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I Woman's Club of Iviscoi (exterior/interior) or Kilbourn Avenue, Milwa
, ince 1972 the Wis consin Historica Society has over seen the National Regis ter of Historic Places in j Wisconsin. The Nation*' Register recognizes tl importance of a proper to the history, arch" ture, archaeology, t neering, or culture of locality, the state, or t] nation. Wisconsin's hst- ings include such notable buinun^j Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee. Many of the Society's architectural treasures, including the headquarters building. Wade House, and Villa Louis are included in this official list. More information on Wisconsin's National Register program and a hst of over two thousand registered properties may be found by visiting the Society's website at www.wisconsinhistory.org, then choking on His toric Buildings & Preservation on the navigation bar. As part of the Soci ety's initiative to provide more web-based information, approximately three hundred of these entries including shipwrecks. Native American mounds, city halls, private homes, and historic pubhc hbraries have links to a short story on the property's history.
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Division Administrator & State Historic Preservation Officer Michael E. Stevens
Editor Kathryn L. Borkowski Managing Editor Diane T. Drexler Associate Editor Jane M. de Broux
Research and Editorial Assistants !--JESv*,»'.'?« Brian Bengtson, Joel Heiman, Melissa Johnson, John Nondorf, John Zimm
Designer The AVS Group An Interest in Health and Happiness as Yet Untold THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY (ISSN 0043-6534), published quarterly, is one of the The Woman's Club of Madison, many benefits of membership in the Wisconsin 1893-1917 Historical Society. Annual memberships are: by Mark Speltz •Individual, $40.00 •Senior citizen individual, $30.00 •Family, $50.00 •Senior citizen family, $40.00 A Wisconsin Legend •Institutional, $65. Ole Evinrude and To join the Society or to give a gift membership, send a check to Membership, Wisconsin His Outboard Motor Historical Society, 816 State Street, Madison, Wl 53706-1482, call the Membership Office at by Ralph Lambrecht 888-748-7479, e-mail [email protected], or go to our Web site. The WMH has been published quarterly since 191 7 A Life of Her Own Choosing by the Wisconsin Historical Society (608-264-6400). Copyright © 2006 by the State Historical Society of Anna Gibbons' Fifty Years Wisconsin. Permission to quote or otherwise as a Tattooed Lady reproduce portions of this copyrighted work must be sought in writing from the publisher. Communication, by Amelia Klem inquiries, and manuscript submissions may be sent to WHS Press, 816 State Street, Madison, Wl 53706-1482 or [email protected]. Further information about the WMH is available on the 40 The Rise and Fall of the Society Web site. Long White Baby Dress www.wisconsinhistory.org by Leslie Bellais Photographs identified with PH, WHi, or WHS are from the Society's collections; address inquiries about such photos to the Visual Materials Archivist, 816 State Street, Madison, Wl 53706-1482. I Aztalan The Wisconsin Historical Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. I Mysteries of an Ancient Indian Town Periodicals postage paid at Madison, Wl 53706-1482. g By Robert A. Birmingham and Back issues, if available, are $10 plus postage (888- § Lynne G. Goldstein 748-7479). Microfilmed copies are available through University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106. On the front cover: The Woman's Club of Madison Letters 54 Building located on Gilman Street. Photo by Joel Heiman Curio 56
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esidents of Madison at the turn of the century con trialism on the city and its children, the group responded to a tinually stepped around garbage and horse drop wide range of reform efforts. Clubwomen collected funds for Rpings, feared disease and sickness, and dealt with the first public hospital in the city, established a children's room sewage spewing into the lakes. The city's population doubled at the city library, championed kindergartens and improved between 1900 and 1920, and families faced overcrowding and hygiene and health examinations in the public schools. The unsanitary conditions. Children lacked safe play spaces and Woman's Club of Madison had a positive impact on school cur risked poor health in congested neighborhoods situated riculum, legislation, and effectively shaped responses to the among marshes and growing industry. issues facing their city. Many of their important accomplish At the same time, Madison enjoyed a concentration of ments are unknown today by a city now treasured, one hundred i intellectual, political, and social energy beginning in the late years later, for its green spaces and livability. 1800s due to the influence of the state university located on the shore of Lake Mendota and the state's government at the History of the Woman's Club of Madison Capitol. The women who led the social, artistic, and literary The Woman's Club of Madison was founded on February life of Madison formed the Woman's Club of Madison and 22, 1893, by a group of ten women. Mary L. Atwood, the were able to redefine their roles in society, enter the public daughter of David Atwood, founder of the Wisconsin State sphere, and use their influence to pursue social reform as part Journal, hosted the first club meeting. Within a week, invita of the women's club movement in the United States. tions were extended and 96 women became charter members. Resolved to protect and improve the lives of Madison's The club members, as a whole, were middle-aged, primarily children, the Woman's Club of Madison worked to clean up Protestant, and financially secure. These elite women were the schoolyards and the surrounding neighborhoods. The club wives and daughters of Madison's leaders of business, govern women, believing that vigorous outdoor play and exercise ment, and the University of Wisconsin. The long list of impor would help mitigate some of the negative aspects of city life, tant and well-connected women included Belle Case La worked to supply children with playground equipment and FoUette and numerous other family names—Tenney, Vilas, safe places to play. They presented a resolution to the city's Olin, Brittingham, Fairchild—still associated with parks, decision-makers in 1903 requesting support for public play streets, and structures throughout Madison.* Over time, these grounds and argued that the "welfare of the children will be relationships and connections would prove indispensable as the so largely increased that the money and time expended will Club developed its diverse interests. return an interest in health and happiness as yet untold."^ The Woman's Club of Madison was conceived as a liter In addition to responding to the effects of growth and indus ary and social club, and many of the programs and speakers detailed in the yearbooks from the mid-1890s reflect that focus. The group hoped to "promote agreeable and useful relations among women, to aid in the development of their intel lect by consideration and discussion of all subjects of interest, moral and social, and to form a center of literary, scientific and musical culture in the city of Madison."^ Recitals and presen tations focusing on art, music, history, and travel were enjoyed along with tea—all proper and expected activities of a literary and social club in the mid- 1890s.
Women's Club Movement An early and influential woman's WHS Library GV54 we MS club, Sorosis, was formed in 1868 by The Woman's Club members worked to provide safer places for the children of Madison Jane Cunningham Croly, a journalist to play than empty lots like this one. As the population of the city grew, empty lots were and feminist who articulated concerns built over and even these play spaces disappeared. regarding women's inferior status and the two separate spheres. Confined to
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California, Chynoweth wrote "I have attended the conven tion on the 'Sunny Pacific Slope,' and I feel that I have returned with fresh courage and stronger faith in our Clubs." 13
From Socializing to Social Reform Within a few years of its founding, the Woman's Club of Madison broadened its focus and sought to impact the daily life of the city and its residents. Issues related to children, edu cation, and school conditions were taken up by the Education Department, which quickly became one of the most proactive departments. The department and its subcommittees studied social issues and educational concerns and gathered informa tion and obtained advice for the purpose of providing direc
WHi Image ID 11041 tion and expertise to the Club's reform efforts. The Education Department also invited two to three speakers, Members of the Woman's Club fundraised for the benefit of usually specialists in their fields, to address the Woman's Club Madison's first public hospital, Madison General, which opened in October of 1903. of Madison each year on educational topics. The clubwomen met and consulted with local teachers, professors from the the home and domestic sphere, few women entered the male- University of Wisconsin, and partnered with other commu dominated public realm. Croly beHeved that women needed nity organizations to work for social reform. The club to maintain their homes and to utilize their domestically nur women's influence became more marked as they lobbied and tured talents to influence and better the world outside the set examples for those in the positions of power. The home. A few similar women's clubs began in Wisconsin in Woman's Club of Madison and its Education Department the 1870s but the most prominent early club was the passed resolutions for presentation to the Madison School Woman's Club of Wisconsin, which organized in Milwaukee Board and Common Council and worked to influence those in 1876. The clubwomen in Milwaukee worked to "elevate responsible for the decisions affecting the city as weU as and purify our civilization" and later inspired the Woman's speaking directly to citizens at meetings and through the Club of Madison as they began to focus on a Woman's Build newspapers. ing of their own.' By 1893, when the Woman's Club of Madison was An Extraordinary Impact on Everyday Life founded, there were thirty-two similar clubs in the state of The efforts of the Woman's Club of Madison not only Wisconsin.^ In October 1896, the Woman's Club of Madison impacted the community, but, the women themselves. The joined the Wisconsin Federation of Women's Clubs, which women developed speaking skills as they presented papers was formed at the state level to organize and facilitate coop and led discussions among themselves at a time when few eration among clubs. In 1900, the president reported a feder women had opportunities to address large public audiences. ation membership of 131 clubs and 5200 clubwomen.^ A new The clubwomen became empowered as they expanded their form of strength andpoHtical clout slowly began to take shape focus and worked for social reform. The clubwomen rede as a result. fined womanhood to "increase autonomy, assert sorority, win At the national level, the Woman's Club of Madison education, and seize influence beyond the home in the for joined the General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC) in bidden pubHc sphere." 1* 1896 to gain support, contacts, and ideas. ^"^ In addition to While many in the clubs supported woman suffrage, club networking and coordinating efforts, clubs shared their women utilized their domestic traits to gain acceptance of papers and information about speakers through the their reforms in the community. Their "municipal house GFWC.^^ The network allowed for a transfer of ideas and keeping" and reforms were less threatening than the efforts of served as a source of community and inspiration. Organiza the suffrage movement. The number of clubwomen tionally, it also became possible for a national poHcy to filter increased rapidly to more than 20,000 by 1890, outpacing from the federation to the clubs throughout the United the more radical suffrage groups. States. ^2 Xhe networking and inspiration went hand in hand, Despite the important achievements of women's clubs as Edna E. Chynoweth, reported to the Woman's Club of throughout Wisconsin, the movement is often overshadowed Madison in a "President's Address" in September 1902. After by better-known movements such as woman suffrage and the attending the sixth biennial GFWC meeting in Los Angeles, support of temperance. Yet, the importance of estabHshing a
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library in a local community, for example, resulted in an 148 women, and, by 1914, 500 clubwomen furthered the extraordinary impact when multiplied statewide. As women's efforts of the Woman's Club of Madison. ^"^ The interest was clubs worked to confront many issues, the local impact on timely as the clubwomen would come to need all of the ener everyday life was considerable. getic and resourceful members they could organize to face the challenges of the new century. Growth, Challenges, and Accomplishments Life in the majority of America's cities at the turn of the cen Clubwomen in Madison realized many early successes as tury was fuU of filth and dirt, and Madison was no exception. they gained influence and worked to improve the health and Residents routinely braved dirty streets and the stench of back welfare of the city. In addition to establishing a children's yard latrines, standing water, and rotting garbage in the sum room at the city library, the club supplied the room with new mertime. ^^ Marshes, especially on the near East Side, posed books worth $100. The women promoted and purchased chaUenges every summer, and health officials warned that they equipment for manual training and domestic science could serve as breeding places for malaria, yeUow fever, classes. 1^ As the Club's interests grew and its positive impact typhoid fever, and diphtheria. Inadequate sewage systems and was recognized, women continued to seek a place on the the raw sewage discharged into area lakes, including one mil- prospective member Hst. Within three years of the establish Hon gaUons a day from a sewer serving the University of Wis ment of the Club, the secretary reported a membership of consin, further threatened the health of Madison's residents. ^^ Despite the picturesque setting of the Capitol and university between two of the city's lakes, Madison residents faced a number of daunting challenges to keep their city clean and healthy as the city's population, along with man ufacturing sites, continued to grow. As business and civic boosters worked to attract more industry to Madison, the factory district continued to grow east of the Capitol building. The increased demand for workers caused the popu lation to swell and the children's play areas were crowded out. As the popu lation of the city doubled between 1900 and 1920, more homes and peo ple meant more trash.^^ Garbage col lection was inadequate, which led to many residents and businesses burning or dumping it. Additionally, even though there was a city ordinance pro hibiting the emission of black smoke within a mile of the Capitol building, several plumes could be seen spewing from smokestacks and factory chim neys in 1912. Further, there was no ordinance to prevent the pollution of the city's skies beyond that one mile radius.21 The effects of industrialism and densification were most notable in the neighborhoods and areas sur rounding the factory district.
WHS Image ID 30382 As the clubwomen worked to pro tect and improve the health of the Belle Case La FoUette, wife of Robert La FoUette, and the first female to graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School, seated here with her sons, city's schoolchildren, their concerns Robert Jr. and Philip, ca. 1909 were not ill advised. The impact of
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WHi Image ID 36549 Mary L. Atwood, Woman's Club of Madison founder, photographed at age 47 in 1902 201718_EP.qxd 111,1^6 7:01PM Page
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE WOMAN S CLUB OF MADISON, WIS. MKS. WILLET S. MAIN, President MRS. JNO. C. SPOONER MRS. WM. H. UPHAM MKS. F. W. HOVT MRS. LUCIUS FAIRCHILD
WHS Library HQ1902 C76 1898 Representatives of the Woman's Club of Madison, ca. 1897: President Sophia L. (Willet) Main, with Anne M. Spooner, Mary C. Upham, Mary C. Hoyt, and Frances B. (Lucius) Fairchild 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:01 PM Page
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industry on the moral, intellectual, and physical welfare of lished record for working in the community and with the children was a distinctive concern of the Progressive era city's Common Council. The early cooperative efforts of the reform movement.22 As the Club year opened in 1899, the MPPDA and the Woman's Club of Madison helped form a Education Department, boasting 18 members, began work to longstanding, albeit informal, partnership that would bring improve the sanitary conditions of the schools, the schools' lasting changes to Madison. yards, and surrounding areas.^^ Their work, built upon a In addition to their organizational support and promi continuing interest in the city's schools, was no doubt piqued nence, the MPPDA contributed to the town improvement by an 1897 presentation by Richard B. Dudgeon, Madison's effort by printing and donating agreements to be distributed superintendent of schools and husband of member Ella V. to owners of houses and shops throughout each of the city's Dudgeon.2* wards. By signing, the citizens indicated that they would keep As committee members began their research, they found their walk, gutter, and yard clean and in order. ^ and noted that "most of the buildings were unattractive both The clubwomen and MPPDA involved schoolchildren in within and without; yards were strewn with bits of paper, the beautification program because they were the connection banana peelings, and peanut shells." During school visits, between the schools and their homes. The idea to include teachers were consulted and asked "to suggest ways in which schoolchildren was not lost as reformers hoped to inspire the women of the Department could help them in carrying future generations to maintain their neighborhoods. An arti out their ideals."^-^ The clubwomen continually gathered cle in the Wisconsin Journal of Education noted "the interest information, read educational magazines, and worked to the children take in the improvement of the school buildings improve their understanding of the issues. In 1900, the Edu cation Department hosted Dr. H. L. Russell who spoke of "Dust and Its Dangers."^^ Soon, concerns regarding the san itary conditions of schools began to overlap with issues such as clean yards and streets and other beautification efforts.
