galisteo, New Mexico lowing World War II, professors such etching, it’s not only the chemistry of a spectacular fine art collection. Ed Paschke, Evanston, Illinois as Arthur Sessler, Jack Damer, and sculpting an image in copper with acid,” Warrington Colescott John Wilde ’42, MS’48 Colescott launched a research-based says Balkin, “it’s alchemy.” It’s isolating Professor emeritus Professor emeritus Fred Stonehouse printmaking program at UW-Madison n Progressive Printmakers, a new book the components of an image and calculat- Hollandale, Wisconsin Evansville, Wisconsin West Allis, Wisconsin that would change art and art education published this fall by the University ing how colors and images will either in America. I of Wisconsin Press, campus histo- repel or build on one another to achieve Michelle Grabner William Wiley Tom Uttech, Saukville, Wisconsin In fact, graduates of the program rian Arthur Hove ’56, MA’67 and Profes- depth and emotion. Current faculty member Visiting Lecturer and their teachers are fondly known in sor Colescott document the renaissance Makuuchi’s muskie with woman, for Madison and Oak Park, Illinois Woodacre, California For more information on the the art world as the “Wisconsin mafia” of the art form, which evolved from the example, requires the preparation of four Sesquicentennial Portfolio, contact (as are the graduates of the UW’s film masters — Dürer, Rembrandt, and Goya John Anderson at (608) 255-5783. and real estate programs). Across the — past the political punch of German Continued on page 54

30 ON WISCONSIN WINTER 1999 31 A half-dozen prints are in various of his native New Orleans into colorful No one yet knows what Bruce stages of creation. Professor Emeritus and acute social commentary, will take on Nauman will create. He has chosen to John Wilde ’42, MS’48 is taking an another uniquely Wisconsin icon: the begin his plates in his own studio in Galis- octogenarian’s view of Wisconsin art his- Green Bay Packers. Several watercolor teo, New Mexico. Yet the most interna- tory. Known for his often-eerie focus on studies are already under wraps. tionally exhibited member of the how humans fit into the evolving, natural But not all prints in the collection Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Portfolio has RICHARD G.B. HANSON II (4) world, he is sketching ever so finely on will be so blatantly Badgeresque. Like always liked his own space, recalls Cole- glass — and then with various techni- Makuuchi, children’s book illustrator scott. He remembers the math-major- iques on copper — a group portrait of Nancy Ekholm Burkert ’54, MS’55 is turned-artist as quiet and “nearly seventy-five of the state’s leading artists. drawn to the mystique of the North- inscrutable,” while his output was prodi- Many of them are Wilde’s friends and woods, but depicts it through a child’s gious. “I talked technique, materials, ideas, colleagues, mentors or graduate stu- eyes. Tom Uttech, who studied with art history, anything I could think of to dents. He captures the state’s muse, from Nancy’s spouse, Robert Burkert ’52, establish a dialogue,” Colescott writes. the past to the present — from Frank MS’55, at UW-Milwaukee, will celebrate “Nauman’s dialogue was with his work” Lloyd Wright x1890 to Alfred Sessler, the Northwoods through a haunting — and also, with his jazz music. The artist who founded the printmaking program image of howling wolves. has said that he valued his professors — at UW-Madison, to Frances Myers ’58, Balkin has also been experimenting Sessler, Santos Zingale MS’43, and Cole- MS’59, MFA’65, the current chair. with some textures and patterns for UW scott among them — because they “held Myers, in fact, will be expanding on Professor Michelle Grabner, who often the belief, nurtured in those years, that art her previous work involving architecture incorporates ordinary objects, such as should be socially relevant.” and Wright for this project, focusing on wallpaper patterns and blanket weaves, Will it still be relevant here in fifty Madison’s new Monona Terrace Conven- into minimalist auras, elevating the years, encouraging a bicentennial print tion Center. “I’ll also be blending in writ- everyday. And the master printer himself portfolio? We expect that the Wisconsin ings by and about Wright and his will likely contribute to the collection mafia will put it on their hit list. philosophies,” she says, in a vein similar to something abstract, nonobjective, and

her widely exhibited work, Sheep’s Clothing. incredibly complicated to print. “Aqua- Susan Pigorsch ‘80 is lucky to claim a family member Her spouse, Warrington Colescott, who is tints are Andy’s specialty,” says Myers, among Wisconsin’s printmaking mafia — and to have a known for incorporating the raucous spirit “and the more complex, the better.” Wisconsin-made etching in her home.

In today’s fast-paced marketplace, printmaking is anything but quick. Here, alumna Nikki Vahle Schneider (top left) uses a stenciled template on an inked plate to roll highlights of surface color onto specific areas of Makuuchi’s etching. On plate number 3 (top right), she uses a squeegee to apply premixed Charbonnel inks, pushing color into the lines of previously etched copper. Once the inked plate and the slightly dampened art paper are put in register on the press bed (left), two tightly woven blankets are stretched over the paper to hold it snugly against the plate as Schneider cranks it through the press — four times in total for this image.

