Volume 22 No 3 • Fall 2013 The Milwaukee German Theater: Once the Pride of the City Cora Lee Kluge Milwaukee Libraries. Used with permission. Milwaukee Libraries. Used – Image from Special Collections, University of Wisconsin of Special from Collections,Image University The Schlitz Park Theater, where famous German Theater manager Leon Wachsner began his Milwaukee career or many years, the Milwaukee ten. There are only a handful of older German Theater (MGT) en- articles, theses, and dissertations; a joyed widespread recognition, number of newspaper and journal Fnot only as an excellent German- articles that must still be located and INSIDE American cultural institution and collected; and incomplete assort- • Support the MKI Library one of the primary reasons for Mil- ments of other materials, including • New Publication: waukee’s reputation as the “German occasional theater programs and ad- Wisconsin Talk Athens,” but also as one the most vertisements. However, interest was • Book Review: extraordinary theaters anywhere in recently reawakened when a search- Rocking the Wall the world and performing in any able, digital index of the approxi- • Emigration from Tiefenort, language. Surprisingly—in view of its mately 3,000 items included in the Thuringia former excellence and significance— Milwaukee Public Library’s unique • New MKI Twentieth-Century not many today are aware that there Albert O. Trostel Collection of Ger- Oral History Project once was such an establishment in man Theater Scripts was prepared • Chicago’s Green White Soccer Milwaukee at all, and the theater’s Club history has essentially not been writ- Continued on page 4 • Upcoming Events DIRECTORS’ CORNER Greetings, Friends and Readers! reetings from the Keystone current major research and outreach Background of German and Ameri- House! We are pleased to projects: the Milwaukee German can Oktoberfests” in Waunakee, report that the long-antic- Theater Project, the Pennsylvania Wisconsin; “The Milwaukee Ger- Gipated renovation of the fourth floor Dutch Documentation Project, and man Theater” at the German Studies of the University Club is now under- the German Immigrant Oral History Association conference in Denver, way. If all goes as planned, we will be Project. We plan to showcase some Colorado; and “German POWs and in our new location by the end of the of the results of these projects at next the Mississippi Basin Model” in Dav- spring semester. Look for updates in year’s annual symposium of the So- enport, Iowa. Mark introduced the future issues of our Newsletter. ciety for German-American Studies, “Pennsylvania Dutch Documentation Our new home in the heart of cam- which will, conveniently, take place Project” at an Amish Studies confer- pus will enable us to do our work in Milwaukee, April 10–13, 2014. ence at Elizabethtown College, Penn- better and make it more convenient Over the summer and fall, outreach sylvania, and made presentations on for patrons to access our resources, presentations have taken us across the Amish and the Mennonites at including our library and archival Wisconsin and to other states. Here the Midvale Community Lutheran holdings. We are especially excited to are just a few examples: Cora Lee Church in Madison; and Antje spoke know that it will be more convenient gave a lecture on “The Historical Continued on page 11 for students to drop by and work. In recent years, we have strengthened our ties to the UW’s undergraduate and graduate students, in part by regularly offering German-Ameri- can-themed courses through the De- partment of German. Every semester, two or more such courses are now offered. This spring, for example, stu- dents will be able to choose among Cora Lee’s “German Immigration Experience” (now in its ninth year!), Mark’s “German Language in Ameri- ca,” and a new course, “Language and Immigration in Wisconsin,” taught by Joe Salmons. No other university in the country has the breadth of German-American offerings that the UW–Madison has, which gives us the opportunity to bring the unique resources of our Institute into the classroom. Photograph by Jerry Lowe. Used with permission. Jerry Lowe. Used by Photograph When we have moved to the Uni- Cora Lee Kluge with Matthew S. Zager, President of the Quad Cities Section of the American versity Club, we will also be able to Society of Civil Engineers. Cora Lee was invited to speak about German POWs and the Mississippi involve more students in our three River Basin Model at the German-American Heritage Center in Davenport, Iowa. 2 C A M PA I G N Help Us Preserve and Enhance our Knowledge of German-Speaking Immigrants to North America! Donate to the MKI Librarian resources and the library’s patrons. In will continue. Please support Support Fund! short, this person is the critical link our efforts by contributing to the between the Institute’s resources and MKI Librarian Support Fund. The Max Kade Institute is dedicated