Partners and Patrons The clubwomen worked to expand their efforts outward from the school and into the surrounding neighborhoods. An extended "Town Improvement" effort for a cleaner Madison began to coalesce as the club partnered with another impor tant turn-of-the-century organization, the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association (MPPDA).27 The MPPDA was a private, volunteer organization originally dedicated to estab lishing parks and pleasure drives for carriages. As the city grew and the isthmus became more crowded, only three acres of public park space were available. The organization took up the cause of estabHshing pubHc parks and by 1905, the MPPDA had secured donations for over 150 acres of parkland which included over four and a half miles of lake and river frontage.^^ The MPPDA realized its full potential during the first decade of the century as a spirit of commu nity consciousness and pubHc beauty enveloped Madison. Prominent Madison men and their families, whose wives were active in the Woman's Club, donated much of the land that is now the basis for Madison's renowned park system. During the first decade of the twentieth century, four men donated over $100,000 to purchase nearly 150 acres of park land in Madison, and the wives of three of the four men were WHi Image ID 36547 involved in the Woman's Club.^^ Another important connec tion was between Helen R. Olin, a founding member of the Rachel Jastrow campaigning for woman suffrage from the Woman's Club of Madison and her husband, John Olin, who back of a car in Madison, 1915. She was a charter member and, at one time, served as President of the Woman's Club of served as president of the MPPDA for its first twenty years.^'^ Madison. She was also instrumental in the building The association was gaining prominence and had an estab of Madison General Hospital.
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pea seeds to plant at home and estabHshed prizes for the chil dren with the tidiest garden and best flowers. Excited students worked to keep the schoolyards clean and also directed their attention towards their homes and neighborhoods. The club women built upon the interest of the children and their orga nizational success with the MPPDA and requested that the Mayor propose a pubHc cleaning up day^^ 0 ^ The Education Department of the Woman's Club contin ued their town improvement projects with the help of the schools and the MPPDA from 1900-1903. According to a review of the department's work in 1902, "teachers unani mously agree that the work has been helpful in every way." In November 1902, ten doUars was awarded to the children of the fourth ward school as their district showed the greatest improvement in street and home cleanliness.^* The club women and MPPDA made "frequent trips throughout the entire city in order to keep in touch with the work." In 1903, five dollars was offered for the greatest street improvement and an additional five dollars would be presented to the child -V. with the best garden of nasturtiums, making the program all the more attractive to schoolchildren.^-' It is evident the town improvement efforts were achieving results given the contin WHi Image ID 36548 ued participation of the children and schools and the financial hi 1868, journalist .fane Cunningham Croly founded Sorosis, and organizational contributions of the MPPDA and club one of the two first women's clubs, because she had been women. The prize money was likely a big draw for the chil excluded from New York's male-only professional clubs. dren and clearly their cleanup efforts must have contributed She later led Sorosis in organizing the national to the cleanup of Madison. The president of the Woman's General Federation of Women's Clubs, which helped Club claimed that "A steady improvement is visible in the coordinate local clubs with a common purpose. appearance of our city" because of their activities. After four years of efforts, the clubwomen found that many of the work and grounds, means an interest in school work and a pride n ers exhibited a civic pride and that where "three years ago \sic^ seeing the same things done in their own homes and such a spirit was the exception, it is now the rule."^'^ dooryards."^2 xhe Woman's Club and MPPDA provided The clubwomen worked tirelessly to improve the condi schoolchildren with complimentary nasturtium and sweet- tions of schools inside and out. Their Education Department
Photo by Paul Jakubovich Photo by Paul Jakubovich Contemporary photo of the renovated interior of the Exterior of the Woman's Club of Wisconsin building in Woman's Club of Wisconsin building in Milwaukee Milwaukee, located on Kilbourn Avenue. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
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organized an effort to provide works of art to decorate the exercise. Deterring juvenile crime and promoting Ameri waUs of the city's pubHc schools, including Mother Goose canization were additional goals of movement leaders.*2 prints, a bust of LongfeUow, and a view of Niagara FaUs.^^ The earHest mention of playgrounds in the records of the Another important effort established a school gardens pro Woman's Club of Madison appears to be the "Report of Edu gram in Madison and by 1914, 165 schoolchildren had gar cation Department, 1899-1901." The Club opposed reducing dens. The clubwomen took on another large project at the the "space allotted to play grounds, which were in most cases turn of the century as they put their influence behind the pro too small" at the city's schools.*^ In 1903, the City Improve motion of public playgrounds. ment Committee took up the efforts to promote the move ment for public playgrounds and began studying their use in The Playground Movement other cities. The committee chair, Lily H. McCue, worked In May 1903, the Woman's Club of Madison passed a res with prominent Madisonians to "discuss the subject of play olution and submitted it to the Common Council, endorsing grounds in the newspapers of the city" and on May 22, 1903, the playground movement which "will further the interests of the Woman's Club adopted the aforementioned resolution. the children throughout the city, physically, morally, and Madison's Common Council voted unanimously to make an socially"*'^ The clubwomen hoped active outdoor play would appropriation of $35,000 for the purchase of playgrounds.** help aUeviate some of the negative aspects of urban, indus It is unknown if or how this money was dispersed, but the trial life, such as unsanitary living conditions, overcrowding, clubwomen kept active and hosted Emmet D. Angell in 1904, and the lack of safe places to play. According to a Wisconsin who presented an iUustrated lecture on play and playgrounds State Journal editorial, "Growth tightens up a town; vacant to citizens. City Council members, and city teachers.*"* AngeU, lots become preempted by brick and concrete structures and a Professor of Physical Training from the University of Wis the play spaces go."*^ consin, believed that boys and girls who did not play enough The growing movement for public playgrounds and would be iU prepared for the struggles of adult life.*^ organized play in America's urban centers, such as Chicago Given the Education Department's focus on improving and New York, Hkely piqued their interest as Madison's the conditions of the schools and children's health, it is logi clubwomen considered some of the problems facing their cal that pubHc playgrounds would overlap with schools. A city and its children at the turn of the century. Promoters new group in the Education Department, "The Committee urged the organization of play activities for urban children on Organized or Supervised Play on School Grounds," was on playgrounds supervised and owned by the city. They organized and visited the schools and observed the condi beHeved organized play helped shape moral and cognitive tions of the yards and recess periods. In addition to witness development and the playgrounds provided a safe place for ing foul language and boys smoking cigarettes, the women children in congested neighborhoods to engage in healthy found that there was no supervision of the grounds or bath rooms during the recess periods. The Club arranged for Professor Angell to instruct students and teachers outside for one week during recess after which the teachers declared they felt much healthier. The committee moved and carried a motion in 1905 to bring the issue of supervision during recess peri ods to the Board of Education and make organized play and exercise part of the school curriculum. ' The Club's 1905-1906 season, devoted to playgrounds, was a busy one for the committee. The club women built upon their existing rela tionship with the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association and under the direction of the MPPDA, four WHS Library HQ1902 C76 1898 pieces of land around Madison were The Woman's Club of Wisconsin building that stands today on Kilbourn Avenue given or leased to the city for public in Milwaukee was known as "The Athenaeum" for years, but today is named for the playgrounds. One of the spaces that Club itself. This undated photo shows the old speaker's platform.
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WHS Archives View from the Capitol dome east to the Third Lake Ridge District, 1917. Today, the Third Lake Ridge District is located on the near east side of Madison's downtown.
would be fully developed with playground equipment was the Burr Jones Field and Playground. The piece of land near Madison's factory district was donated by and named after Burr W. Jones, whose wife, Olive L. Jones, was a charter member of the Woman's Club.*^ In another effort to arouse tion and the money was directed towards equipping and pubHc sentiment for pubHc playgrounds, the Club hosted a maintaining a playground for two months (with an instructor) play at the Fuller Opera House in Madison. The play, put on during the summer of 1906. by graduate students, was advertised in the papers and the The first season of the playground, likely held at the Burr proceeds of $75 were to benefit playgrounds. The clubwomen Jones Field and Playground, provided a good example of how were able to secure another $190 through private subscrip- things could work and this committee, now listed as "The Committee of Public Playgrounds," carried on. Additional playground apparatus was secured and the play area was improved with cedar and cinder fillings. An instructor was secured to organize play and the facility was used two nights a week for older classes. The Club secured an additional $500 of financial support for playgrounds through the tax levy in 1907 and an equal or greater sum was promised for the next year "which wiU make the continuance of this work cer- I tain."50 The Club also donated $100 to Emil T Mische, Madison's first park superintendent, to be used for play grounds."*^ By 1909, the Burr Jones Playground boasted tall swings, sHdes, a merry-go-round, basketbaU hoop, and organ ized activities like hiking and track and field events.""^ i Building upon their successful fundraising efforts and the development of the Burr Jones Field and Playground, the clubwomen continued their efforts and hosted Professor Gra I ham Taylor, secretary of the Playground Association of Chicago. His presentation on playgrounds and recreation WHi Image ID 13111 featured stereopticon views and was foUowed by a discussion Corner of Park and Regent Streets, Madison, 1916 of Madison's local needs. One of the leaders of the discussion
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WHi Image ID 3096 Aerial view of the west part of Madison's isthmus and downtown from a kite, 1908
following Taylor's presentation was Mr. Burr W. Jones.""^ books, a presentation was given in March 1912 on the "Value The momentum of the playground and organized play of Play Period in Character Development" followed by a movement in Madison continued although the actual details report on "Outdoor Gymnasium Apparatus in Use on the of the clubwomen's efforts after 1910 are difficult to discern. Madison School Grounds." Playgrounds remained a focus The last report of the Education Department on file chroni of the Education Department until the United States entered cles the 1908-1909 season. According to the annual year the First World War.
Health and Happiness as Yet Untold In an April 1907 speech, club member Louise Phillips noted that "Women's clubs have ceased to be an experiment, they have become a power in the land and their influence is felt in all reform movements.""'"' The Woman's Club of Madi son took on a significant number of reforms ultimately hav ing an impact on the city and its people in extraordinary ways. Admittedly, the success of the Club's efforts to promote the playground movement was difficult to gauge. Some of the playground and organized play movement's goals were diffi cult to measure, such as the promotion of Americanization and the moral and cognitive development of children. The clubwomen would come to understand this as the Club pres ident noted in 1902, "You have in practical ways accom plished many things of which we can tell. The unseen good cannot be mentioned or measured.""'^ WHi Image ID 11128 However, it is clear that other goals, like providing a safe A front view of houses on Gwinett Court. In 1916, these tenant place to play and the opportunity to be active, were attained. houses sheltered twelve families each. Many of the playgrounds were located on the Madison's East
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Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association Annual Report, 1909 Children posing at Burr .Jones Playground, 1909
Side near the factory district and in neighborhoods where Many of the success stories in Madison in the first decades many of the industrial workers lived. Playgrounds clearly pro of the twentieth century were the result of progressive interests vided a safer alternative for children than playing near rail and hopeful citizens determined to improve their commu road tracks and on side streets. Equally important, the value nity—a belief or idea that is never far from the surface in Madi of exercise and physical education was not lost on schools— son. The majority of residents in the city today enjoy a high or area playgrounds and the city of Madison—as physical quality of Hfe and the important role of the Woman's Club of education courses were added to the curriculum over time. Madison in this development should be celebrated. L^H( The Woman's Club of Madison and its supporters realized their goal of securing public funding of the playgrounds and Notes an organized outdoor recreation program after nearly a I.Jane Cunningham Croly, The History of the Woman's Cluh Movement in America (New York: H. G. Allen & Co., cl898): 1164. decade and a half of work towards that end. By 1917, the 2. Resolutions passed by the Woman's Club, May 22, 1903, Reports of Delegates and Miscellaneous Papers folder. Box 29, Woman's Club of Madison (Wl), Records, clubwomen and their partners had persuaded the Madison 1893-1978. Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison. The Woman's Club of Madison Board of Education to support their playground program will be referred to as WCM hereafter in the endnotes. 3. Dorothy Fabian, "Woman's Club of Madison," Historic Madison Xlll (1996): 37. citywide.^'' 4. Croly, 1167; Madison, Past and Present, 1852—1902 (Madison: Wisconsin State Jour Looking back upon sixty years of achievements, the Gen nal, [1902]): 77. 5. Madison, Past and Present, 77. eral Federation of Women's Clubs pointed out that many clubs 6. Karen J. Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist: True Womanhood Redefined (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1980): 15. worked for years to promote activities and establish programs 7. Liza Tuttle, A Cluh of Their Own: 125 Years of the Woman's Cluh of Wisconsin (Milwau that had been deemed fads during their infancy. This was cer kee: Woman's Club of Wisconsin, 2000): 11, 30; Genevieve G. McBride, On Wisconsin Women: Working for Their Rights from Settlement to Suffrage (Madison: University of Wis tainly the case in the city of Madison. Many of the programs, consin Press, 1993): 137. including physical education, organized play, domestic and 8. John D. Buenker, The History of Wisconsin, vol. 4, The Progressive Era, 1893—1914 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1998): 335. manual sciences, were introduced into the curriculum by the 9. Yearbook of the Woman's Club of Madison for the Club year 1911-1912, Box 1, WCM Records; General Federation of Women's Clubs, Fifih Biennial of the General Fed Woman's Club only to be accepted into the educational system eration of Women's Cluhs, Official Proceedings, Milwaukee, WT (Detroit, MLJohn Bornman later.^^ This was also the case with parks as city government & Son, 1900): 168. 10. Yearbook of the Woman's Club of Madison for the Club year 1896-1897, Box 1, took over funding from private organizations. WCM Records.