Impression labor is wasted on an imperfect print. fast-paced market. It’s the “fulfillment of Continued from page 30 “Warrington has suggested that I both the artist and the master printers’ edit down the number of plates I use and artistic efforts to produce great art.” plates with Charbonnel inks from France. limit their complexity — which would So, what if the Sesquicentennial Using squeegees and small rollers, the decrease the time in proofing and print- Portfolio comes out three-plus years after printers apply the color, pushing ink into ing,” says Balkin. “But I just can’t do it.” its inception? The contributing artists the lines of previously etched copper and “Art can’t be rushed,” admonishes (see sidebar on page 31) have come wiping away any excess with a coarsely Renee Balkin with a wry smile. As the co- together exactly because of Andrew woven cloth called a tarleton. Finally, publisher of the project and business man- Balkin’s fussy tutelage. They like his clas- with the rounded flesh of the palm, the ager, she wishes things would go a little sical approach, as well as the fact that the printers remove the last bit of surface ink faster. But as the spouse of the master tools of his trade are centuries old, going that’s not where it ought to be. If they printer, she acknowledges that printmaking back to a time in which craftsmanship miss as much as a speck, their hour-plus is not “quick,” nor is it geared to today’s was heralded as an art form unto itself.

54 ON WISCONSIN WINTER 1999 55 DAN PETERSON DAN

live in this jungle. “It was really weird,” with a mixture of friendship and respect she says, “because I’d always loved Wis- that makes me feel loved.” consin and still do. And why I felt all of a And there’s no doubt that the aston- sudden that it wasn’t home, and this ishing variety and “general weirdness” of place that I didn’t know was home — the Amazonian flora and fauna had her there’s no rhyme or reason to it at all.” completely captivated. When she reluctantly returned to the Teeming with wildlife, the largest U.S., Smith arranged to take a three- rain forest on earth boasts more species month leave-of-absence from her prac- of fish than the Atlantic Ocean and one- tice, even though part of her was third of the earth’s 8,600 bird species. It thinking, “When I go down there, I’ll harbors more types of primates than any- come to my senses and realize that it’s not where else in the New World, as well as nearly as romantic a place once I’m not an estimated 20 million species of insects, on vacation, and it won’t be enchanting 80 percent of which are as yet unknown anymore.” to science. The plant diversity is stagger- A few months later, she headed back ing, and all the more noticeable because to Peru, armed with not much more than trees do not grow in stands of the same a bottle of prenatal vitamins, a small kinds, but in a wonderful riot of different microscope, a stethoscope, a few doses of varieties all together. Ten years ago, Doctor Linnea Smith went on antibiotics, and her sense of humor. Since Within a few minutes’ walk of Ten years ago, Doctor Linnea Smith went on the competition was minimal, she jokes, Smith’s practice (now known as the vacation to the rain forest. Today, she’s still her practice grew, and soon she was see- Yanomono Clinic), there is a tract of ing one hundred patients a week. land less than two acres in size with the there, practicing medicine in one of the most The Explorama Lodge, where she greatest density of species had stayed during her vacation, offered diversity ever recorded — underserved areas of the world. to supply her meals for free and gave her some three hun- the use of a small, thatched room for her dred types “clinic.” She began treating everything of trees. fell blissfully asleep in an open-air, from malaria to machete cuts without the thatched lodge during a torrential rain, aid of running water, electricity, lab, or waking in the morning to a cacophony of staff — and with scant knowledge of DAN PETERSON jungle sounds — squawking, screeching, Spanish, her patients’ native tongue. grunting, and moaning — and such heavy At the end of about two months, she condensation dripping from the trees that realized she wasn’t anywhere near ready it sounded as if it were still raining. Occa- to leave. It was partly her fascination sionally, a falling branch would crash to with a life that begins at dawn and ends the ground, triggering a crescendo of at sunset, where fire must be kindled shrieks that would rise several decibels in before breakfast can be prepared. And it indignation, then stop just as abruptly as was partly the people, whom she they started. Smith and the other mem- describes in a book she has written, La BY N IKI D ENISON who previously had to travel fifty miles by bers of her tour group swam in the warm, Doctora, as “warm and hospitable and dugout canoe to reach the nearest doctor. muddy river, hiked in the forest, played handsome — beautiful women, winsome Have you ever enjoyed a vacation so “We’ve got to make our own lives,” Tarzan on a huge vine, napped in ham- children, and chiseled men, with high much that you fantasized about packing says Smith, who spoke to us during a mocks, and fished for piranha. cheekbones, ebony eyes, flashing smiles, up and moving to the place of your recent visit to the U.S. And that means On her last day, when Smith was and a love of dance . . . . They treat me dreams? Linnea Smith ’81, MD’84 has “pushing yourself, that means stretching, called on to administer antivenom to a actually done it. putting yourself out on a limb, trying lodge employee who had been bitten by a “Of course, kids everywhere are cute, but Drawn to the Amazon on vacation in deadly fer-de-lance snake, something these are just sort of off the scale a lot of the new things, and looking for what is in time,” says Linnea Smith. When she returned 1990, this physician left behind a success- fact satisfying.” began to bubble in her subconscious. But to the Amazon to live, Smith half expected ful practice in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, Smith had vacationed in Africa and it wasn’t until she was getting ready to that things would be different once she was to take up medicine in the jungle. She set leave at three o’clock in the morning that no longer on vacation. But after two months Egypt before, but nothing had prepared in her new calling, she found herself getting up a primitive clinic that allowed her to her for the Amazon. She was entranced it hit her. She felt as if she would “shrivel more and more involved. The physician says stay in her beloved rain forest and at the by beautiful blue morpho butterflies with up and expire” if she had to leave — as if she still feels incredibly lucky to be working and living in the rain forest, where she fell in same time bring medical care to people their five-inch, iridescent wingspans. She it were imperative to her sanity that she love with a people and a way of life.

