Wisconsin Magazine of History
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(ISSN 0043-6534) WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The State Historical Society of Wisconsin • Vol. 76, No. 2 • Winter, 1992-1993 /J, .it iSi^ THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN H. NICHOLAS MULLER III, Director Officers FANNIE E. HICKLIN, President GERALD D, VISTE, Treasurer GLENN R, COAXES, First Vice-President H. NICHOLAS MULLER III, Secretary JANE BERNHARDT, Second Vice-President THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is both a state agency and a private membership organization. Founded in 1846—two years before statehood—and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest American historical society to receive continuous public funding. By statute, it is charged with collecting, advancing, and dissemi nating knowledge of Wisconsin and of the trans-Allegheny West. The Society serves as the archive of the State of Wisconsin; it collects all manner of books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, relics, newspapers, and aural and graphic materials as they relate to North America; it maintains a museum, library, and research facility in Madison as well as a statewide system of historic sites, school services, area research centers, and affiliated local societies; it administers a broad program of historic preservation; and publishes a wide variety of historical materials, both scholarly and popular. MEMBERSHIP in the Society is open to the public. Individual membership (one per son) is $25. Senior Citizen Individual membership is $20. Family membership is $30. Senior Citizen Family membership is $25. Supporting m^em.hersh\p is $100. Sustaining membership is $250. A Patron contributes $500 or more. Life membership (one person) is $1,000. MEMBERSHIP in the Friends of the SHSW is open to the public. Individual mem bership (one person) is $15. Family membership is $25. THE SOCIETY is governed by a Board of Curators which includes twenty-four elected members, the Governor or designee, three appointees of the Governor, a legislator from the majority and minority from each house, and ex officio, the President of the University of Wisconsin System, the President of the Friends of the State Historical Society, the President of the Wisconsin History Foundation, Inc., and the President of the Administrative Committee of the Wisconsin Council for Local History. A complete listing of the Curators appears inside the back cover. The Society is headquartered at 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1488, at the juncture of Langdon and Park streets on the University of Wisconsin campus. The State Historical Museum is located at 30 North Carroll Street. A partial listing of phone numbers (Area Code 608) follows: General Administration 264-6400 Library circulation desk 264-6534 Affiliated local societies 264-658.^ Maps 264-6458 Archives reading room 264-6460 Membership 264-6587 Contribution of manuscript materials 264-6477 Microforms reading room 264-6536 Editorial offices 264-6461 Museum tours 264-6555 Film collections 264-6466 Newspaper reference 264-6531 Genealogical and general reference inquiries . 264-653.5 Picture and sound collections 264-6470 Government publications and reference 264-6525 Public information office 264-6586 Historic preservation 264-6500 Sales desk 264-6565 Historic sites 264-6586 School services 264-6567 Hours of operation 264-6588 Speakers bureau 264-6586 Institutional Advancement 264-6585 ON THE COVER: In 1867, framed copies of this picture of the Soldiers' Orphans' Home in Madison were being sold throughout the state for $3.75. Thirty-Jive per cent of the proceeds went to the benefit of the home, according to i/j^ Jefferson Banner,/anuary 23, 1867. An article on the home begins on page 83. [WHi(D485) 1678] Volume 76, Number 2 / Winter, 1992-1993 WISCONSIN MAGAZE^JE OF HISTORY Published quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, "This Noble Monument": 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1488, The Story of the Soldiers' Orphans' Distributed to members as part of Home 83 their dues. Individual membership, $25; senior citizen Patricia G. Harrsch individual, $20; family, $30; senior citizen family, $25; supporting, From Where Come the Badgers? $100; sustaining, $250; patron, 121 $500 or more; life (one person), KarelD. Bicha $1,000, Single numbers from Volume 57 forward are $5 plus postage. Microfilmed copies The Columbian Mosaic in Colonial America 132 available through University James Axlell Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106; reprints of Volumes 1 through 20 and most issues of Volumes 21 Book Reviews 146 through 56 are available from Kraus Reprint Company, Route Book Review Index 152 100, Millwood, New York 10546, Communications should be addressed to the editor. The Wisconsin History Checklist 153 Society does not assume responsibility for statements made Accessions 156 by contributors. Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin, Contributors 160 POSTMASTER: .Send address changes to Wisconsin Magazine of History, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1488, Copyright © 1993 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, The Wisconsin Magazine of History' is indexed annually by the editors; cumulative indexes are assembled decennially. In addition, articles are abstracted and indexed in America: History and Life, Historical Abstracts, Index to Literature on tlie American Indian, and the Combined Retrospective Index tojoumats in Editor History, 1838-1974. PAUL H. HASS Associate Editors Photographs identified with WHi negative numbers are from the WILLIAM C. MARTEN Historical Societv's collections. JOHN O. HOLZHUETER This building was originally constructed in the mid-185O's as a private residence for Governor Leonard f. Fanuell. It was subsequently used as the Harvey Hospital during the Civil War, the Soldiers' Orphans' Home after the war, and, at the time this picture was taken by Andrew Dahl about 1877, as the Monona Academy. "This Noble Monument": The Story of the Soldiers' Orphans' Home By Patricia G. Harrsch ' ' TT IS always best if you wish to home, distributed gifts and medical sup J- secure an object... to go at plies, and made available extra surgeons once to the highest power and be your own and nurses."^ When she became convinced petitioner."^ With these words, Mrs. Cor that Union soldiers would benefit both psy delia A. P. Harvey of Madison described chologically and physically from being her efforts to secure a convalescent hospi allowed to convalesce in hospitals closer to tal in Wisconsin for Union soldiers. Mrs. home, and in the healthier climate of the Harvey was no stranger to coping with dif North, she went directly to President Abra ficult situations. Her husband, Louis Pow ham Lincoln. Both the president and the ell Harvey, had assumed office as governor War Department opposed any plan that in January, 1862. In April of that year, fol would allow convalescent soldiers to return lowing the Battle of Shiloh, he had to the North on the grounds that large- drowned in the Tennessee River as he left scale desertions would be the only result.^ a hospital boat where he had been visiting But Mrs. Harvey persisted, telling Lincoln the state's sick and wounded soldiers. After forcefully, " ... [Y]ou do not understand his death, his successor as governor, our people. You do not trust them suffi Edward Salomon, had appointed Mrs. Har ciently."* Ultimately, she prevailed. In vey a "sanitary agent" for the state. This October, 1863, Harvey U. S. Army General involved her in visiting the camps and hos Hospital (named after her late husband) pitals where Wisconsin soldiers were opened in Madison, Wisconsin. Other assigned, in order to inform the governor northern hospitals were established there as to the physical condition and morale of after. the troops. When she returned from her work in the Described as "probably the most effec South in 1865, Mrs. Harvey brought with tive" of the state's agents, Cordelia Harvey her several orphans.* She had apparently "reported on the numbers of sick and wounded, arranged for transporting them '^Richard N, Current, The History of Wisconsin. Volume II: The Civil War Era, 1849-1873 (Madison, 1976), 369, 'May L, Bauchle, "The Shopiere Shrine," in the Wiscon 'Cordelia A,P, Harvey, "A Wisconsin Woman's Picture of sin Magazine of History, 10 (September, 1926), 29-34, President Lincoln," in the Wisconsin Magazine of History, 1 ^Harvey, "Wisconsin Woman's Picture," 243, (March, 1918), 241, ^Bauchle, "Shopiere Shrine," 5, Copyrigiit © 1993 hy Ttie State Histoncat Society of Wisconsin 83 All rig/its of reproduction in any form reserved. WHi(X3)19844 Cordelia A. P. Harvey already conceived the idea of establishing the poorhouses were often shockingly a shelter for those children in Wisconsin inadequate, involving, as they frequently who had been left destitute by the war and did, poorly constructed buildings with little she brought the same compassion and or no provision for proper sanitation or the determination to their cause as she had, in health needs of the residents. Also, there 1863, to that of the sick and wounded sol were no incentives for inmates to do other diers. than remain in the institution, since there In America, by the 1860's, the problem were no training or educational opportu of the care of dependent children had not nities. Those children who were "bound yet been fully worked through. In the early out" could find themselves mere drudges years of the century, society did not in the households to which they were acknowledge that children's needs were assigned. And the jails were perhaps the different from those of adults. Many desti worst environment of all for youngsters, tute youngsters were confined to tax-sup who found themselves sharing space with ported poorhouses along with the elderly drunkards, petty lawbreakers, and hard needy, the infirm, and the mentally ill; or ened criminals.'' they were bound out to "respectable fam Orphanages had begun to appear in ines" to earn their board and keep; or, if they found themselves without homes, they might be confined to local jails on the charge of vagrancy.