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11. Anne Ruggles Gere, Intimate Practices: Literacy and Cultural Work in U.S. Women's Clubs, 1880-1920 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997): 8. Woman's Building, Madison. Wis. 12. Blair, 97. 13. "President's Address of Greeting at the Opening of the Club Year, September 19, 1902," Department Reports folder. Box 1, WCM Records. 14. Blair, 1-4; The idea of Domestic Feminism— women securing a place in the public sphere by using their domestic credentials and maintaining their con ventional appearances—was central to Blair's thesis. 15. Blair, 1-5.; In 1914, clubwomen publicly endorsed a federal suffrage amendment.; McBride, 135-136. 16. Fabian, 37; Madison, Past andPre^ent, 77. 17. Report of Secretary, 1895-1896, Department Reports folder. Box 1, WCM Records.; Fabian, 37. 18. Jane Kresge Secord, "The Women's Club Move ment in Madison and Public Health Concerns,"/our- nal of Historic Madiscm 10 (1990): 33-34. 19. David V. Mollenhof, Madison: A History of the For mative Years, 2nd edition (Madison: University of Wis consin Press, 2003): 364-372. 20. MoUenhoff, 186, 384. 21.JohnJ. McShane, "Sanitary Survey of the City of Madison, Wisconsin," (PhD diss.. University of Wis consin, 1912): 8-10,20-21. 22. Dom Cavallo, "Social Reform and the Movement to Organize Children's Play During the Progressive Era," History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal ofPsy- chohistory 3, no. 4 (Spring 1976): 509. WHJ Image ID 35736 23. Report of the Education Department, 1899-1901, The Wbinan's Building, constructed in 1906 and pictured ca. 1910, still stands today Department Reports folder. Box 1, WCM Records. 24. Yearbook of the Woman's Club of Madison for the on West Gilman Street in downtown Madison. Club year 1898-1899, Box 1, WCM Records. 25. Report of the Education Department, 1899-1901, Department Reports folder. Box 1, WCM Records. 50. Report of Education Department, 1906-1907, Department Reports folder. Box 1, 26. Yearbook of the Woman's Club of Madison for the Club year 1901-1902, Box 1, WCM Records. WCM Records. 51. Yearbook of the Woman's Club of Madison for the Club year 1907-1908, Box 1, 27. Report of the Education Department, 1899-1901, Department Reports folder. WCM Records. Box 1, WCM Records. 52. MoUenhoff, 320. 28. MoUenhoff, 311. 53. Yearbook of the Woman's Club of Madison for the Club year 1908-1909, Box 1, 29. Ibid. WCM Records; Report of Education Department, 1907-1908, Department Reports 30. Harold M. Groves and Helen H. Groves, "The City Beautiful: The Madison Park folder. Box 1, WCM Records. and Pleasure Drive Association, 1892-1938," Wisconsin Magazine of History, 40, no. 3 54. Yearbook of the Woman's Club of Madison for the Club year 1908-1909, Box 1, (Spring 1957): 197-206. WCM Records. 31. Report of Education Department, 1899-1901, Department Reports folder. Box 1, 55. Yearbook of the Woman's Club of Madison for the Club year 1907-1908, Box 1, WCM Records. WCM Records. 32. "Arbor and Bird Day," Wisconsin Journal of Education (April, 1906): 122-123. 56. "President's Address of Greeting at the Opening of the Club Year, September 19, 33. Report of Education Department, 1899-1901, Department Reports folder. Box 1, 1902," Department Reports folder. Box 1, WCM Records. WCM Records. 57. MoUenhoff, 320. 34. Report of Education Department, 1902-1903, Department Reports folder. Box 1, 58. Sally McAdoo Clagett, Sixty Years of Achievement, 1890-1950 (Washington, D.C.: WCM Records. General Federation of Women's Clubs, 1950): 4. 35. Report of Education Department, 1903-1904, Department Reports folder. Box 1, WCM Records. 36. "President's Address of Greeting at the Opening of the Club Year, September 19, 1902," Department Reports folder. Box 1, WCM Records. 37. Report of Education Department, 1903-1904, Department Reports folder. Box 1, WCM Records. About the Author 38. Ibid. 39. Madison Board of Commerce, Madison, 'The Four Lake City " E£creational Survey (Madison, Wl: Tracy & Kilgorem, cl915): 10-11. Mark Speltz is a historical researcher 40. Resolutions passed by the Woman's Club, May 22, 1903, Reports of Delegates and with the Research &. Library Miscellaneous Papers folder. Box 29, WCM Records. 41. Wisconsin State Journal, May 10, 1918, as used in MoUenhoff, 320. Department at American Girl. He is also 42. Dominick Cavallo, Muscles and Morals: Organized Playgrounds and Urban Rpform, a Masters student specializing in Public 1880-1920 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981): 1-3, 29-31. History at the University of Wiscon 43. Report of Education Department, 1899-1901, Department Reports folder. Box 1, WCM Records. sin-Milwaukee, where the original 44. Report of Education Department, 1902-1903, Department Reports folder. Box 1, paper on which this article was based WCM Records. The City Improvement committee is also often listed as Town Improvement committee. has been awarded the History 45. Report of Education Department, 1903-1904, 1904^1905, Department Reports Department's A. T. Brown Award for the best graduate paper folder. Box 1, WCM Records. 46. Emmet D. Angell, "Play in Education," Wisconsin foumal of Education 38, no. 8 in 2004-2005. He previously worked as an independent (October, 1906): 291. researcher on exhibits for museums, including the Ellis Island 47. Report of Education Department, 1904^1905, Department Reports folder. Box 1, WCM Records; Yearbook of the Woman's Club of Madison for the Club year Immigration Museum and Eisner Museum of Advertising &. 1904-1905, Box 1, WCM Records. Design in Milwaukee. He is active with several museums in 48. Report of Education Department, 1905-1906, Department Reports folder. Box 1, historic Mineral Point where he lives with his wife, Kari. WCM Records; Yearbook of the Woman's Club of Madison for the Club year 1894-1895, Box 1, WCM Records. 49. Report of Education Department, 1905-1906, Department Reports folder. Box 1, WCM Records.
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0. EVINRUDE. MASINE PEOPOLSIOBT MECHANISM. AFPLIOATIOir FILED SEFT, 16, 1910. 1,001,260. Patented Aug. 22,1911. 2 SHEETS-SHEET 1. ^ .8 Tl / IM-^^^^"^^ J^^€i.Z.
us Patent #1,001,260 1910 patent for Ole Evinrude's outboard motor, or "marine propulsion mechanism'' 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:08PM Page 17 @
WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
A Wisconsin Legend OLE EVINRUDE AND HIS OUTBOARD MOTOR
hy Ralph E. Lambrecht
ithout question, the cheese and beer industries are closely associated with Wisconsin. However, another product, the outboard motor, has undergone con tinuous development and enjoyed great popularity for nearly one hundred years. The wo rid-renowned name in outboard motors had its humble beginnings in Wisconsin. Designed, developed, and manufactured in the Milwaukee area, Evin rude was founded in 1909 by Ole Evinrude. The story of Ole Evinrude begins with his birth in Norway April 19, 1877, and continues with the emigration of his fam ily to Wisconsin in 1882. There they settled on a farm in Jef ferson County near Cambridge, Wisconsin, along the shores of Lake Ripley. Ole was one of eleven children born to Andrew and Beatta (Dahl) Evinrude. In his homeland, Andrew, who came from a family of seafaring men, was a farmer and landscape gardener. The men in his wife's family had been machinists and blacksmiths for generations. The Evinrudes settled into a life much like that of thousands of WHJ Image ID 36551 other Scandinavian and German emigrants who came to Ole Evinrude, undated Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. These settlers were an industrious, thrifty, and self-reliant group of pioneers. Ole's formal schooling, in which he learned to read, to write, and to perform basic math skills, ended with the third grade.
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m^^^^^
Norwegian Emigrant Museum Above: Ole Evinrude making good use of his invention Below: Evinrude's production prototype of his first line of motors. This version of his initial 1907 model would sell for $62 in 1909 and jumpstart his company.
However, during his school days, Ole had covered the boat parts, chopped access to more than third grade arithmetic since he them up, and consigned them to the attended a single-room schoolhouse, which wood stove. Undaunted, Ole immedi instructed students through the eighth-grade level, ately began to construct another boat on a woodlot and it was said that he could do all the problems in that was rarely frequented by his father. There, the arithmetic book up to that eighth grade level. with scrap lumber from the farm and the neigh By the age often, Ole was helping his father full borhood, he created an eighteen foot boat with a time on the family farm. Nevertheless, there was some sail. While his father was away for a few days, Ole thing else on Ole's mind; perhaps inspired by the beauty assembled the boat and had it floating in the lake by the of nearby Lake Ripley. At the age of fifteen, he started time his father returned. This time his father relented, and to fashion the parts of a wooden boat, which he had to Ole began taking people for Sunday afternoon excursions keep hidden from his strict father who did not toler around Lake Ripley for twenty-five cents a trip, realizing ate adolescent foolishness. However, his father dis- as much as five dollars for the day's efforts. His mother had Courtesy of the author
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Don'tRow u»« llw Evinrude Detachable ROW BOAT MOTOR CUmpml on Any iquare itmi boat in 2 tTMA- Simple and ComfMci, Clean, Rflubl« and Lattinf. £«u)y CAriWd by band. £nftoc w«ttha Mily 32 Ibt. EVINRUDE MOTOR CO. 220 L^k* Street. Milwaukee. U.S.A.
Courtesy of the author One of Bess's early efforts at advertising, and her first national ad, featuring the "Don't Row" slogan, 1910
Bess Evinrude, Ole's wife and business partner
Courtesy of the author
always supported Ole, and his father, too, came to understand machine shops, the last of which made electric motors, where that farming would never be Ole's specialty. he discovered and learned to operate a variety of machine At the age of sixteen, with his father's consent, Ole walked tools. Subsequently, Ole moved to Pittsburgh and found work the twenty miles to Madison and found a job at Fuller and in the rolling mills where he learned about steels and metal Anderson, a farm machinery manufacturer. His starting lurgy. Returning to Wisconsin, he gained experience in wage was fifty cents a day. At first, he was just a helper in the engine building first with Fairbanks and Morse and then with machine shop but before long found himself operating a drill Frazier and Chalmers. He learned to make patterns, to use a press and later learning the art of the lathe and milling drawing board, to design, and to invent. In 1900, now 23, he machine. After his ten-hour days, he returned to his rooming moved to Milwaukee to become the head of the pattern shop house and read all the books and magazines he could find on of the E. P. Allis Company. mathematics, mechanics, and engineering. He had discov In Milwaukee, Ole found lodging at Mrs. Doyle's board- ered the library where he could borrow these wonderful inghouse on the corner of Florida and Grove (now South 5th books for nothing. He worked for several other Madison Street) on Milwaukee's south side. With a steady income and
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skills necessary to aid in the support of the family. Ole also noticed her but was too shy to let on. Ole's engine took shape and one evening the engine was ready for its first test run, but Ole had forgotten to buy gaso line that day. To compensate, he hooked it up to the illumi nating gas pipe in the basement of the house. It started on the second turn of the crank with, in Ole's words, "more noise than a shotgun."^ The others, already at the dinner table upstairs, were suddenly cast into darkness as the muffled explosion shook the house, and the gas lights went out. The engine had immediately consumed all the gas coming into the house. Mrs. Doyle was equal to the occasion and order was soon restored, along with the lights. Ole never fired up the engine in the basement again. A few years later, Ole formed a partnership with a man named Glemick to produce gasoline engines. Bess Gary, now 18 and working days at a machine shop, came in the evening to keep the books for Glemick and Evinrude. The firm received an order for fifty engines from the U.S. government, and the partnership appeared to be on its way to becoming a success. However, Glemick and Evinrude differed on which course the company should follow, and the partnership ended. Ole tried to go it alone with the newly-formed Motor Gar Power Equipment Gompany but was unsuccessful. Overextended, physically and financially, he returned to the trade of pattern making, setting up his own shop on the sec ond floor of John Obenberger's forge business on Lake Street (now Pittsburgh Street). With Beth's assistance, (their part nership was becoming more than a business arrangement) Ole started to make headway. Ole had learned something from his previous ventures. Not long after, on a Sunday afternoon, Ole, Bess, and some friends had taken a picnic lunch out to Lake Okauchee west of Milwaukee. After lunch, Bess expressed an interest in getting some ice cream from a shop on the other side of the lake. As the story goes, Ole jumped into a boat and rowed
WHS Museum 1997.35.3a-d across the lake to get the ice cream at a place called Schatz's The 1939 Elto Cub weighed only 8.5 lbs. and was advertised as that was some two miles away. The ice cream melted on the the "world's lightest" outboard. trip back across the lake, and everyone had a good laugh except Ole. For him, the seed of an idea had been planted: why not push the boat with a motor that you could clamp on some spare time, he turned his thoughts to building engines. the stern? The seed, however, would not immediately germi He built his first engine in Mrs. Doyle's basement; a two- nate. By this time, marriage was the most prominent thought cycle, single-cylinder, air-cooled affair. While some of the in Ole's mind. A few months later, he mustered up the boarders made fun of him, Mrs. Doyle recognized that spark courage to pop the question, which Beth answered in the of genius that lay beneath the shy, serious Norwegian exterior affirmative. On November 21, 1906, Ole, now 29, still shy and supported Ole's efforts. At the same time, Ole had also and wanting to avoid a big wedding, and Bess, 20, slipped attracted the attention of another person two doors down the away and were married. They were now partners in whatever street; a slender sixteen-year-old, blue-eyed girl named Bess happened next. They both worked with determination, and Gary. Her father had died when she was fifteen and, being Bess still supplied partial support to her mother. While his the oldest of the six siblings still at home, she took a steno pattern shop prospered, Ole settled down to his next sideline graphic course at the Spencerian Business College to gain the project—an outboard motor.
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The Evinrude Motor Company In spite of his early idea, Ole Evin rude did not invent the outboard motor. In 1896, the American Motors Company of Long Island City, New York, began building its "portable boat motor with reversible propeller."'^ Lit tle is known about this first gasoline outboard, but the company allegedly made 25 marine motors before the turn of the century. There were several other attempts at outboard design between 1900 and 1907, but none was successful until Cameron Waterman of Detroit, Michigan, introduced his Waterman "Porto" outboard in 1906. Twenty-five sold that first year, and sales rose to 3,000 in 1907. The motor had a vertical cylinder behind the tran som of the boat with a horizontal crankshaft and two sets of bevel gears to produce rotary motion of the hori zontal propeller shaft. The motor, the first successful gasoline outboard, con tinued in regular production by Water man's company until 1917. In 1907, Ole designed an engine unlike any that had come before. It had a horizontal cylinder projecting forward into the boat, a vertical crank shaft, and a flywheel above the water. The driveshaft and gear housing below water were enclosed in a bronze hous ing. This mechanical arrangement is used on all outboard motors today, except that the cylinders are behind the boat transom. Ole and Russ Cary, his brother-in-law, carried the creation to the Kinnikinnic River and rented a rowboat, clamped on the motor, and took off with a roar that brought dozens of people to the river bank. At first critical of the effort and practical ity of the project, Bess later encour Courtesy of the author aged Ole to clean up the design and Evinrude advertisement for a canoe motor with a through-hull design. offer it for sale. Ole refined the design The text reads, "Won't you come Evinruding with me?" by adding a muffler and an aluminum manifold, and polishing the bronze parts. He made enough parts for twenty-five motors. A friend's demon stration on Pewaukee Lake in 1909 net ted ten orders. The hand-built. 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:11PM Page 22
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EVINRUDE MO DAY FORCE -
Business boomed for Evinrude in the 1910s, and the company rapidly expanded in factory space and staff. The Evinrude day force, pictured here in 1916, numbers well over a hundred.
two-horsepower motor weighed 62 pounds and sold for $62. chior, Armstrong, and Dessau, who convinced his boss that Bess wrote an advertisement which appeared in the Milwau the motors had great potential in Norway, Denmark, and kee papers: Don't Row! Throw the Oars Away! Use an Evin Sweden, After a trial order of two motors to be used at a rude Motor. The remaining fifteen sets of parts were demonstration in Denmark, a firm order for six came—then purchased in short order, and Ole had to scramble to cover fifty more, Mikkelsen and another man were sent to Milwau the nearly 1,000 orders received in 1910. kee to call on "B, Evinrude" and negotiate a better price for Business boomed, and the company needed to expand to a large order. The men were amazed to discover that they a larger facility to accommodate the shop force which now were dealing with a young woman, Bess was more than a numbered 100 employees. Ole borrowed the capital neces match for them; refusing to yield on the price, she received an sary and moved his business to 228 Lake Street a few doors order for 1000 motors. The problems stemming from the sea away. Bess and her sister, Dorothy, were handling all the sonal nature of the business were solved, and Mikkelsen office work until Bess began a national advertising campaign. became Evinrude's New York agent for international sales. Within three days of the appearance of the first magazine ad, The Reed Street plant had become too small by 1912, and the they had to hire six stenographers to handle the inquiries. company moved to yet another three-story brick building on They maintained cash only transactions. It kept them afloat, Walker Street, Ole was factory manager and chief engineer but the working conditions were crowded. Early in 1911, while Bess handled advertising and public relations as well as Ghris Meyer, President of Meyer Tug Boat Lines, put up general supervision of the business. Sales in 1912 rose to more $5000 for a 50 percent interest in the fledgling company, than 4,000 units and doubled that amount in 1913, which now moved to a three-story building on Reed Street, The years of relentless work started to undermine the frail In 1911, production increased to more than 2,000 motors. physique of Bess Evinrude, Ole had also been working long The business was seasonal, however, so Bess contacted several hours for four years without a break or vacation, Ralph, their exporters in New York to explore the sale of their outboard son who had been born on September 27, 1907, was six years motors overseas. At first cast aside, their letter was eventually old, and they wanted to spend more time with him during his discovered by Oluf Mikkelsen, a Scandinavian clerk of Mel- formative years. As a result, in 1913, with Bess' health failing.