32 ON WISCONSIN The Amazon Basin is a bites or leishmaniasis, caused by a para- hour of the day or night. She did not water. On subsequent visits, the Rotarian Her biggest worry is whether the ing someone place so vast and remote site that eats away at the lining of the have a nurse to perform all the functions rescue squad also built a house for Smith clinic will continue to exist when shes from Man- that it still hides an esti- nose and throat. But the most rewarding taken for granted in the U.S., such as and for patients’ families, and made sev- leaves or retires, and she hopes to set up hattan to mated fifty-odd tribes of case was her first C-section. “That’s the checking patients in, taking their blood eral other improvements. a group of volunteers who can eventually move to indigenous people who live most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my pressure, and helping with charts. It’s not exactly the Mayo Clinic, but relieve her. Although several U.S. doc- Appalachia,” she in isolated pockets of the life, in or out of medicine, Amazon or Since she was also lacking a pharma- Smith still feels guilty when the Explo- tors have flown down to help her for says. rain forest and have yet to Wisconsin,” she says. Because she had cist, she had to procure and bottle any rama tourists exclaim how noble she is to brief periods of time, they cannot legally Smith is not sure be contacted or discovered by specialized in internal medicine, which medicines she prescribed, as well as func- have forsaken her comfortable lifestyle practice medicine alone without a Peru- how long she’ll be staying herself. It the outside world. focuses only on adults, her obstetric tion as the janitor. Every morning, she’d for a thatched hut in the remote jungle. vian license. Smith herself was granted could be five years, she says, or maybe “I like green spaces, I like frontiers, training was a little more than the aver- have to sweep up the bugs and debris She quickly sets them straight. “I tend to ten, “or maybe I’ll stay there for another and there aren’t that many left,” says age person’s, but not by much. that fell from the thatched roof, and attempt to live a much simpler life than The Amazon Basin is a twenty, or maybe tomorrow I’ll get tired Smith. “I like being on the edge of civi- “Imagine having someone in front of when babies peed on the floor, she’d have the second half of twentieth-century of it all and go home. If you’d asked me lization.” A free spirit who previously you who is going to die,” she says deci- to stop what she was doing and wipe it North America tends to push at you,” she place so vast and remote before I left Wisconsin on my vacation owned her own business and then sively, crisply, “and you decide to cut up. This was a common occurrence, she says. “And that’s not any giving up of that it still hides an esti- where I was going to be practicing, I entered medical school at the age of them open and take a baby out and man- says, since diapers are not a feature of life things on my part. It’s just that I don’t would have said Wisconsin, for the rest thirty, she attributes her love of adven- age to do it successfully and sew them in the Amazon. want them to begin with, so that doesn’t mated fifty-odd tribes of of my life. And then a week later, I said, ture to parents who never gave her the back up again, and both the woman and But fortunately, help was on the really count as sacrifice.” ‘Well, maybe I’ll just leave everything idea that there was anything she couldn’t the baby survive.” Contrary to popular way. When Smith returned to Wisconsin In the States, Smith used to buy most indigenous people who live and move to Peru.’ I’m clearly not a very do. She finds it profoundly gratifying to belief, in medicine “there are very few for a visit, a member of the Duluth, of her clothes and furniture at Goodwill, in isolated pockets of the stable person,” she says, laughing. “Who fill the urgent need in this remote area instances when you can say with 100 per- Minnesota, Rotary Club heard her inter- and she says she doesn’t miss the things knows what I might do next?” and to be able to make a relatively large cent certainty this person would have viewed on the radio. The end result was that most people would miss. “I’d rather rain forest and have yet to Without question, Smith’s presence impact with minimal resources. died had I not done this.” In this case, that a group of Rotarians agreed to fund not be one of the crowd, and so if I make has improved the quality of life for the Until three years ago, she received she knew with absolute certainty that she a staff position so that Smith would have things or scrounge them, then they’re less be contacted or discovered ribereños, or river people, whom she no salary, and the clinic is run entirely had saved two lives. some assistance. She recruited and likely to be what everyone else has got, by the outside world. treats. Before she came, if they needed to with donations to the Amazon Medical And she had done it in spite of mis- trained a young local man named Juven- and I find them more interesting.” see a doctor, they had to rely on the river Project, a nonprofit organization started erable light and semisterile conditions. cio, who, despite his sixth-grade educa- There are some things she misses taxis that ply the Amazon, taking any- this license only after seven years of by her friends to fund her efforts. The Smith quickly learned that in her primi- tion, now has skills approaching the level about Wisconsin, though — such as, of where from six to nine hours to make the wrangling with a bureaucracy as tangled clinic’s entire annual budget is less than tive new practice, for most routine med- of some Peruvian doctors. He can exam- course, cheese. She travels back to the fifty-mile trip to Iquitos. “If you happen as the jungle vegetation itself. (Given the the cost of one transplant operation in the ical procedures, clean had to substitute ine and diagnose patients, prescribe state at least once a year so she can have to be sick on Wednesday night,” she says, fluid state of Peruvian legal affairs and United States. And for the equivalent of for sterile. Surprisingly, she found that medicine, administer an IV, assist with Swiss, Parmesan, and provolone, as well “there might not be a boat till Friday the remote location of her clinic, she one Madison state employee’s annual despite these less-than-perfect conditions, surgery, suture wounds, and perform as delicacies such as ice cream, bacon, morning.” There is now a physician at a escaped censure during the interim.) HMO premiums, Smith can see and treat most people healed quite well. many more essential functions. and asparagus. She enjoys seeing friends, government clinic halfway between Although Smith recently found a 225 patients. For the first several years that she But even better than that, the Rotar- riding her motorcycle in the rolling hills Smith’s clinic and Iquitos, about twenty- Peruvian doctor who relieved her for On a given day, this jungle doctor was in the Amazon, Doctora Smith was ians eventually traveled to South Amer- west of Madison, and indulging herself in five miles away. But that’s still a long way seven weeks this summer, enabling her to might see anywhere from two to twenty in danger of being overwhelmed by the ica and built a new clinic — small and trips to K-Mart, since even this unmateri- to go in a place with no roads. make her longest visit home ever, it is cases, treating a child with diarrhea, effort of running a one-woman operation. simple, but with the incredible advantage alistic idealist admits that there are some Smith makes sure to charge her hard to find one who is willing to stay in pneumonia, or worms, or attending to She was constantly on call, with the of having solar panels to power lights, items that you just can’t get in Iquitos, patients a nominal fee — the equivalent of the rain forest permanently. “It’s like ask- jungle-borne afflictions such as piranha potential for emergencies to arise at any and a well and pump to provide running the largest city near her clinic. two U.S. dollars — for treatment, so that