its outreach activities. As many of Your donation will count toward to collecting, preserving, researching, you know from personal experience, the match required by the NEH and sharing information about we are lucky to have such an Challenge Grant. German-speaking immigrants and experienced and dedicated individual Gifts can be made by check, made their descendants in America. These in the person of Kevin Kurdylo. out to the UW Foundation, with are our families’ stories; these are As the Institute’s collection will Max Kade Institute Librarian America’s stories. grow in the new facility, and as Support Fund in the memo line, In the last few years, we have ever more visitors will seek archival and mailed to: Max Kade Institute, undertaken a capital campaign to assistance, the need to make 901 University Bay Dr., Madison, WI renovate new quarters for the MKI. the librarian/archivist position 53705 Thanks to the tremendous generosity financially secure on a permanent or of our Friends, the Institute will basis has become paramount. online through the UW Foundation soon move to the University Club Therefore, the Institute is at http://mki.wisc.edu where on the University of Wisconsin– establishing an endowment fund you can click on “MKI Library Madison central campus. German- to support the position of MKI Campaign” in the center on the page. American materials from families librarian/archivist. We are delighted A link on the campaign page takes and communities—including that the MKI has been awarded you to an online donation form books, letters, diaries, photos, audio a National Endowment for the designated for the MKI Librarian recordings, and community records Humanities (NEH) Challenge Grant, Support Fund. you have donated—will be kept there which will be the cornerstone of in an expanded library and archive. this endeavor. But we need more Thank you for your support! We are now in the second stage of help to ensure that the work of the our Library Project Campaign, whose MKI and particularly access to its goal is to build an endowment for unique resources and collections our librarian and archivist position. A library without a librarian/ archivist is an empty shell. Highly Board of Directors, Friends of the Max Kade Institute specialized collections such as the Hans Bernet Monroe MKI’s, in particular, cannot serve Karen Fowdy Monroe Steven Geiger Wausau their purpose without the knowledge, Gary Gisselman Wausau expertise, and commitment of a Elizabeth Greene Treasurer, Madison special librarian. This librarian must James Kleinschmidt President, Fitchburg Cora Lee Kluge ex officio, Madison not only organize and maintain Edward Langer Vice President, Greenfield the collection and read documents Mark Louden, ex officio, Sun Prairie Antje Petty ex officio, Fitchburg in German Fraktur print and Old John Pustejovsky Secretary, Whitefish Bay German scripts, he or she must Johannes Strohschänk Eau Claire also interpret materials and bridge Luanne von Schneidemesser Madison Pamela Tesch Oconomowoc the language barrier between MKI 3 Continued from page 1 energetic professionals with connec- tions to well-known theaters. Richard by Kevin Kurdylo, Adam Woodis, left a position at the Hoftheater in and Cora Lee Kluge of the MKI.1 Weimar to come to America, where Presentations about the MGT have his first engagement, in 1881, was been given at conferences, and this with the Chicago German theater. fall a course is being offered in the Welb emigrated to Milwaukee in UW Department of German entitled 1881, where he worked as an actor, “The German-Language Theater in artistic manager, and director until America.” Working with this topic he accepted a similar position with involves exciting, original research; the St. Louis German theater in 1900. and now, nearly 80 years after the Wachsner came to the United States official dissolution of the Milwaukee in 1868 intending to become a mer- German Theater Stock company, we chant, and was appearing in amateur are eager to pursue investigations in theater productions in the New York this area. area when Adolf Neuendorff of New In its early years German-language York’s Germania Theater offered him theater performances in Milwaukee a position. In 1880 he moved west Julius Richard were productions by amateurs; the to become a member of Milwaukee’s first was put on in February of 1850 and Pabst’s Whitefish Bay Resort, Schlitz Park Theater, which was man- by printers and typesetters of the essentially beer gardens offering the- aged by the German immigrant Otto newspaper Banner und Volksfreund. ater, music, and dancing. The most Osthoff (1849–1917). The stages were makeshift, and the important new contact for the MGT The backgrounds of Richard, audiences often interrupted the was Frederick Pabst, who in 1890 Welb, and Wachsner put them in performances with high-spirited purchased Nunnemacher’s Grand a position to move the MGT away remarks.