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Courtesy of the author
Ole sold his interest in the business to Ghris Meyer for cast-iron cylinders and its steel internal shafts and gears. It $137,500; a large sum in those days. The transaction meant weighed 48 pounds compared to the 72 pound Evinrude and Ole could afford to take some time off He bought a big produced three horsepower compared to the two produced Packard touring car, and the family of three embarked on a by Evinrude's, single-cylinder engine. One of its unique fea transcontinental journey. Two years later, Ole bought a cabin tures was quieter underwater exhaust through a hollow pro cruiser and toured Florida's waterways. When the family peller hub, Meyer was making money with what he had, returned north, Ole designed a 42-foot cruiser, the "Bess however, and turned down the offer of a new partnership, Emily," and toured the Great Lakes. In 1917, they headed Ole said he would start his own company to which Meyer down the Mississippi to winter in New Orleans. With rest and responded, "You can't compete with us. You'll go broke,"^ relaxation, Bess' health was restored. In the fall of 1920, Ole started his new company with the remaining $40,000 from the sale of his interest in the Evin The ELTO Motor Company rude operation seven years before, Ole and Bess rented space By this time, Ole decided that he had been loafing long at 62 Mason Street in Milwaukee, and it was just like starting enough. He had some ideas for a new, lightweight outboard. all over again. Because they had sold the rights to the Evin The processes and techniques of using aluminum had made rude name, they needed a new name for the motor and the great strides during World War I, and Ole recognized that its company, Bess suggested ELTO, which stood for Evinrude use in an outboard could result in a far lighter motor than the Light Twin Outboard; a simple, catchy name that was easy to steel, iron, and bronze in the Evinrude outboards being man remember. Because there was more competition in the mar ufactured by Meyer at the time. However, Ole had signed a ket now, the new Elto Motor Gompany suffered a loss of five-year no-compete contract when he sold his interest to $ 10,500 the first year, Ole was back in overalls, and Bess took Ghris Meyer, The contract included the rights to the Evin over the front office. Then, in 1921, 1000 motors were sold, rude name for outboard motors as well, Ole, out of loyalty, followed by 2,500 in 1922, Beneath the Elto name on the took the plans for his new motor to Meyer, The new engine back of the fuel tank (in smaller letters) appeared "Designed was a two-cylinder model; mostly aluminum except for its two by Ole Evinrude," In 1922, Jacob Stern, export sales man-
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outboard motor weighing less than 40 pounds. It was a success and grew into larger models of the same basic design, reaching six horsepower in 1926, This much power could plane off a light, flat-bottom boat, enabling it to run over the surface of the water, and a world speed record of more than 23 mph was soon estabUshed, The horse power race was on! In 1926, the largest outboards in the Evinrude or Elto lines were four horsepower. The Johnson Motor Gompany 6-horsepower Big Twin was a challenge that could not be ignored. In 1927, thtjohnson 27-cubic-inch Big Twin was boosted to 8-horsepower, Organized racing competitions began, and, by 1928, Johnson produced two racing models for Glass A at 8-horse power and Glass G at 16-horsepower using aluminum pistons to allow higher rpm. They also used aluminum construction extensively on all external parts, except the cast-iron cylinders. The Evinrude Gompany responded with an 8-horsepower model in 1927 and offered 6-, 8-, 12-, and 16-horse- power models by 1928, In 1928, Ole Evinrude had a more innovative
Courtesy of the autho approach, a 7-horsepower Elto Speed ster twin and a four cylinder Elto High These two young women demonstrate the light weight of this Elto motor. Speed Quad rated at 18-horsepower, The Quad weighed 92 pounds and ager for the Briggs and Stratton Gompany in Milwaukee, sold for $275, It was the first four-cylinder outboard and the became affiliated with Elto and soon became Bess' right- first of a long line of four-cylinder engines that reached 40 hand man. Sales rose steadily: 4,000 in 1923, 5,500 in 1924 horsepower in 1930 and topped out at 50 horsepower in and 7,600 in 1925, 1946; versions of which saw much service in World War II, Outboard racing became a common spectator sport, partic The Competition ularly in the Midwest in the late 1920s and on into the 1930s, Meanwhile, another manufacturer had entered the busi There were even factory-sponsored racing teams. The 18- ness: the Johnson Motor Gompany of South Bend, Indiana, horsepower Quad dominated competitive racing in 1928, who started marketing their even lighter two-horsepower, two- Gonversely, Ole's old company, Evinrude, did not fare cylinder outboard in 1922, The four Johnson brothers had well in the mid-1920s, Ghris Meyer sold the company in been involved in inboard marine engine building since the 1924, and his successor registered a $150,000 loss in 1925 as early 1900s: including V-4, V-8, and V-12 cylinder, two-stroke a result of the competition from the lighter weight Elto and engines up to 180 horsepower; light motorcycles in the latter Johnson motors, Evinrude was sold again to new investors half of the first decade of the twentieth century and; even dab headed by August Petrie, They developed a new, lighter bled in aviation. In 1911, they flew their own airplane with one motor that increased sales in 1926, In 1927, Petrie sold out to of their light V-4 engines, becoming the first monoplane to fly the Briggs and Stratton Gompany, the Milwaukee manufac in the United States, In 1921, they developed a water-cooled turer of automobile ignition locks and small gasoline engines, version of their light motorcycle engine which resulted in an Steven Foster Briggs, president and founder of Briggs and
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Stratton, consolidated the resources of the Evinrude com Ole Evinrude, president; S, F, Briggs, chairman of the board; pany and now saw an opportunity to reunite Ole Evinrude Jake Stern (from Elto), vice president and general manager, with the company that bore his name. Finn T Irgens, a brilliant engineer and Purdue graduate, came over from Lockwood as chief engineer, OMG and The First OMC Johnson now dominated the outboard industry. Elto had nothing to gain financially from a merger with The Great Depression hit the outboard industry hard, Evinrude. They closed out 1928 with a profit of $300,000, Outboards were primarily for seasonal recreation and leisure the highest in the industry. Nevertheless, Evinrude had the in the northern states, Goming out of the merger with a debt name and a factory on North 27th Street, which Ghris Meyer of $500,000 in bank loans, this was increased to $600,000 had built during Ole's retirement. Therefore, when Briggs when operating deficits totaled $550,000 from 1930-1932, approached, Ole was willing to listen. On February 23, 1929, Ole Evinrude gave up his $25,000 salary and never drew a merger united Evinrude, Elto, and the Lockwood-Ash another paycheck. In fact, he later contributed $50,000 of his Gompany of Jackson, Michigan, with a combined worth of own money to keep the company afloat. Wages were dropped $4,000,000, The name given to this union was Outboard as much as 65 percent and the factory's hours were down to Motors Gorporation (OMG), The management consisted of 18 per week, Lockwood, the weakest of the group, was
Courtesy of the author Another innovative design from Ole, this first Elto "Rudder Twin" with through- prop-hub exhaust debuted a feature in which the exhaust gases from the engine The 1928 eighteen horsepower Elto were routed down through the motor Quad was the first 4-cylinder outboard Courtesy of the author housing itself and out through a hollow motor. Ole's son Ralph worked The 1929 Elto Lightweight folding hub on the propeller, burying them under extensively on this model, dropping out outboard was an effort to make water behind the boat. Previously, all of college to finish it. outboards more compact for easier motors had noisier above water exhaust storage and transportation; an owner systems. This is the 1920 motor that would only unfold the motor to full launched Ole's new Elto Company. length when he or she was on the boat.
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dissolved in 1930. The all-time low was in 1933, however, and departments into the early 1930s and had learned the busi in 1934 OMG made money for the first time, not to be in the ness thoroughly. After his father's death, Ralph assumed his red again for sixty years. During this period, OMG added position as President. new products to their line to help smooth out the seasonality Although 1935 was another good year for OMG, that was of the marine business. These new products included gasoline not so for Johnson now located in Waukegan, Illinois. They driven pumps, small, two-cylinder inboard engines, the Evin became overextended financially from building inventory too rude Lawn Boy lawn mower, an Evinrude camp stove, the long into the depression years. By 1935, they were operating Evinrude Speedibike, and the Evinrude Shop King (a multi in receivership. S. F. Briggs and Ralph Evinrude bought purpose woodworking unit). Johnson out of receivership in 1936, arranging to make a cash In 1933, Bess' health took a turn for the worse and she purchase 80,000 of the 120,000 outstanding shares of John died that year. Ole was devastated by the loss. She had been son stock for $ 10.35 per share. The new group was christened his partner in everything since their marriage. He drifted in Outboard Marine and Manufacturing Gorporation loneliness and, in 1934, fourteen months after Bess' passing, (OMMG); the world's largest producer of outboard motors. Ole died at the age of 57. Their product line included outboard models from a tiny Ole Evinrude's son, Ralph, had attended the University of 1/2-horsepower model weighing about 10 pounds up to a Wisconsin through the end of his sophomore year in 1927. 40-horsepower, four-cylinder, 150-pound model. By 1937, During the summer, he worked seven days a week at the plant Johnson Motors Division of OMMG was again profitable. on the new four-cylinder Quad model. The following fall, he The OMMG benefited financially during World War II from asked his parents if he could stay out of school "for just a the sale of many components as well as finished products to semester" to finish up the project. He got wrapped up in the the military; including outboard motors, emergency fire business and never returned to college. He worked in many pumps, aircraft superchargers, and instruments. After the war, business boomed. The Elto line was incorporated into the Evinrude line since the models had been similar for several years in the late 1930s. The post-war pent up demand for boats and motors was enormous and growing. In the 1950s, new models were introduced with features such as full gearshift, remote fuel tanks, and electric starters. The top horsepower increased from 25 in 1951 to 75 in 1960. By that time, OMG, as it was again called (Outboard Marine Gor poration), was producing nearly 400,000 outboard motors per year with plants in: Milwaukee, Waukegan, and Galesburg, Illinois; Peterborough, Ontario, Ganada and; Brugge, Bel gium. They were employing more than 12,000 people and were ranked in the top 500 companies in the U. S. Evinrude and Elto were not the only outboard brands born in Wiscon sin. Among the others were the Sub merged Electric Motor Gompany of Menomonie in the early 1900s; the Amphion of Milwaukee in 1915; the
Courtesy of the author 1916 Burroughs of Milwaukee; the Ole Evinrude together with Stephen F. Briggs in 1929, the year West Bend by West Bend Aluminum of OMC (Outboard Motor Company) was formed from the merger Hartford, who also made the Elgin of Elto, Evinrude, and Lockwood-Ash Company. brand for Sears; the Flambeau, made
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WHJ Image ID 36553 Promotional photo from the OMC Company, maker of Evinrude motors, ca. 1938
by Metal Products Gorporation in Milwaukee; the Koban of Milwaukee, introduced in 1913; the Lauson of 1940 also of About the Author Milwaukee; and Thor in Gedarburg, closed in 1938, then purchased by E. G. Kiekhaefer who brought out the Mercury Ralph Lambrecht is a retired engineer outboard in 1939. Moving after the war to Fond du Lac, and (1987 from Outboard Marine Corpor Oshkosh, Mercury Marine has prospered. Today, Evinrude ation) living in Lake Bluff, Illinois. A 3.ndJohnson outboards are manufactured in Sturtevant, Wis Purdue University graduate with a consin as a part of Bombardier Recreational Products Gor degree in Mechanical Engineering, he poration. Of a dozen or more old outboard names, most of joined OMC in Waukegan in 1951. which were located in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, While growing up in Oshkosh on Lake Winnebago and the Fox River, his Evinrude, Johnson, and Mercury are the only survivors and father introduced him to boating and are the only manufacturers still producing outboards in the outboards. At OMC, he held various positions in engineering, United States. The Evinrude legend and name lives on in in management, and in executive capacities where he also Wisconsin and around the world. kVi made the acquaintance of Ralph Evinrude, Steven F. Briggs, and Clarence Johnson, the youngest of the four Johnson Notes brothers. He now occupies himself developing boating safety 1. WJ. Webb with Robert W. Carrick, The Pictorial History of Outboard Motors (New standards in association with the American Boat and Yacht York: Renaissance Editions, Inc., 1967), 33. 2. Ibid., 20. Council and the International Organization for Standardization 3. History, Outboard Marine Corporation, in-house publication (Milwaukee: Outboard (ISO). He collects and restores antique outboards as a hobby. Marine Corporation, 1959), author's collection.
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he story told about Wisconsin native Anna Mae Gibbons' entrance into the sideshow Tworld was that, as a youth, she ran away to join the circus. While many early female circus per formers were born into performing famihes, some cir cus women were runaways who had felt uncomfortable, stifled, or trapped at home and who sought freedom from societal restraints. However, Anna's real path to the sideshow was far different. She may have "wanted to leave home and see the world" in order to flnd more freedom and independence, but her primary motivation was to earn a decent living for herself and her husband. Anna eventually became one of a select group of women who worked as sideshow tattooed ladies, per forming under the stage name "Artoria." When she died in the 1980s, she had performed as a tattooed lady for over flfty years working in everything from carnivals to dime museums to big-name circus
sideshows. Anna's unusual choice allowed her to trade These men sell tickets for the Ringling Brothers, Barnum her ordinary life as a working-class wife, struggling to and Bailey Combined Circus, the Greatest Show on Earth, in 1927, the same year Artoria returned the show. make ends meet, for something extraordinary, some In the summer of 1927, Ringling Brothers and Barnum thing for which she is still remembered. She became and Bailey Circus performed in the Wisconsin cities of Racine, Milwaukee, Madison, Appleton, and Marshfield. one of the most well-known tattooed ladies of her generation.
A Life of Her Own Choosing family by working as domestic servants.^ Anna met her future Anna Mae Burlingston was born onjuly 16, 1893, in rural husband Charles "Red" Gibbons in Spokane; Red was work Portage County to a Norwegian father named Gunder Huse ing as a tattoo artist in an arcade and had been tattooing pro land, who at the time went by the name Frank Burlingston, fessionally for some time. He had gone to a department store and his wife Amma Mabel Mason.'^ They lived near Amma's cafe for lunch, and spotted a young woman, Anna, sipping a parents in the town of Linwood, near Stevens Point, on what soda and struck up a conversation (at that time, Anna could was called "The Island." This was most likely the island in the not afford lunch at the cafe, so she was just having a soft Wisconsin River now called Treasure Island. In the past it drink).° The couple married in Spokane in 1912. was known by a variety of names, including Burlingston Athough the "running away" story she told as a per Island, having been named after families who lived and former was much more romantic than the real story, it was farmed there.•^ fabricated for naive audiences like many other circus tales. Her family moved from Wisconsin to Colville, Washing This story was repeated originally in the book Carnival, by ton, in late 1907. Shortly after the move, her father died of Arthur Lewis, and has since become the most commonly told typhoid fever leaving her mother and siblings without an story of Anna's introduction to the world of the sideshow. Her income. Anna left home soon after, at age fourteen, not to description of the day the carnival came to her town, as told join the circus, but to work in Spokane. Anna and her sisters, through Lewis' folksy writing style, presents a picture of an Amina and Mary, helped to support themselves and their unhappy fourteen year old itching for something better.