Smith originally treated patients in a small, thatched room in the Explorama tourist lodge. Every morning, she would have to sweep up bugs and debris that fell from the thatch during the night. But thanks to Rotary Club members from the U.S., Smith now has a clinic (far left) that boasts solar power and a well and pump that provide running water DAN PETERSON (2) — rarities in the remote jungle. Now, it’s only when the river is very low that the well runs dry and the clinic must fall back on buckets of water from the Amazon, purified by chlo- rine. Although La Doctora didn’t know Span- ish when she first arrived, she can now communicate fluently with her patients. Besides treating common children’s ailments such as diarrhea and worms, she sees every- MOONSHADOW PHOTOGRAPHY/JOHN SCOT LYON JACKSON thing from malaria to machete cuts, with a few piranha bites and leprosy cases thrown in.

34 ON WISCONSIN WINTER 1999 35 they don’t become dependent on her. She’s “How many pairs of shoes do you that “you can’t do it at one o’clock not sure if her presence has been particu- have?” she continues. “Can you tell me off because they close by then. larly disruptive to their lifestyle, she says, the top of your head? Down there they “You get to appreciate the infrastruc- she says. “And her family treated her for years with witch because their lives were already disrupted could tell you. They’ve got one pair of ture that makes it possible in the U.S. for doctors. I finally talked them into going to the government when the Spaniards first came down the shoes or two pairs of shoes or no pairs of us to do our work,” she says, “and not be MEDICINE & program where tuberculosis medicine is supplied free, but she river centuries earlier. And they are bound shoes. The tourists come down and there’s spending half of our time just running doesn’t take it.” It’s probably too late for her, says Smith. “I to be influenced anyway by such things as not a single person who’s got less than around trying to get the typewriter fixed don’t like to see people dying, especially from diseases that are the MTV and U.S. movies that they may $100 worth of stuff on them. If they’ve got or whatever.” METAPHYSICS treatable. But the alternative would have been to kidnap her see in Iquitos, and by the tourists they a video camera, they’ve got $1,000 worth In fact, when Smith comes home and force her to have treatment, and people have to make encounter. “But that happens all over the of stuff, just walking around; glasses, ear- now, she doesn’t always do things effi- their own choices. Everybody has a right to live any way they world, and I don’t know that you can do ciently. She’s found herself on the road, want to.” A few years ago, Smith saw a five-year-old with what she much about it,” she says. “You can’t really “And to me ... the point isn’t heading to the store to find out if they say, ‘Don’t cut your rain forest, and keep have a particular item, “and all of a sud- thinks was an intestinal obstruction. “It could have been any hunting with a blow gun. Now we’re the getting there, the point is den I realize, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t have number of things, but most likely it was a bolus of worms, a going to go home and live with this hot to drive thirty miles — I can telephone big ball of intestinal parasites,” she says. His mother brought and cold running water and watch our making the journey. To me, and ask them,’ but I’ve forgotten that.” him in when he’d been sick for three or four days. His belly televisions, but we’d rather you remain Doesn’t this drive her nuts? “Yes, of was very distended, she says, and he was so backed up that he life is not having things, life wasn’t even throwing up anymore. “He was just kind of drool- primitive and stay colorful.’ Unfortu- course,” she admits. “But there are things ing from his mouth and nose.” As she was preparing to insert nately, colorful, in most Third World is doing things. about the U.S. that drive me crazy. The a tube to decompress his stomach, he died. “And he had been places, usually equates with poor.” materialism, the amount of stuff that we treated by a local healer who was giving him thimerosal by There are some villages where I find it more interesting have, the amount of stuff that we think mouth. It’s a disinfectant, a preservative,” she says. “It’s not Explorama has opted to stop taking its we need, the prices of everything, the to do things.” appropriate treatment.” travelers, she says, because after a pace of everything.” There is way too Smith acknowledges that there are things that modern while, the children began asking for much advertising and way too much medicine can’t cure, either. “And there are some things that the candy and other little gifts that they had rings, wedding rings, watches, $70 hiking violence here, she says. “You don’t get shamans are very good at, and there are certainly some things learned to expect from the tourists. shoes, you’ve got L.L. Bean vests — no teenagers going into the schools with that are not on anybody’s formulary that the shamans are using “And then after a while, they’re asking one down there will ever have $100 worth machine guns in Peru. And part of that is that are valid.” For instance, they’ve got good remedies for for candy in English, and then after a of stuff that they own, let alone on them at because of