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After I done my chores, me and my sister went to see it. We work—which meant assembling items such as garments in the stood outside the freak show and a nice-lookin'guy started to home—and other manual labor jobs, all of which paid poorly. talk to us. I asked could we come in for free—we didn't have Anna's first job was as a domestic servant, which was com no money—and he said OK . . . Him and me got to talkin.' mon for working-class women. Tole me the show di'nt [sic] have no tattooed lady, and then Anna never publicly discussed her family's reaction to her asked me if I would I like to be one. Said that he was the tat unorthodox choice of careers, but it is likely that they were too artist, and if I let him tattoo me, I could join the show and rather surprised by this radical choice made by their daugh see the world. Well, that's what I done.^ ter and son-in-law. She had defied cultural norms and cov ered her entire body with inked designs—not just a little According to their daughter, Gharlene, Anna's transforma butterfly or flower on her shoulder—and even if Anna's fam tion into a tattooed lady didn't happen until several years after ily was open minded, the circus, dime museum, and sideshow her parents were married and living in California. "The state trade would probably not have been their first choice for their of the economy at that time was in shambles, and the future daughter. While these types of entertainment were billed as looked bleak for everyone. That is what prompted this extraor cultural and educational, the lasting, popular image of the dinary endeavor on their parts. It was a case of survival!"^ By tattooed lady was that of a strange exhibitionist willing to do the early 1920s, they had found their niche: Red worked as a just about anything. Albert Parry, in his disapproving book traveling tattoo artist while Anna performed on stage. Tattoo: Secrets of a Strange Art, as Practiced by the Natives Lewis' written account recalls Red Gibbons' promise that of the United States, expressed a commonly held opinion of if he could tattoo Anna, she "could join the show and see the tattooed ladies that lasted well into the twentieth century: world, and that he started her career with a small angel tat too on her wrist." ^'^ However, the reality that Anna and Red There are extroverts as well as introverts among the tattooed made the decision to join the sideshow circuit to earn a bet women of America. There are, for instance, the tattooed ter living for themselves speaks volumes about the working women of the circus and the dime-museum, proud of their class at the beginning of the twentieth century and the ornamented skin and making a profession of their exhibition choices available to them. At that time, employment options ism. A feeling not of guilt but of superiority is their distin were few and the pay was poor; men could work in industrial guishing trait. ^^ or factory settings, farming, or manual labor-type jobs. While some working-class women were able to get secretarial or While some, like Parry, voiced disapproval, Anna's reality teaching positions, most were restricted to factory work: piece could not have been further from that stereotype. She used the tattoos to create a new life, along with Red, over which she had control; unlike most women of her day, she chose a career that allowed her to travel, meet unusual people, and express herself differently than what was considered normal. The more adventurous working class women like Anna clearly felt that the circus life was an acceptable career option in an era when many working-class men and women had lit tle chance for an education, highly paid work, or travel. Join ing the circus could be seen as a chance for a more dynamic and certainly more stable economic life. In a 1934 newspaper interview, Anna stated simply: "I got tattooed because I wanted to get tattooed; it's a nice way to make a living." ^^ Tattooed ladies were paid very well—typi cally, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century tattooed performer could expect to make $100-$200 a week, depending on her popularity, the crowds, and the success of the show or museum she currently worked in. ^^ That was not only sub Circus •cus Wortd Museum stantially more than the average working-class woman could make in jobs available to her, but was considerably more than Annie Howard, photographed ca. 1898, and her husband the average circus woman made. Tattooed women were paid Frank formed Barnum and Bailey's "Tattooed Couple." similarly to the top stars, who made from $125 to $250 a Frank was also a tattoo artist, and Annie called herself week, but were expected to perform dangerous stunts. In a "Barnum and Bailey's original tattooed lady." 1909 article about circus women, Hugh Weir reported:
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months of the season. "^ The circus woman receives from twenty-five dollars to two In comparison, an average working-class family made hundred and fifty dollars a week, her salary depending upon between $300 and $500 a year at the turn of the twentieth her ability and the novelty of her act. . . . A woman rider of century, which would be between $7 and $10 a week.-^^ ordinary ability may earn seventy-five dollars a week. If she Teachers were making an average $7 a week in 1900, which can turn a somersault in the air while the horse is in motion generally included room and board, while clerical workers in she increases this to one hundred and twenty-five dollars. A 1909 were only earning about $22 a week.-^' Women "backward back" somersault will bring her two hundred dol employed seasonally in tobacco warehouses during 1893 in lars, perhaps $250. The pay of the aerialist fluctuates from Wisconsin made between $6 and $ 12 a week, while the aver thirty-five dollars to one hundred and twenty-five dollars a age weekly salary for a man working in a factory or other week. A woman who can turn a double somersault in the air, industrial job in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was only between $5 or can do a '^flying act," receives one hundred and twenty-five and $11 a week.-^° Tattooed women were not only paid sub dollars a week and is always in demand. stantially more than many other circus employees, but they were also paid much more than contemporary working-class Lower-level circus women were paid substantially less; men could hope to make. even by 1912 ballet girls were paid only $8 a week. Male cir cus workers also made much less than tattooed ladies; a man Inked Bodies and the Sideshow working as a clown during 1910 made only $20 a week. A At the time Anna decided to join the circus, tattooed ladies male billposter and lithographer during 1906 started at $35 a had become a staple of the American sideshow. The first per month, and then earned $45 a month after the first four forming tattooed women, Nora Hildebrandt and Irene
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Woodward, appeared on sideshow stages beginning in the 1880s, and the phenomenon of the tattooed lady continued until the last tattooed woman's retirement in 1995. Anna's transformation into "Artoria, tattoo girl, a human art gallery" made her part of the long tradition of tattooed per formers. The tattooed lady's continuing popularity allowed Anna to continue working until old age forced her to retire in 1981 at the age of 87. Tattooed performers were fairly common by the 1910s; most traveling sideshows had tattooed performers on their rosters to appeal to American audiences' taste for the exotic and unusual, even if it was manufactured. The first recorded exhibition of a tattooed man in Europe was that of a Polyne sian man in 1774. The tradition spread to the United States, beginning with men like Gaptain Gostentenus, who was one of the most popular tattooed men of the nineteenth cen- tury.^*^ He went by a number of names, including "the Greek Alexandrino," "Gaptain Georgi," "Tsavella," "Tattooed Man of Burma," 'The Turk," and "The Living Picture Gallery." The Gaptain began performing around 1870 and sometimes claimed to be of a race of bold mountain men from the Balkans, and other times, to be a Greek sailor who was cap tured and forcibly tattooed by Pacific Islanders.^^ He had 388 symmetrically arranged and interwoven images that covered his entire body, including his face, ears, and eyeHds.22 By the early 1890s, when the tattooed woman's popularity had increased, the Gaptain dropped out of sight.23 While tattooed men began performing about eighty years before women realized the potential of permanent body deco ration, the appearance of tattooed women brought a sexual allure to the sideshow that a tattooed man never could. The Courtesy of the author most commonly used story by most early male tattooed per This elegant studio portrait was used to advertise Artoria's show formers was that of the captivity narrative; a man was captured as well as her husband's skill with a tattoo needle. by South Seas Islanders and forced to submit to tattooing against his will. When tattooed women took the stage, they mostly nude on a stage, regardless of the reason. Tattooed adapted this narrative to their needs; now women were being women, however, needed to display as much inked flesh as captured by "savages" in the American West, not the South possible, which required them to show their chests, arms, Seas, and tattooed against their will. The tattooed men could legs, and, later, their stomachs. never hope to compete with these tantalizing stories of The bad image given to tattooed ladies because of their women's abduction and forced tattooing especially when com willingness to appear on stage scantily-clad, rebuking the bined with seeing an almost nude woman on display. Although accepted "moral codes" of the day, at least in Anna's case, tattooed men did continue performing into the twentieth cen was unearned. While she performed onstage as a tattooed tury, the women eventually edged them off the stage. lady, offstage Anna was reputed to be a demure and modest Many disapproved of the tattooed women; this new exhi woman, conscious of the stigma imposed upon her chosen bition was not really considered "clean" family entertain profession and careful about her image. Even though she was ment. The tattooed woman had to be willing to remove most completely tattooed, audiences never saw the tattoos hidden of her clothing and display herself for others to see. Moral by her costume.^ codes and dress traditions for women during the late nine Ward Hall, who employed her later in her career, said of teenth century prescribed strict codes of dress; women never Anna, "She was a very dear, sweet old lady. She was so reliable; showed their ankles, much less their legs. Even by the early she never missed a show." Hall also said that Anna always twentieth century, polite society expected women to dress and looked nice, took care of herself, wore a little makeup, and got behave modestly, which certainly did not include appearing her hair fixed, and that she also often talked for herself, mean-
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ing that she did her own lectures. As with many other per Edison's 1875 invention of the electric pen facilitated the forming women of her day, such as circus stars, acrobats, and advancement of the process of tattooing: actresses, the ability to use performance to earn a decent living outweighed the negative stigmas of performing onstage. [thepen was a] hand-held, motor-driven device with an oscil lating needle intended to prick a sheet of paper. '^Writing" The Evolution of Tattooing with an electric pen resulted in words that were drawn as In the 1880s, when tattooed ladies began exhibiting them strings of tiny, closely spaced holes. The paper, when placed selves, tattooing was done "by hand" with a needle poked in a special frame, became a stencil, the master copy in a sim into the skin, one dot at a time. A full-body tattoo job would ple, inexpensive form of printing.'^° not only have been extremely painful, but would have taken a considerable length of time to complete. The electric pen never succeeded as an office machine. By the time Anna Gibbons began working as a tattooed However, O'Reilly began experimenting with the pen as a performer, the actual process of getting tattooed was easier, tattooing device, modifying it slightly and receiving a patent and both speed and techniques were improved with the for his new device in 1891.'^" The new machine was a battery invention of the electric tattoo machine. Before tattooist operated, hand-held electric motor that controlled a single Samuel O'Reilly began his successful experiments with needle or a row of up to five needles. The tattooist drew the Thomas Edison's electric pen in the early 1890s, all tattoos design on the skin using the machine, while the reciprocating were applied by hand. The traditional method of tattooing needle made shallow wounds and pushed ink into them. The had existed for millennia; the tattooist made tiny pinpricks new machine, now commonly referred to as a "tattoo gun," into the skin with a pointed stick or needle or a "small ham could produce up to 3,000 skin-pricks per minute, many mer fitted with a sharp point."'^' The wounded area was then more than the 150 to 200 per minute possible by hand.'^^ The rubbed with a chemically stable pigment and remained process was still painful and time consuming, but had become there, visible through the upper layers of the skin. considerably less so.
Below: Circus posters often advertised Right: Captain their attractions' exciting, if frequently Constentenus' intricate false, stories, like this (ca. 1884) designs covered him from representation of the forcible tattooing of head to toe and even the famed Captain Constentenus. decorated his scalp.
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stomach was a schooner under full sail flying the American flag. George Wash ington appeared on her chest and "The Last Sup per" was repro duced across her upper back.^^
A Performer's Life on the Road A tattooed lady's act was simply to stand on a stage, dis playing her dec orated body for the spectators while giving a short speech about her life, which was more often than not concocted. The tales of "forced tattooing by sav ages" had gone out of favor by Tattoo Archive the turn of the Anna's husband, Red Gibbons, tattoos a young woman's social security number on her leg—a popular choice of twentieth cen tattoo when the numbers were first assigned. tury, but per formers were still just as likely to As Anna's tattoos show, the technique employed by many make up wild tales. When Anna worked during the 1930s, the tattoo artists improved with the invention of the machine. excitement in seeing a fully tattooed woman was still high; The designs that appeared on this era of tattooed ladies were naive audience members could sometimes not imagine how detailed pictures that employed a wider variety of colors and the performer had come to be tattooed. Artoria commented complex shading. Earlier images of women like Hildebrandt, in a 1934 newspaper article: Woodward, and Annie Howard revealed tattoos that, while numerous, were nothing more than crude line drawings and You wouldn't believe, though, how many people come up an' symbols taken from common tattoo designs popular with ask me was I born this way. I always say yes, an' the doctors sailors. Anna's tattoos, in contrast, were images taken from figure it was on account of my mother must have gone to too classical artwork. Her husband. Red Gibbons, who did all of many movies. 32 her tattoos, was interested in reproducing beautiful artwork, not just scratching rough outlines of pictures. Her collection The sideshow tradition had always included false and included full-color reproductions of a portion of Botticelli's exaggerated stories about the performer's past, but Artoria "Annunciation," part of Michelangelo's "Holy Family," and a had taken her cues from the audience itself, confirming their group of angels influenced by Raphael. Anna had the outlandish beliefs. The "running away" story was false, but Madonna on her right thigh and the Child on her left; on her far more romantic, exciting, and believable to modern audi-
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ences than tales of forced tattooing at the hands of South Seas with the Dell and Travis Carnival after sideshow manager islanders. It also showed how the circus tale was able to Dean Potter ran an ad in Billboard. She didn't need the adapt, incorporating modern ideas about freedom and money; she was supported in part by Oklahoma oil royalties choices. from Red's family's land. According to Potter, "she was bored Anna became "Artoria, tattooed girl" in 1919 with the and lonely, had the itch to get back to show biz." While Pete Kortes Show, and she quickly came to the attention of working for Potter, she fell coming down the steps of her Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey Circus. Anna signed dressing room semi-trailer and broke her arm. Hall says that her first contract with "The Greatest Show on Earth" on they wanted to take her to the hospital, but she refused December 4, 1920.^^ She worked with Ringling Brothers because she had a show to give; she worked all day with a bro until the 1924 season when she switched to the Hagenbeck- ken arm.*-' Around 1978, when she was in her 70s, Anna Wallace Sideshow Annex.^ The show started in Cincinnati, began working for the Hall and Christ Sideshow, where she and she was billed as "Miss Artorian, the California tattooed was employed as Artoria. She would remain there until her lady."^"* Anna used the stage name "Artoria," not "Artorian," retirement in the early 1980s.*^ but misspellings were common in the names of performers. When she began working for Hall and Christ, they didn't In 1925 and 1926, she worked for Kortes and McKay's put her in the sideshow tent right away, but put her, in her Museum in Los Angeles, and, by the 1927 season, she was costume, on the bally platform outside the sideshow. back at Ringling Brothers, working for sideshow man Their reasoning was that people could see her ager Clyde Ingalls. In his written memoir. My Very and know that the oddities inside the tent were Unusual Friends, her future employer Ward Hall says real, rather than gaffed, or fake, freaks. By the that Anna told him that during the twenties, Ingalls 1970s, freak shows had begun to lose their popu tried to take "liberties with her" causing her to leave the larity and instead of touring with national circus show.^'' companies were limited to the carnival circuit. During the Great Depression, Anna worked on Rin Modern audiences viewed many sideshows and the gling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey Sideshow again for performers with suspicion and skepticism. the 1931 season; Clyde Ingalls still managed the Anna later worked inside the sideshow tent with Hall and sideshow, but the earlier problem with Ingalls was Christ Shows, eventually working as the blow-off attraction. solved after Red had a talk with him.^^ During 1931, The blow-off was the last act in a multiple act sideshow, or Anna shared the stage with performers such as Eko 10-in-l show, for which an extra fee was charged. Usually the and Iko, the "peculiar people," Jack Huber, the "arm blow-off attraction was racier than other attractions in the less wonder," Strecho, the "rubber-skin show and was often limited to men The Edison Papers, Rutgers University man," and Major Mite, the "smallest only.*'^ At the Texas State Fair in Dal Invented in 1875, Edison's electric pen was man in the world."^^ Both she and Red las, one of the performers became ill a failure as an office machine. In the worked for Foley and Burk Shows dur hands of tattooist Samuel O'Reily, and couldn't work. Jack Woods, the ing 1932 and 1933, and, during the however, the pen was modified into a inside lecturer, told Ward that they had mid-1930s, she worked for the Johnny powerful tool for the inking of human skin nothing to put in the blow-off that day. J.Jones Sideshow.**^ According to Hall, Woods wanted to put Artoria back during the Depression Anna and Red would work on a show there, but Ward was of the opinion that a tattooed lady, espe in the summer, and in the winter they went to Oklahoma cially an elderly one, would be unsuccessful in the blow-off where he would work as a "rough neck" in the oil fields. *^ However, as they had no other option. Woods came up with Their daughter, Gharlene Anne Gibbons, was born while an introduction for Artoria that Ward later recounted: they were living in Gushing, Oklahoma in 1934. ^ Anna retired during the late 1940s and 1950s to care for Ladies and gentlemen, while you have been in this tent, you Red after he went blind. He was the victim of both a brutal have seen numerous strange people, if you will, human oddi robbery and a construction accident, and then had several ties, freaks of nature, people who were bom in strange condi surgeries on his injured eyes, which failed, leaving him blind. tions. But behind this curtain we have probably the strangest of She met Ward Hall, the Hall and Christ sideshow operator them all—far stranger than anything we have out here on the who would employ her in her old age, while she was working stage, because, back here, we have this human oddity, who is at Hubert's Museum on 42nd Street in New York City. not a bom freak, she wasn't bom strange, this woman is a man- Hubert's was a popular dime museum in Times Square, made monstrosity. She was as a young woman, very beautiful. which operated from 1925 until 1965, often remembered for She met and married a man 3 times older than herself. He was William Heckler's famous flea circus, mice eaters and so jealous offer and afraid that she would be attracted to some bearded ladies.*^ Anna returned to work during the 1970s other man that he marked her body, thinking that by marking
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Sideshow World Ward Hall A beautiful and proud Artoria in her heyday. Artoria, still performing more than fifty years into her career. According to Ward Hall, she with his show at the Wisconsin State Fair in the mid-1970s.
her from head to toe, she would no longer be attractive to any ever, the pitch was so successful that for later performances other man. And she is here, no longer a young woman, but Woods turned down the sound system so that Anna, now now a very elderly, widowed lady But those marks that he put hard of hearing, couldn't hear the false story."^ on her body when she was young are still there and they will Anna's time with the Hall and Christ Shows was happy; she be there for the remainder of her Hfe. She is waiting on the was surrounded by interesting people and was doing some stage now to welcome you. ° thing she enjoyed. In 1979, while working on a carnival in Muskegon, Michigan, the ladies working for the show organ Ward remembers that people loved it; the story, while ized a surprise birthday party for her. Marge Porter, the main false, was captivating. There was only one flaw: Jack Woods assistant, set it all up. Everyone gathered in the blow-off, and amplified his voice, and for one performance it was too loud. Ward summoned Anna, saying he needed to talk to her When Anna, after hearing his pitch, gave very stern orders that she he pulled back the curtain, and when everyone said "Happy wanted "to see Mr. Hall and she wanted to see him right Birthday, Anna," Ward observed, "you never saw anyone's now.' Anna was upset that Jack called her a monstrosity. face beam with happiness, as much as that lady did." Ward remembers that she told him, "I am no monster, he is Finally, Ward Hall had to insist that Anna retire; he never to call me such a thing as a monstrosity again."^'^ How remembers that she showed signs of dementia and became
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19. "8,000 on Hand as Ringling-Barnum Circus Gets Under Way: Big Outdoor Events somewhat paranoid. She would go to eat during the break Set," ffiHSoarrf, April 11, 1931, p. 77. and wouldn't be able to find her way back to the sideshow. As 20. Stephan Oettermann, "On Display: Tattooed Entertainers in America and Ger many," p.200. Ward recalls, it was around 1981 when he told her that he 21. Ibid. didn't have a job for her the next year. Anna cried and 22. Leslie YieXAer, Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self, (New York: Simon & Schus ter, 1978): p. 102-103. wanted to stay, but at the end of the season she moved to Ten 23. Oettermann, "On Display: Tattooed Entertainers in America and Germany," p. 200. nessee to live with her daughter's family.^-^ 24. Gibbons, "Anna Gibbons research," Oct. 26, 2005. Clearly, Anna was a remarkable woman from the begin 25. Ward Hall, Interview with the author, tape recording of a telephone conversation, January 1,2004. ning as shown by her selection of careers. By the time she 26. David Morton, "Tattooing: The Technology for Mass Production of Tattoos Orig died on March 18, 1985, at age 91, she had performed as a inated and Quickly Matured in the Nineteenth Century. Removing Them Still Hasn't Caught Up," Invention and Technology, 17 no. 3 (Winter 2002): p. 37-38. tattooed lady for well over fifty years, taking time off only to 27. Ibid., p. 37. care for her ailing husband. Her obituary mentions that she 28. Ibid., p. 38. 29. Ibid. lived in the Bristol Nursing Home at the time of her death, 30. Ibid. 31. Lewis, Carnival, p. 160. and that she was a member of the Episcopal Church. Like 32. "In New York," p. 4. most other obituaries of tattooed ladies, there was no men 33. Gibbons, "Artoria draft," Nov 12, 2005. 34. "Hagenbeck-Wall ace off to Good Start at Cincinnati," Billboard, May 3, 1924, p. tion of her lifelong career, simply her church affiliation and 123. the names of those surviving her, including her daughter, 35. Ibid.; Gibbons, "Anna Gibbons research," Oct. 26, 2005. 36. The Tattoo Historian Magazine, ed. Judy Tuttle, 11 (Spring/Summer 1987): p. 6; granddaughter, two sisters, a brother, and a sister-in-law. "Goliath of Circuses Opens 1927 Season with Greatest Show Human Eye Ever Saw," Her long career made her part of American popular culture; Billboard, April 23, 1927, p. 60-61. 37. Ward Hall, My Very Unusual Friends, 1991, p. 28. she became a recognized name to sideshow and tattoo fans, 38. The Tattoo Historian Magaiine,Y. 11, p. 6; "8,000 on Hand as Ringling-Barnum Cir cus Gets Under Way: Big Outdoor Events Set," p. 77; Gibbons, "Artoria draft," Nov. and her image still appears on postcards and in books. The 12,2005. girl from Portage County had found fame, fortune, and an 39. "8,000 on Hand as Ringling-Barnum Circus Gets Under Way: Big Outdoor Events Set," p. 77. interesting life with her bravery, remarkable character—and 40. "Births," Billboard, April 21, 1934, p. 53; The Tattoo Historian Magazine, V. 11, p. a little help from the tattoo needle. kX'i 22-23. 41. Hall, interview with the author; C. W. Eldridge, 'Photos of Artoria Gibbons," email conversation with the author, August 26, 2005; "Huseland Family Tree," www.ancestry.com, accessed Oct. 26, 2005. Notes 42. "Births," p. 53. I.Arthur H. Lewis, Carnival, (New York: Trident Press, 1970): p. 158; Gharlene Anne 43. Mervyn Rothstein, "Once and Future Tenant Flamboyant Enough For the Neigh Gibbons, "Anna Gibbons research," email conversation with the author, Oct. 26, borhood," New York Times, November 14, 2004, p. 11-13. 2005. 44. Lewis, Carnival, p. 156-157. 2. Wisconsin. Bureau of Health Statistics. Index to registrations of births [micro 45. Hall, interview with the author. form], 1808-1907. Wisconsin Series 2072. Wisconsin Historical Society. Milwaukee 46. Ibid. Area Research Center. GoldaMeir Library. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Reg 47. A. W. Stencell, Girl Show: Into the Canvas World of Bump and Grind. Toronto: ECW istration of Birth for Anna Mae Burleson, no. 9500588 Press, 1999: p. 233. 3. Gibbons, "Anna Gibbons research," Oct. 26, 2005; Michael B.Jan, "Question or 48. Hall, interview with the author. comment from the UWSP Archives Web site," email conversation with the author, 49. Ibid. Nov 15, 2005. 50. Ibid. 4. Gharlene Anne Gibbons, "Artoria draft," email conversation with the author, Nov. 51. Ibid. 12, 2005. 52. Ibid. 5. Gibbons, "Anna Gibbons research," Oct. 26, 2005; Gharlene Anne Gibbons, "Arto 53. Ibid. ria," email conversation with the author, Oct. 27, 2005; Fifth Ward, City of Spokane, 54. "Obituaries," Bristol Herald Courier/Virginia-Tennessean, March 19, 1985, p. 2. (Spokane County, Washington). 1910 Census. 6. Gibbons, "Artoria," Oct. 27, 2005. 7. "Huseland Family Tree," www.ancestry.com, accessed Oct. 26, 2005. (Gunder Huse land was the Norwegian name for Frank Burlingston.) 8. Lewis, Carnival, p. 158-159. 9. Gibbons, "Anna Gibbons research," Oct. 26, 2005. About the Author 10. Lewis, Carnival, p. 158-159. 11. Albert Parry, Tattoo: Secrets of a Strange Art, as Practiced by the Natives of the United Amelia Klem received her Masters States, (New York: Collier Books, 1933, 1971): p. 9. 12. "In l SPRING 2006 39 201718_EP.qxd 2/15/06 6:38PM Page 40 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The Rise and Fall of the Long White Baby Dress hy Leslie Bellais ong white dresses are frequently they needed to be "hardened" by the largest clothing collection dis exposing them to cold, which, he con played in a museum—second only to tended, strengthened their resistance to wedding gowns. Although these dresses are disease and deformity. Baby clothes, he often donated as christening or baptismal argued, should be light and loose. gowns, they were common infant attire The color white symbolized joy, good before the mid-twentieth century. The ness, and purity to the late-eighteenth collection of 150 long white baby dresses century Europeans and Americans, and it held by the Wisconsin Historical Society are also reinforced babies' angelic qualities. part of the extensive children's clothing col Mothers also worried about dangerous lection—all available for viewing online. dyes in colored fabrics, and childcare This sea of white raises the question of advisors suggested white because it why mothers would dress their small, showed dirt easily, which forced moth dribbling, drooling babies in these ers to clean the garments more fre seemingly inappropriate garments, quently. Baby garments were typically and, why that practice would con made either from linen or from cotton tinue over a span of 150 years. The because these fabrics could be easily answers come from a combination cleaned. of childhood philosophers and A book published in 1823 on advisors; women's magazines, advice to young mothers noted the ^^ffi^C™ including Godey's Lady's Book necessity of long dresses on babies, and Harper's Bazar; and childcare WHS Museum 1959.140 adding that the extra length should books from as early as 1811. A dress likely to have been worn by be folded under the baby for warmth. Before the long white baby dress, Charlotte Green (b. 1796) of Windsor, In addition to providing warmth, the mothers swaddled their infants in Vermont. With its low neckline, long dresses "Save infants from the tight bands, which made it impossible short sleeves, and light cotton fabric, trouble of wearing shoes and stock it was perfect for '^hardening" Charlotte for the children to move their arms or ings, and also prevent servants from against exposure to the cold. legs. In his 1693 book. Some teaching them to walk too soon." The earliest baby dresses were Not only did it prevent babies from Thoughts on Education, John Locke relatively short. This dress is only opposed swaddling. He thought 22 inches long and would have walking, the long dresses often pre babies were kept too warm and that just covered Charlotte's toes. vented them from crawling. 40 www.wisconsinhistory.org 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:28 PM Page 41 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OE HISTORY Author's collection Genevieve Guynn's (1898-1992) photograph, taken in August of 1898, captures the beauty that a long white dress can impart to an infant. SPRING 2006 41 201718_EP.qxd 2/13/06 9:21 PM Page 42 "WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The physical appearance of babies also played a sig nificant role in the popularity of the long white baby dress. Babies are seen as cute and adorable today, but nineteenth-century adults believed that infants were unpleasantly out of proportion with their large heads and small bodies. After the birth of her first child in 1841, Queen Victoria wrote in a letter that babies looked like frogs and that an ugly baby was a "very nasty object, and the prettiest was frightful when undressed.' The length of a baby's garment was believed to increase the child's beauty by giving it adult proportions. The dress also gave the baby a stately image by providing it sub stance, presence, and grace. At first, long white baby dresses had short sleeves and low necklines to conform to the practice of "hardening." Doctors and childcare advisors began to question that concept as early as the 1820s, and, by the late 1860s, were vigorously arguing that baby clothing should have long sleeves and high necklines to keep babies warm and healthy. As a result, beginning around 1880, parents dressed their babies in garments with long sleeves and high necklines. The long white baby dress first came under criticism during the 1840s. In 1846, one physician wrote "the fashion of long-clothes . . . leads to needless expense, both in material and in washing, besides encumbering and overweighing the child." Still, parents found the garments attractive and practical and dressed their infants in them for another seventy years. With the beginning of the twentieth century, practi tioners of Home Economics, a new discipline taught to high school and college girls, were espousing a more scientific approach to childcare. Home economists believed that the fashion of the long white baby dress was irrelevant, unnecessary, and impractical. Con sequently, new generations of women no longer dressed their newborns in long white baby dresses reserving these delicate dresses for special events such as baptisms and christenings. iJ/i WHS Museum 1948.167 Dress worn by Elizabeth Stoddart (b.ca. 1848) in Fond du Lac and made by her mother, Janet (Brown) Stoddart. To a limited extent the long white baby dresses were fashioned to be similar to their mothers' clothing. In the 1840s women's clothing was plain, had tight sleeves, and a waistline close to its natural place such as you see on this dress. (During the 1890s long sleeves on baby dresses became puffy just like their mothers'.) Baby dresses had also lengthened considerably by this time. Elizabeth's dress is 36 inches long. 42 www.wisconsinhistory.or 201718_EP.qxd 2/17/06 9:30 AM Page 43 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WHJ Image ID 38123 A young mother holds her baby who is wearing a plain long white dress with short sleeves, popular at the time this daguerreotype was taken, around 1849. SPRING 2006 43 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:30 PM Page 44 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OE HISTORY SUPERB CHRISTEHING KOBE. Godey's Lady's Book, April 1852, p. 237 The longest and most elaborately embroidered dresses appeared in the 1850s, the heyday of the long white baby dress. In February 1840, Sarah Hale o/Godey's Lady's Book wrote that infants should be spared all unnecessary ornament, however, in 1852 she could not help but publish an illustration of a heavily embroidered "Superb Christening Robe. which was described as a "curious work of elegance" and not meant to be copied. The longest dress in the Museum's collection is also from the 1850s and measures 46 inches in length. 44 www.wisconsinhistor 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:31PM Page 45 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WHS Museum 1948.1056 Worn by John Huegin Puelicher (1869-1935) at his baptism in Milwaukee. The gown features the stylish "en tablier" form of decoration. On these dresses, ornamentation went from neckline to hem, but only at the center front. Usually there was no waistline seam, giving the gown nincess lines. This dress is 40 inches long. WHS Image ID 36034 Unidentified baby from Black River Falls wearing an "en tablier" baby dress (1880-1889). The photo shows how the length of the dress creates the illusion of a body in adult proportion to the size of the baby's head. SPRING 2006 45 201718_EP.qxd 2/13/06 2:25 PM Page 46 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY KJ^,/ :'lV»^A ^^.]l^.%^: WHS Museum 1961.128.< Worn by Marie Schoenleber (1888-1969) at her baptism in Milwaukee. Marie belonged to the first generation of babies who wore gowns with long sleeves and high necklines. 