the way the U.S. gun laws are fungal infections such as athlete’s foot, which are common in while, they’re getting kind of obnoxious one time. Never.” and the way our history is. And part of it warm, humid climates, and there are several plants that they’ve if they don’t get it, and that sequence is In the U.S., she says, those who are is that we’re rich and bored.” MOONSHADOW PHOTOGRAPHY/JOHN SCOT LYON JACKSON used for centuries for birth control. sort of sad to see,” she says. On the able to work hard are usually able to bet- In the United States, she says, the “Most nontraditional medicine focuses on taking care of other hand, ecotourism brings clean, ter their circumstances, unless they face focus is on having things. “And to me, the whole person, whereas Western medicine takes care of the pollution-free dollars into countries that the barriers sometimes imposed by race, who was it, Robert Louis Stevenson, who disease,” she says. This Western physician believes that the desperately need the money. If one gender, or disability. “But down there,” said that the point isn’t the getting there, shamans are very good at the spiritual aspects of medicine — could imagine a world in which modern she says, “you can be as bright as you the point is making the journey. To me, life at the hand-holding or comfort aspect. Where modern medi- culture did not encroach, she says, the want, as hardworking as you want — is not having things, life is doing things. I cine tends to focus on prescribing a pill or ordering an X-ray, native people would be better off with- and you’ll spend your life in the sugar find it more interesting to do things.” she says, traditional treatment includes a fair amount of ritual. Traditional ways have not completely disappeared in the Amazon, and out tourism. “But the world’s going to cane field. I don’t know how you improve The more we have, the more we’re that includes the use of shamans for treating disease. Dr. Linnea Smith “It often involves dark rooms and attention focused on the encroach no matter what you do, so that distribution of resources, but the tied down, as Smith sees it. But as long as counts the traditional healers among her friends. Although they lack patient, and there are chants or music or drums, there is smoke what you get out of tourism is a measure United States has not got a clue as to we’re not too weighed down, we can keep modern methods, she believes that they retain a comforting aspect in blown, there is medicine given,” she says. “If you feel bad, their healing rituals that Western medicine has lost — an emphasis on of prosperity for those who are close to how wealthy it is.” “traveling” and experiencing life. In that treating the whole person. what’s going to make you feel better? If somebody gives you a the tourism industry.” Another thing Smith has gained is a sense, even if she returns home someday, pill and says, ‘Take this,’ or if somebody sets you in a place, Smith thinks that all Americans greater appreciation for U.S. efficiency. her journey will never really end. innea Smith, who has been practicing medicine in the focuses all their attention on you for an hour or two, dances should be required to go to a developing When she came home a few years ago to remote Amazon jungle for nearly a decade, says that around you, and conducts ceremonies that are centered on country so they could gain a greater appre- get her driver’s license renewed, the In March, the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s many of the local people still rely on shamans for what- you? Obviously that is very important to people.” tour of the Amazon will feature a visit to L ciation of how truly wealthy they are. whole process took about twenty-five ever ails them. Unlike traditional societies, says Smith, in the modern For instance, she ticks off the kinds minutes. In Peru, she says, this task Linnea Smith’s clinic. Travelers will attemd a Smith has a friendly relationship with these traditional world, we’ve gotten away from the metaphysical, and the only of soap found in the typical American could span several days, entailing stand- reception with Dr. Smith, who will talk about healers, whom she mostly sees in social situations. Some of thing we believe in is the physical. “If you can’t weigh it, mea- home: shampoo, hand soap for the bath- ing in line for hours, going to several what it’s like to practice medicine in one of the them send their patients to her for particular ailments, but sure it, and put it on the computer screen,” she says, “it isn’t room, dishwasher soap and regular dish locations to get a photograph taken, get most remote areas of the world. For more infor- others treat things that she wishes they wouldn’t. One example real. We’ve gotten to where we sort of pooh-pooh the meta- soap for the kitchen, possibly pumice fingerprinted, and take a physical exam mation, call WAA’s Sheri Hicks toll-free at is a woman with tuberculosis from the nearby Yagua tribal vil- physical aspects and don’t really believe in them, but I think soap out in the garage, laundry soap, and and driving test, only to come back with (888) 922-8728. lage. “They don’t really believe in or understand germ theory,” they’re still there, and I think they still affect our lives.” — N.D. so on. “You know, they use one kind of all the papers three days later to find out soap,” she says.

36 ON WISCONSIN WINTER 1999 37 WhoY2 Cares? For UW-Madison faculty, 2000 is just another year

BY MICHAEL PENN MA’97 ILLUSTRATIONS BY SPENCER WALTS

Either the millennium will dawn, or it won’t. Either the world will be thrust into a computer-crashing, humanity-crushing chaos, or it won’t. Either life will go on, or it won’t. We really have no way of knowing what will happen when the calendar turns over on January 1, 2000. For every prediction, there’s an antiprediction. For every per- son toasting the new millennium, there’s another one point- ing out that the millennium doesn’t actually begin for another year. The only thing we can say with absolute certainty is that we’ll trade in a one with three nines for a two with three zeros. And maybe it’s as simple as that: all the hoopla — the hype about millennia that has seemed to last a millennium on its own — is just about the fact that the year 2000 has a bunch of zeros. But zeros can be cool. So you want a lot of zeros? How about the eight zeros found in the year 600,000,000?

38 ON WISCONSIN WINTER 1999 39 If the year 2000 fills us with wonder truck.” But when he fixes his eyes on the claws or fins or whatever suited their B C PhD’71 would grow up speaking a lan- for its flat-out evenness, then 600,000,000 fuzzy features in deepest space, Gal- purposes. But Carroll’s research tells us 800 . . 1200s guage deeply colored by their presence. should be infinitely awesome. And for lagher gets a glimpse of ancient history. that what separates man from a fruit fly If you think that all is deathly quiet on In his history of science courses, David Now UW-Madison’s dean of continuing Sean Carroll, it is. While pop psycholo- Like most people who study space, is merely the way remarkably common the classics front, meet Barry Powell. Lindberg argues that today’s students studies, Martin has maintained a lifelong gists dwell on the short-term paranoia of Gallagher would love to know how we genes are expressed. The professor has kicked up major dust owe a great deal to their peers of the fascination with the Viking influences on 2000, Carroll is transfixed by what hap- got here — how diffuse gases came clouds in recent years with his theory thirteenth century. It was then that stu- his native country, writing several papers pened to the planet between six hundred together to form a galaxy that churned that modern writing began with one dents in Paris and Oxford began reading on how English has been infiltrated with million and seven hundred million years out stars and planets and begot our solar ancient Greek. Powell, backed up by the works of the Greek masters, which 65,000,000 Old Norse influences. (The words law, ago, when evolution had barely taken a system. With the aid of the Hubble Space archaeological evidence, traces the roots had been lost from Western thought for skin, skirt, flat, and anger are just a few step and the future of the animal king- Telescope, Gallagher has been able to years ago of the modern alphabet to an unknown more than eight centuries. Preserved by examples.) dom was buried in the DNA of a few peer sharply at places so far away that When Craig Pfister hikes the buttes and fan of Homer who, so moved by the lyri- Islamic scholars who valued Aristotle’s primitive organisms. what he sees today actually happened prairies of the American West, his mind cal oral poetry, tried to write it teachings on medicine and science, Reaching that far into the past isn’t around ten billion years ago. drifts to a time when this was the land of down. It’s such a controver- the texts eventually found their easy. Barely any fossils exist from the Such time travel offers UW-Madison giants. A veteran of more than a dozen sial notion that scholars are way into Latin translation, period, and Carroll’s only guide to learn- astronomers a glimpse of the universe in digs in search of dinosaur bones, Pfister still debating it. There’s and thus into the minds of ing the secrets of evolution lies in the infancy, possibly within one billion years has helped to unearth two of the UW- one point on which they thirteenth-century students. genes of creatures that can trace their of when the Big Bang is believed to have Madison geology museum’s rarest tro- agree, however: who- The resulting intellectual roots to that time. So why does he per- banged. And with WIYN, a high-pow- phies. His 1995 expedition recovered ever hatched the Greek eruption gave life to all sist? “We’re drawing a picture of some- ered, ground-based telescope shared bones from a triceratops and a tyran- alphabet — the first to kinds of academic disci- thing no one else has seen,” he says. among UW-Madison, two other universi- nosaurus rex, both of which had been capture the sound of plines — from physics to If you were