46 www.wisconsinhistory.org 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:31PM Page 47 @ WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WHS Museum 1947.885 Worn by William Hughes Marshall (1895-1950) in Madison. In the December 1885 issue, Demorest Magazine announced, 'Almost entire absence of elaborateness in the outfit of the modern well-to-do infant is the rule." This remained true throughout the 1890s when stylish baby dresses consisted of a yoke at the bodice, no waistline, and a relatively plain skirt. The only decoration might be lace and tucks at the yoke and hem, replacing the "coarse needlework" of earlier generations. WHS Image ID 27113 This Dane County family portrait from around 1875 includes an infant in a long white baby dress with a high neckline and long sleeves. ',. v-^SW^ •:M^ WHS Museum 1947.885a Before putting a dress on their small infants, mothers first dressed them in an undershirt, diaper, diaper cover, and long petticoat like the one seen here, which would have been worn with the William Hughes Marshall dress. SPRING 2006 47 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:53PM Page 4 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:56PM Page 49 @ WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY r children's clothing web resources The Wisconsin Historical IVluseum has over 2000 items in its children's clothing collection, and all of them can be seen at www.wisconsinhistory.org (click on "Online Collections" in the right column and then "Chil dren's Clothing" under "Museum Digital Collections"). The clothes on the website are sorted by decade, gen der, and type, which makes it possible to track the changes in fashion and styles for dresses, suits, coats, hats, shoes, and underwear from the eighteenth cen tury to the 1980s and 1990s. Along with each object you will find a photograph, a detailed description, date of manufacture, and any existing history. When you visit the collection on site, be sure to see the boys' dresses and pink suits from the late-nine teenth century; girls' off-the-shoulder dresses common in the 1850s and 1860s; clothes made or designed in Wisconsin by Florence Eiseman, Oshkosh B'Gosh, and Jockey; and costumes worn for Halloween, per formances, and religious holidays. You may also want to take a look at sisters Gertrude (1842-1852) and Mary Jane (1845-1852) Bigford's collection, as worn in Forest Township, Fond du Lac County. Their collection includes the oldest worn-in-Wisconsin pieces. Alice Brown's (1896-1899) collection includes over sixty-five items from the Madison girl's wardrobe, which makes it the largest one worn by a specific child. Notice that each clothing piece provides an insight—sometimes poignant, sometimes charming—into the lives of chil dren who lived in Wisconsin. WHS Image ID 28605 This ijfant was photographed in Black River Falls, circa 1910. www.wisconsinhistory.org Use of these dresses as everyday articles of clothing would fade by the end of the decade. About the Author Leslie A. Bellais is the Curator of Costume and Textiles for the Society's Museum division. Leslie is originally from Maryland, and she earned her M.A. in American history at the College of William and Mary She has been with the Society for sixteen years and lives in Madison. SPRING 2006 49 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:57 PM Page 50 .T»3sysT .an^ CTC13':..!.ia..«»3i«SB.i;3Si*w»WFrs&«!aaa^ 6ff'«-^'7S»S4iKSS'>e»-' '^m Photo by Joel Heiman Aztalan Mysteries of an Ancient Indian Town By Robert A. Birmingham and Lynne G. Goldstein The following is adapted from Aztalan: Mysteries of an intriguing features that Hyer had overlooked. Lapham's Ancient Indian Town, by Robert A. Birmingham and Lynne explorations further compounded the mysteries of Aztalan. G. Goldstein, published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Digging into conical mounds on a ridge overlooking the Press. ruins, he found that they covered locations of large wooden Mapping Aztalan posts rather than human burials. He excavated into the ruined walls of the site ncrease A. Lapham, widely consid and, contrary to earlier diggers, con ered Wisconsin's first scientist, made cluded that they were made of earth. Ia detailed map of the site in the Although Lapham thought that most 1850s. A transplant from Ohio with a Mysteries of an Ancient earthworks in the state could be attrib Indian Town surveying background, Lapham's interest uted to indigenous Native Americans, he in Native American antiquities can be Robert A. Birmingliam was also struck by the similarity of the traced to his discovery of effigy mounds Lynne G. Goldstein large, flat-topped earthen mounds at while laying out streets in the new village Aztalan to the stone pyramids of Mexico. of Milwaukee. In 1855, the results of He offered the theory that Aztalan had Lapham's subsequent research appeared been founded by pre-Columbian Mexi as The Antiquities of Wisconsin, a land can colonists and that it functioned as a mark publication that was the first book ceremonial site rather than as a fort. on Wisconsin archaeology. ^ Despite some efforts to preserve the An accomplished surveyor and gifted site, Aztalan was left in the late nine cartographer, Lapham described many teenth century to relic hunters and gen- 50 www.wisconsinhistory.org 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:58PM Page 51 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY erations of farmers who plowed down many of the distinctive publication. The Wisconsin Archeologist. West, a Kenosha features noted by Lapham and others. Farmers even tried to businessman, was an avid student of Native American cul flatten the large platform mounds. When another ancient tures and a cofo under of the Wisconsin Archeological Soci mound researcher, Theodore Lewis, visited in 1894 he found ety. In his article entitled "The Indian Authorship of the site completely cultivated.'^ The loss of many visible fea Wisconsin Antiquities," he argued that the site was an ancient tures makes Lapham's maps and notes all the more valuable North American Indian settlement, and was not Mexican.-^ to modern researchers. He pointed to the great similarity of the Aztalan platform Like Lapham, Theodore Lewis was a surveyor with an eye mounds and walls to those described for southern North for ancient cultural landscapes. Funded by a Minnesota busi American Indian towns visited by the sixteenth-century nessman, Alfred Hill, he spent the years 1881 — 1894 mapping Spanish conquistador Hernando De Soto and others. many thousands of mound sites throughout the Midwest—his maps becoming a treasure trove of information for modern Barrett And Milwaukee Public Museum Research researchers. Lewis and Hill hoped to compile information in Samuel A. Barrett was the first formally trained North the support of the contention, popular throughout the nine American anthropologist to work in Wisconsin. He joined the teenth century, that an ancient "lost race" constructed the staff of the Milwaukee Public Museum in 1909 and helped many sophisticated earthworks, not the native Indians— build it into a research institution of national renown. Under hence their interest in mysterious Aztalan. Barrett's direction, the museum staff spent two field seasons Lewis left no map of the main part of the site because so digging at Aztalan in 1919 and 1920, conducting the first pro much had been obliterated. He did, however, map the oppo fessional and systematic archaeological excavations of any site site or east bank of the Crawfish River that added a piece to in the state. He returned briefly for additional excavations in the Aztalan puzzle. Directly across from a major spring com 1932. plex on the south side of Aztalan, Lewis found several Barrett's work resulted in the pioneering and classic book earthen enclosures with some interior mounds and other entitled Ancient Aztalan published in 1933. His methods earthworks that he called a "second fort." Later examination were crude by today's standards, but the book remains the by Samuel Barrett of the Milwaukee Public Museum in 1920 most detailed and definitive work on Aztalan archaeology, identified one earthwork as a long-tailed effigy mound, the and modern archaeologists consult it frequently for insights product of a local mound-building culture, quite different and information. The book's contents also provide a source of from the builders of Aztalan, and a way of life that disap controversy. peared as the town flourished. Barrett's excavations focused mainly on the great ruined walls that once surrounded and subdivided the site. Digging Twentieth-Century Archaeology through earth and fire-hardened clay, he found that the walls The turn of the century witnessed a revolution in with evenly spaced mounds were not made of brick or earth, approach to North American antiquities and ancient history. but were the collapsed remains of a huge wooden post stock Largely stimulated by the Smithsonian Institution's research ade with large protruding bastions or watchtowers. The mas to prove that Indians had created America's burial mounds sive fortification had been coated with a thick plaster made of and other earthworks, the field of North American archae a mixture of clay and grass and it had burned sometime in ology emerged with a set of principles and techniques for the past. Excavating through thick piles of the former clay excavating archaeological sites and new journals to dissemi coating (called locally "Aztalan brick"), he found the large nate research. At the same time, public interest in Native molds of the burned and rotted posts, positioned side by side, American artifacts and archaeological sites led to the forma and in some cases, the bottoms of the posts themselves. Bar tion of many amateur-based archaeological societies rett determined that the wall was built using the wattle and throughout the country. These amateurs did much of the daub technique—the people of Aztalan wove small branches work in the first part of the twentieth century since there through the vertical posts, and then plastered the wood wall were still few professionally trained archaeologists. The Wis with the clay mixture. consin Archeological Society, formally chartered in 1906, Sampling other portions of the site, Barrett discovered was one of the earliest and most important of these amateur- remains of small houses, also made by wattle and daub, as based groups. Because of Aztalan's prominence and mystery, well as fire pits, storage and refuse pits, burials, many pieces it would be of special interest to the Wisconsin Archeological of human bone, food remains, and many thousands of arti Society and this group subsequently led efforts to document facts. He dug through the great southwest platform mound and preserve the site. and found it had been built in stages, expanding the height In 1907, George West wrote the first of many articles on and size of the structure. A low platform mound was con Aztalan in the pages of the Wisconsin Archeological Society structed as the first stage, with a large ceremonial post at its SPRING 2006 51 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 7:58PM Page 52 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY center. During a later stage, a wooden pole enclosure rimmed studies refute Barrett's conclusion that the people of Aztalan the top of the mound that seemed to join two inner stockade relied on human beings for food, this conclusion remained walls that ran up the side of the mound. These inner stockade part of the official interpretation for many years because the walls formed an entrance to what later archaeologists would behavior represented by the remains was so different from call the plaza area. anything archaeologists had seen to date. Barrett confirmed Lapham's earlier discovery that the mounds on the ridge northwest of the town also covered loca tions of large ceremonial wooden posts. He thought it possible that the posts were erected during annual Green Corn cere Modem Research monies, a first fruits celebration held by more modern Indians In the mid 1970s, the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee throughout the southeastern part of the United States. These developed a regional program called the Southeastern Wis ceremonies included the raising of large ceremonial poles. consin Archaeological Project under the direction of Lynne However, digging at the north end of the mound line, Barrett Goldstein. Building on a small previous survey of the coun discovered an elaborate human burial: a young woman who tryside surrounding Aztalan by Loyola University,^ the pro had been wrapped in thousands of shell beads. Barrett gram was the first to systematically examine the area around dubbed the woman "the princess" but the actual identity of Aztalan and analyze the ancient town in its broader context. this important person and the role she played in Aztalan soci Funded in part by federal historic preservation grants admin ety and history are part of the site's enduring mysteries. istered by the Wisconsin Historical Society, University of Human remains and burials continued to be excavated at Wisconsin—Milwaukee archaeologists examined many thou archaeological sites like Aztalan through much of the twenti sands of acres in the Crawfish River region and located over eth century, although many Native Americans considered this four hundred and fifty ancient Indian sites. But the archaeol desecration. Now, however, Wisconsin state law provides pro ogists found no other site like Aztalan and only a few that tection for all human burial places, and archaeologists and showed Mississippian influence. The study reaffirmed the others are much more sensitive to Native American concerns. uniqueness of Aztalan. For many years the Milwaukee Public Museum featured a The project moved to Aztalan itself in 1984 when Univer "princess" burial exhibit until growing sensitivity and respect sity of Wisconsin—Milwaukee archaeologists dug into an area for Native Americans forced its removal. most likely to provide a history of the site's occupation—a Confirming West's interpretation, Barrett found no evi large garbage accumulation, also called a midden, that had dence of Aztecs or other Mexican colonists. Instead, from been noted by Barrett and other early investigators along the physical features, pottery, and other artifacts, Barrett saw that river. Carefully excavating and sifting eight feet down into Aztalan was similar to Cahokia and many other sites in the this long-ago dump, the archaeologists found neat layers of American Southeast, sites that had been recently defined by deposits spanning hundreds of years. University of Wiscon the new North American archaeologists as part of the Missis sin—Milwaukee archaeologist John Richards, who analyzed sippian culture. Attesting to Barrett's sharp archaeological the contents, found that each layer told a different story, and instincts, he correctly surmised that the site of Aztalan was together the information traced the history of the town from occupied at about AD 1200. Barrett also concluded that two a small Woodland farming village to the sudden appearance different Indian peoples lived at the site at the same time, the of the Mississippians with their distinctive architecture and Mississippians with their distinctive pottery and platform culture.' The layers of dirt included soil eroded off the town mound architecture, and a group of Woodland people, and fields as a result of massive landscape modifications such indigenous to the Upper Midwest, with a very different as the creation of the central plaza, as well as the more recent ceramic tradition. Some of the latter were the builders of farming practices. Work in the formerly enclosed middle Wisconsin's ubiquitous effigy mounds. Barrett's most star zone of the town, thought to have been the plaza, led to the tling conclusion was that the people of Aztalan practiced true discovery of houses that appear to date to a time before the cannibalism, consuming human flesh and bone marrow as a creation of the plaza, as well as large deep pits that had been source of food. He contrasted this with the practice of ritual used for communal feasts and storage of ritual items when the cannibalism found in ancient cultures throughout the world. town flourished. Barrett based this extraordinary claim on his discovery of In 1996, Goldstein joined the faculty of Michigan State many hundreds of butchered, broken, and burned human University, bringing students of that university to study dif bones in refuse areas; severed limbs in fire pits; and discarded ferent aspects of the site. Among the new discoveries was that skulls, including one that clearly had been cut from the torso. the plaza area just south of the northwest platform mound, Much of this evidence came from the area near a large natu the area containing the deep storage pits, was a highly mod ral knoll at the southeast corner of the town. While modern ified land surface virtually sculpted into a tiered or terraced 52 www.wisconsinhistory.org 201718_EP.qxd 2/13/06 2:28 PM Page 53 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Remote sensing equipment, which measures below-surface soil differences by radar or electromagnetic signals, allows for the comparatively rapid location of former walls, pits, and other disturbances, eliminating the need for massive exploratory excavations. In 2003, for example, electromag netic conductivity remote sensing by the Wisconsin Historical Society's Office of the State Archaeologist and Earth Infor mation Technology Inc. revealed that some belowground fea tures still exist in the area of the mysterious, walled southwest enclosure in the southwest corner of the town. These appear to include remnants of some features mapped by Lapham in the 1850s before the aboveground evidence disappeared under the plow. University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee archae ologists have also experimented with electromagnetic tech '•^i&L ^riji^m^f^,. -• Photograph by Tom DavJes, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources niques along with other remote sensing techniques called ground penetrating radar and soil resistivity, in other areas of Woody Wallace, of Earth Information Technology, uses a remote sensing device mounted on a sled pulled byanATVto detect the site. They located what may be structures, palisade lines, ground disturbances without excavating the site. and even previously excavated areas. kX'i surface.