to climb into an intellec- ties, and a national research center, they buried for some sixty-five million years. words — set into motion philosophy — and paved the tual time capsule and surf the eras, you’d are exploring properties of the most Restoring the fragile bones is the the titanic thrust of West- way for Galileo, Copernicus, find a lot of UW-Madison professors ancient stars in our neighborhood — next challenge for the museum. While the ern civilization. and a chorus of scientists and with interests strewn across the time celestial archaeology that may help us T. rex may be too brittle for display, the thinkers who were inspired to continuum. Their curiosity has led them understand our own corner of space. triceratops will eventually join a thirty- wonder why. through millions of years, from far-off three-foot edmontosaurus skeleton as the 200 B.C. prehistoric epochs to equally far-off chief attractions at the museum, which, Although the hymns and visions of the future. thanks to director Klaus Westphal, Pfis- 1492 600,000,000 poems that form the As the year 2000 draws near, we ter, and a score of staff and volunteers, is heart of Hinduism had One of the most memorable thought about asking various faculty years ago building a dinosaur collection of Jurassic been passed on orally for years in history — how members about its significance. But we proportions. It takes imagination to envision Earth possibly one thousand does the school rhyme go? decided that the landscape where they during the pre-Cambrian period, before a years, it was during this — 1492 symbolizes a period tread is far more fascinating. They’re sudden evolutionary change overhauled period that they began to of European exploration and, uncovering secrets about our past and B.C. the animal kingdom and created the vari- 4000 be transcribed. And some would say, exploitation. paving passageways to people and places ety of creatures we know today. “The Climate models are often used to forecast because they were written No figure from the era is more that are both foreign and familiar. For fossil record prior to the Cambrian is so future conditions, but John Kutzbach in Sanskrit, many UW- enigmatic and controversial them, 2000 is just another year, one scant that nobody knows the origin of ’60, MS’61, PhD’66 and Zhengyu Liu Madison students and fac- than that of Christopher entirely apart from the time in which animal life,” says Sean Carroll. But the have discovered an interesting world of ulty now train themselves in Columbus. Helping to demys- their imaginations live. molecular biologist is changing that. information by pointing that technology the ancient language so that tify Columbus is Margarita So join us on an impossible journey By studying the genetic structure of toward the past. By modeling the condi- they might plumb the lyrical Zamora, a professor of Latin through time, as we visit a few of our fac- animals whose ancestors lived six hun- tions of six thousand years ago, the cli- and spiritual works for American literature who has ulty and their favorite years. dred million years ago, Carroll has matologists have been able to understand themselves. surveyed Columbus’s writ- uncovered a startling fact: the genes the forces that shaped the environments ings to paint a fuller picture that control the formation of limbs, and societies of the time. Their data show of the man who sought to appendages, and other seemingly modern that slight changes in the earth’s orbit 800s find the New World. Rather In the Beginning animal features were all present a very altered the seasonal cycle of solar radia- than debate whether Colum- Looking deep into space, as UW-Madi- long time ago, existing in a wormlike tion, which brought about a period of Beginning at this point bus “discovered” America in son astronomer Jay Gallagher recently creature that may be the common ances- stronger monsoons in North Africa and in history and continuing the modern sense, Zamora told Astronomy magazine, “is like trying to tor of all animal life. South Asia. These factors explain why, at for several centuries, considers a wider definition look through a Seattle rainstorm. You Until Carroll’s work, most people that time, North Africa wasn’t the desert Vikings invaded and set- of discovery — a process stand there and stare a little more closely, believed that animal diversity was the we know today, but was instead a vast tled parts of northern Eng- of knowing that she says and squint, and try to tell whether that result of repeated evolution — that ani- grassland dotted with small lakes and land, where centuries later, still influences our thinking thing off in the distance is a barn or a mals kept inventing new genes to grow fishing communities. Howard Martin MA’67, today.

40 ON WISCONSIN WINTER 1999 41 1532 1845 1932 was living in Moscow at the time. Senn engineer who is developing micro-scale began exploring the political significance nuclear batteries to power a breed of When Spanish explorers For people who study pota- This year marked the beginning of the of the modern Olympics in a popular his- intricate tools that don’t exist yet, but will. arrived on the coast of toes — and there are nearly federal government’s Tuskegee Syphilis tory course, and this year he turned his And, although her primary intent is South America in this twenty on campus — 1845 is Study, making it a natural focal point for findings into a book, Power, Politics, and the to question the need for all the prognosti- year, they found the land a seminal year, marking the Vanessa Northington Gamble’s attempts Olympic Games. cation whirling about the dawning of the dominated by the Inca outset of the biggest and most to bring historical perspective to the role new millennium, dance professor Li Empire, a civilization that catastrophic crop failure in of race in medicine. Continuing for forty Chiao-Ping is compelling us to think accomplished remarkably modern history. As a result of years, the Tuskegee study denied syphilis about what lies ahead with Fin de Siècle, a advanced feats in engineering the Irish Potato Famine, treatments to four hundred African- The Here and Now “futurist ballet” that ponders our obses- and architecture. The Euro- more than one million people American sharecroppers, supposedly in sion with technology and speed. peans and their diseases starved to death, and the name of medical experimentation. History needn’t always be so . . . musty. brought about an end to the another two million fled en Largely through Gamble’s efforts to Sometimes the past can be a lens for see- empire, but anthropologists masse, remaking the demo- bring redress for the shameful episode, ing events of our own time. Professor such as the UW’s Frank graphics of the United States President Clinton issued a national apol- Colleen Dunlavy uses research on the The End Salomon find plenty of and Canada. ogy for Tuskegee in 1997. development of business and technology enduring reasons to study If there can be any good The study, Gamble says, is an impor- to help inform our understanding of the Finally, a wild card. Paul Boyer doesn’t Inca culture. One exam- from a tragedy of this scale, it tant metaphor for African-Americans, way things are today. She is writing a really fit neatly into our time continuum. ple: Inca villagers have may be that because of the and it may help to explain why many book, for example, about the history of He doesn’t know when the world will long used elaborately knot- events of 1845 we have reject the advice of medical institutions. shareholder rights, in which she docu- end, but he’s interested in people who ted cords, called khipus, to learned much about the frag- While winning the symbolic apology does ments how small shareholders once held think that they do. record dates, measures, and ile potato. By intensely nothing to erase the past, she notes that it greater voting power than they do today. From the Millerites, who predicted other numeric data. Not studying the famine’s culprit may be “a start toward rebuilding trust.” By looking back, she hopes to suggest the return of Jesus Christ in 1843, to only have the khipus pre- — an organism known as that present-day circumstances — such present-day prophecy believers who say served thousands of years of Phytophthora that causes a as wide public investment and mass com- the end is coming any day now, many history, but they’re Y2K-com- fast-spreading blight — plant 1951 munication made easy through the Inter- people have, at one time or another, felt pliant, more than we can say pathologists have learned how net — might warrant a more democratic the hot breath of the apocalypse on their In this year, the still-infant television about our “advanced” infor- to control and manage potato way of doing business. cheeks. Boyer, a history professor and industry rolled out a new weekly comedy mation storage. crops, and they have now author of a book on prophecy belief, has series called “I Love Lucy.” Journalism created a genetically dis- studied this kind of thinking, and he cau- professor James Baughman, who is writ- ease-resistant tuber that, tions against dismissing believers as mis- ing a book on fifties television, says that once it’s ready for market, The Land Beyond guided. “They’re not simply a group of the CBS show marked a turning point in 1700s should prevent any return of kooks on the fringes,” he says, pointing the medium, which many observers We’ve already met professors who put the villainous Phytophthora. out that belief in a divinely foreordained Around this time, Ameri- thought would broadcast primarily live important experiences of the past under end of the world is actually quite wide- can colonists stopped eat- events. But, sensing the popularity of the microscope to search for understand- spread. “Most people aren’t obsessed ing, and started dining. taped serials such as “Lucy,” the net- ing. But there are others who train their with it,” he says, but the underlying ten- The differences are subtle 1900 works “discovered that reruns can be minds on the indistinct future. They sion about our future has colored the way — using forks instead of economically viable,” Baughman says. spend their days trying to foresee the Lest we forget the underappre- people have perceived the threat of hands to eat, cooking meals That lesson governed television pro- world ahead, to divine how they might ciated role of these slime-gathering nuclear war, conflict in the Middle East, instead of meats — but important gramming for decades, until the emer- make it better. squares, UW-Madison keeps a collection and the globalizing economy. in the eyes of Ann Smart Martin, a pro- gence of cable in recent years has forced These are people who are solving 1776 of more than one thousand historical And, lest we forget, Y2K. fessor of art history. Studying the arti- networks to deviate in small ways from problems before they even emerge, like Few documents have meant more to hankies. As you might imagine, Boyer is busy facts of early American living is her the weekly lineup. Glenn Bower MS’84, PhD’92, who is specialty. American history than the Declaration of Many dating to the turn of the cen- helping a team of engineering students keeping tabs on the worldwide hulla- Martin notes that as Americans Independence, and few people know tury, they are evidence of a world before convert a Chevrolet Suburban from a baloo. He’s even looking forward to New began to shake off their coarse life of sur- more about it than Stephen Lucas. A disposable tissues. In fact, cloth handker- 1980 gas-guzzling behemoth into a vehicle that Year’s Eve. “When your car’s odometer vival and to engage in finer living, they communication arts professor, Lucas has chiefs of old often held loftier roles than runs on clean, alternative fuel. Or Judith flips over to one hundred thousand miles, gained a taste for the material possessions spent most of the past two decades just nose-clearing. Many women’s hand- The boycott by the United States of the Kimble, a biochemistry professor who is it’s a meaningless moment in a way,” he that would complement their new social immersed in the politics and rhetoric of kerchiefs were emblazoned with diet Olympic Games in Moscow demon- part of a team studying the way human says, “but it’s still exciting to look at all standing. Through America’s teapots and pre-revolution America, searching for the advice or even French lessons — a strated the inexorable link between organs grow and form, with the hope that those zeros.” silverware, Martin traces evidence of the forces that came together to form what reminder that Victorian women were sports and international politics. That one day researchers will be able to lives and aspirations of the people who he considers “arguably the most master- rarely without their reminders of social dramatic Cold War gambit piqued the develop transplant organs in the labora- graces. Michael Penn, an associate editor of On Wisconsin, is not owned them. ful state paper in Western civilization.” interest of historian Alfred Senn, who tory. Or Jake Blanchard, a nuclear yet Y2K-compliant, and proud of it.

42 ON WISCONSIN WINTER 1999 43