° The nature of this modification is the subject of Notes 1. Increase A. Lapham, The Antiquities of Wisconsin, As Surveyed and Described. (1855; ongoing research: in historic times Mississippians put much reprint with a foreword by Robert A. Birmingham and introduction by Robert P. Nur- effort in the creation and maintenance of public plazas used rie, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001). 2. Theodore H. Lewis, "The 'Aztalan' Enclosure Newly Described," American Anti for ceremonies, dances, feasts, and ritual games. Goldstein quarian and Oriental foumal 16 (1894): 205-208. coined the term "sculptuary" for this sculpted landscape and 3. George A. West, "The Indian Authorship of Wisconsin Antiquities," The Wisconsin Archeolo^st. O.S. 64, no. 4 (1907): 167-256. believes that it is also related to elaborate mortuary rituals. 4. Samuel A. Barrett, Ancient Altaian Bulletin of the Museum of the City of Milwau Michigan State University archaeological work also has kee 13 (1933). 5. Fred K. Stuebe, "Site Survey and Test Excavations in the Aztalan Area," The Wis extended to areas outside of the town itself Excavations have consin Archeologistil, no. 4 (1976): 198-259. 6. Lynne Goldstein and John D. Richards, "Ancient Aztalan: The Cultural and Eco been conducted to search for the agricultural fields to the logical Context of a Late Prehistoric Site in the Midwest," in Cahokia and the Hinter north of the stockade and in an area to the south where Late lands: Middle Mississippian Cultures of the Midwest, eds. Thomas E. Emerson and Barry L. Lewis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 193-206. Woodland and Mississippian features have been discovered, 7. John D. Richards, "Ceramics and Culture at Aztalan: A Late Prehistoric Village in undisturbed by modern agricultural practices. On the east Southeast Wisconsin," (PhD dissertation. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1992). 8. Lynne Goldstein and Donald H. Gaff, "Recasting the Past: Examining Assumptions side of the Crawfish River, opposite of the town, work focused ?ihoutAL\2\?a\," The Wisccmsin Archeologist S-i, no. 2 (2002): 98-110. 9. KiraE. Kaufman and William F. Kean, "Archaeological Spatial Analysis at Aztalan around a smaller enclosure and mounds described by Lewis State Park (47IE1): Using Geophysical Techniques to Interpret Prehistoric l^anA- and Barrett, as well as surrounding lands where earlier sur scapeFeamres," The WscondnArcheolo^st 83 (2002): 111-112. veys identified some ancient artifacts and features. Artifacts recovered on this side of the river are mainly Late Woodland, although there is also evidence of limited use by Mississippi About the Authors ans. A long embankment along the river mapped by Lapham appears to be of human construction, but its purpose is Robert A. Birmingham unknown. The nature of the small enclosure itself, which is served for many years not visible today, remains a mystery. Goldstein believes it may as Wisconsin State have been remnants of effigy mounds. Archaeologist. He is the recipient of the Elizabeth A major and important component of modern archaeo A. Steinberg prize for logical work has involved bringing together the results and his book, Indian Mounds locations of all of the previous archaeological work, extend of Wisconsin , co- ing back into the nineteenth century, into a single database authored with Leslie E. Eisenberg, and now teaches at that can produce accurate maps of the site. Goldstein and University of Wisconsin-Waukesha and writes from his home Michigan State University staff developed a computer Geo in Madison. Lynne G. Goldstein is professor and chairperson graphic Information System (GIS) that now allows of the Department of Anthropology Michigan State University. researchers and planners to more easily address many differ I She has conducted field research at and around Aztalan for ent questions about Aztalan research. nearly thirty years. Other new technologies also are aiding Aztalan research. SPRING 2006 53 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 8:08PM Page 54 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The Wisconsin Historical Society Board of Curators Letters Director: Ellsworth H. Brown Janice M. Rice, Stoughton From the editor: In the photograph at right from the Autumn Fred A. Risser, Madison 2005 issue, the men are examining shocks of oats, not "haling Officers John M. Russell, Menomonie President: Mark L. Gajewski John Schroeder, Milwaukee hay" as the caption states. We thank the many readers who President Elect: Judy Nagel Dale Schultz, Richland Center wrote to correct our error. Treasurer: Craig Culver Anne M. West, Whitefish Bay Secretary: Ellsworth H. Brown Carlyle H. "Hank" Whipple, Madison In your magazine of Autumn 2005: You have a picture of Board of Curators Ex-officio Board of Curators Ira Baldwin helping a farmer shocking oats not baling hay. It Betty Adelman, Mukwonago Kathleen Sweeney, President, Ruth Barker, Ephraim FRIENDS of the Society is a very large field and there must have been more help than Thomas H. Barland, Eau Claire Marilyn Canfield, President, the two pictured . . . Murray D. "Chip" Beckford, Cascade Wisconsin Council for Local Field balers and grain combines were both very scarce in Terese Berceau, Madison History Wisconsin in the 1940s. The oat shocks dried and were Patricia A. Boge, La Crosse Bruce T. Block, Pres/denf, Wisconsin Mary F. Buestrin, Mequon Histohcal Foundation hauled to a threshing machine on wagons. It was a hot and Thomas E. Caestecker, Kenilworth, IL Cora Marrett, Senior VP for Academic dirty job. I used to do it. Linda Clifford, Madison Affairs, University of Wisconsin CURTIS MANSFIELD Kenneth Conger, Kohler System William J. Cronon, Madison Lake Mills Laurie Davidson, Marinette Victor Ferrall, Orfordwile I took the picture. In it is Ira Baldwin as stated and Wilbur Ness Flores, V\i^ukesha Stephen J. Freese, Dodgeville Renk, whose field it was. The crop is shocks of a new oat vari Beverly A. Harrington, Oshkosh ety being increased there. The variety was one developed by John O. Holzhueter, Mazomanie H. L. Shands. The location was near Sun Prairie. John Kerrigan, Oshkosh DEANE ARNY Helen Laird, Marshfield Ellen D. Langill, Waukesha Emeritus Professor, Plant Pathology Jerry Phillips, Bayfield Madison Leave it to a new member to be picky, but the end of the caption should read, "checks grain moisture with a worker on the farm" etc. The Wisconsin The structures are not hay bales, but grain shocks—I think Historical Foundation oats, probably in mid to late July and ready for threshing, if dry enough . . . That was what they were checking. President: Bruce T. Block, Milwaukee Margaret B. Humleker, Fond du Lac Vice-President: Daniel W. Erdman, (emehta) Of note also is that the shocks are larger than usual incor Madison Paul J. Karch, Appleton porating fourteen bundles of grain. More typical at that time Vice-President: Walter S. Rugland, W. Robert Koch, Madison was the ten bundle shock which dried faster after a rain. Appleton Roy C. LaBudde, Milwaukee Treasurer: Rhona E. Vogel, Brookfield Mark D. Laufman, Madison You folks are doing a great job and I'm sure you won't be Secretary: Melinda V. Heinritz, Paul Meissner, Milwaukee hearing from me again. Madison George H. Miller, Ripon (emeritus) GEORGE JOHNSON Asst Treasurer £ Asst Secretary: Judy K. Nagel, Green Bay Harvard, IL W. Pharis Horton, Madison Jeffrey D. Riester, Appleton Diane K. Ballweg, Madison Peggy A. Rosenzweig, Wauwatosa Hartley B. Barker, Scottsdale, AZ Richard L. Schmidt, West Bend Thank you for the lively and informative story, "Big Bay Thomas H. Barland, Eau Claire David G. Stoeffel, Milwaukee Blue" about Curly Lambeau, Johnny Blood, and the Green (emehtus) Carol T. Toussaint, Madison (emehta) Robert M. Bolz, Madison Edwin P. Wiley, Milwaukee (emehtus) Bay Packers. Rockne G. Flowers, Madison Robert S. Zigman, Milwaukee Up here in northeastern Wisconsin, the story is perhaps John J. Frautschi, Madison better known due to the close proximity to Green Bay. By Mark L. Gajewski, Madison Michael Gotzler, Madison making the story your cover story, you have given wider recog Richard H. Holscher, Lake Tomahawk nition to a unique and remarkable organization. Little Green Bay is the only pro football team owned by fan stockholders. 54 www.wisconsinhistory.org 201718_EP.qxd 2/13/06 2:28 PM Page 55 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS The Wisconsin Historical Society's Business Partnerships Program gives businesses the opportunity to support th 9 preservation and promotion of Wisconsin's rich heritage. Partners ev\\o) a package of benefits including discounts on membership for employees subscriptions to Society publications, and recognition opportunities. Fourteen thousand stockholders met in Green Bay last July. It The following are generous Business Partners of the Wisconsin Historical is no wonder that, in the summer months, thousands upon Society. There are currently more than e ghty Partners, of which 27 were new thousands of people from all over the U.S. visit the Lambeau supporters in fiscal year 2005. To learn more about the benefits of this facility. They are awe-struck by the legendary founding of the program for you and your employees, please contact Laurie Stensland at Green Bay Packers and the first class renovated facility. Many 608-261-9363 or [email protected] edu. have asked me, "How could this ever happen in such a small city?" Your excellent article gave the answer. Through thick (59 seasons) and thin (26 seasons) true John Muir Partners Darrow, Dietrich & Hawley, S.C. $25,000 or more Full Compass Systems Packer fans will remain loyal (if sometimes disgruntled) Electronic Theatre Controls, Inc. Gardner Carton & Douglas LLP because of the Lambeau-Packer legend—a story so well told GPD/Gilbane Black Hawk Patrons in your article by Richard Van Scotter. International Truck & Engine $10,000-$24,999 Corporation AL GREASON Brass Light Gallery Kohler Company Crivitz Wisconsin Education Association Lands' End, Inc. Council The Manitowoc Company, Inc. Mead & Hunt, Inc. The article by John Holzhueter, "An Ebay Coup" Belle Case La FoUette Associates Mortgage Guaranty Insurance $5,000-$9,999 (Autumn 2005), on the Historical Society's purchase of the Company Accurate Response Name Badge Productions album illustrating the construction of Frank Lloyd Wright's Alliant Energy Foundation Phoenix Resource Group Taliesen featured a pair of photographs showing the plaster American Girl The Printing Place Culver's Frozen Custard GTI Group cast of a sculpture by Richard Bock entitled "Flower in the Gilbane Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Crannied Wall," which Wright had originally used to deco Milwaukee Journal Sentinel U.S. Bank, N. A. Spacesaver Corporation rate the courtyard of his famed home in Spring Green. Windway Foundation, Inc. Wisconsin Radio Network Wisconsin Energy Corporation Readers may be interested to know that the sculpture's Foundation, Inc. Frederick Jackson Turner Society name likely derives from a short poem of the same title by the Wisconsin Physicians Service $2,500-$4,999 Xcel Energy great Victorian poet Alfred Lord Tennyson: 3M Corporation American Family Insurance Group Lyman Copeland Draper Supporters Flowers in tlie crannied wall, Banta Corporation Foundation, Inc. $500-$999 CGSchmidt Construction, Inc. Badger Meter Foundation DEMCO, Inc. I pluck you out of the crannies— Boelter & Lincoln Hold you here, root and all, in my hand. Kikkoman Foods, Inc. Eldon Manufacturing Madison-Kipp Corporation Famous Footwear Little flower—but if I could understand Mead Witter Foundation, Inc. Godfrey & Kahn What you are, root and all, and all in all, Robert W. Baird & Company Great Big Pictures Foundation, Inc. I should know what God and man is. Jackson County Bank Rural Insurance Companies J.P. Cullen and Sons, Inc. Sensient Technologies Foundation Mercury Marine Webcrafters-Frautschi Foundation, Though the sculpture's style is fairly modernist, one won Northern Lake Service, Inc. ders if Wright was aware of Victorian allusion in its title, espe Inc. Realtors Association of South Central Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Wisconsin cially considering his early rejection of the Victorian aesthetic Foundation River Architects, Inc. in his architectural and interior design motifs. TDS Telecom The Director's Circle Trostel, Ltd. GARY L. KRIEWALD $1,000-$2,499 Twin Disc, Incorporated Milwaukee Alpha Investment Consulting Group Urban Land Interest, Inc. Appleton Wise TV3 Beyer Construction For more letters, visit our website at www.wisconsinhistory.com, The Coburn Company, Inc. then click on the Wisconsin Magazine of History. SPRING 2006 55 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 8:00PM Page 56 ^ ^ Curio ^ WHJ Image ID 36370 ecently, two images of butterflies painted by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) were discovered in the Lucius Fairchild papers. A member of the Hudson River School, Bierstadt is pri R marily known for his large paintings of the grand western landscape in the newly accessi ble American West. Bierstadt often presented guests to his studio, particularly women, a gift of a small, painted but terfly. With two or three quick daubs of oil paint applied directly to the paper, he created one wing, and then folded the paper in Rorschach test-fashion to produce a mirror image. He would then sketch in two antennae with a pencil, sign the image, and the work was complete. It is likely that this butterfly was a gift to Fairchild's wife, Frances Bull Fairchild, and her daughter, Mary Fairchild Morris, during a visit to Bierstadt's studio. £ 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 8:00PM Page 57 Sir K- t Image ID 11427 Birds eye map of La Crosse, 1867 [UML'? 1911 -lite; Image ID 24931 Peshtigo Train Station, around the turn of the century Find Your Place in Wisconsin History Ihe new "Wisconsin Places" digital collection includes intriguing maps that give a bird's eye view of many Wisconsin places alon^ •_ with historic photos of Wisconsin communities, large and small The collection consists of more than 8,000 images that encourage view ers to renew their sense of place in Wisconsin history. Most photos in th. searchable collection are available for purchase. Find these images anc more atwww.wisconsinhistory.org, then click "photos and images" or the navigation bar. 201718_EP.qxd 2/3/06 8:01PM Page 58 *eC INSIDE P^ WHS Library, Rare Books, pamphlet 92-846 his colorful catalog cover has a 1960s look but is actually from 1929, when out board motor racing was rising in popularity in the Midwest. New outboard Tmotors were increasingly powerful, and, combined with light, fiat-bottom boats, resulted in new speed records. Each outboard motor manufacturer worked to outperform the competition, and Wisconsin's Evinrude motors was at the center of the race to make the lightest and fastest outboard motors. Read more about this Wisconsin original in an article by Ralph Lambrecht. oo; mni§^mm& (i)fkm^®Kj