183478.qxd 9/29/04 10:28 AM Page 1 AUTUMN 2004 Afield with Ranger Mac Coining Wisconsin: The New State Quarter B O O K E X C E R P T Third Down and a War to Go Wiisconsiin Hiistoriicall Sociiety 183478.qxd 9/29/04 10:28 AM Page 2 E L G A E WHi (W6) 11583 All quarter designs courtesy of Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions. I O N A T R O L P X E WHi (X3) 12935 E R G D A B WMH Collection Photo by John Nondorf rom October 2001 through January 2002, Wisconsin’s Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) ran a statewide outreach program F for children about the Wisconsin Quarter Project. As the state agency that regulates banking, DFI had the charge of managing the project, from coordinating the work of the Commemorative Quarter Council to visit- ing classrooms throughout Wisconsin to share information about and images of Wisconsin’s historic and contemporary symbols. Children’s designs were among the 9,608 designs submitted for consideration to the council, and three of them are pictured here along with the images that serve as models. Council member Larry Barish describes the work of the council in this issue. 183478.qxd 9/29/04 10:29 AM Page 1 Division Administrator & State Historic Preservation Officer Michael E. Stevens Editorial Director Kathryn L. Borkowski Managing Editor Diane T. Drexler Associate Editor Margaret T. Dwyer Reviews Editor Katherine Lydon Research and Editorial Assistants Brian Bengtson, Joel Heiman, 2 John Nondorf, John Zimm Designer Afield with Ranger Mac 2 The AVS Group Conservation Education THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, pub- and School Radio lished quarterly, is one of the many benefits of mem- bership in the Wisconsin Historical Society. Individual during the Great Depression memberships are $40.00 per year; senior citizen indi- vidual, $30.00; family, $50.00; senior citizen family, By Story Matkin-Rawn $40.00; institutional, $65; supporting, $100; sustain- ing, $250; patron, $500; life (per person), $1,000. To receive the Wisconsin Magazine of History, join Coining Wisconsin the Society! To join or to give a gift membership, send 30 16 a check to Membership, Wisconsin Historical The Work of the Wisconsin Society, 816 State Street, Madison, WI Commemorative Quarter Council 53706-1482, or call the Membership Office at 888-748-7479. You can also join via e-mail, By Lawrence Barish [email protected], or at the Society’s Web site, www.wisconsinhistory.org (click on “Become a Member”). You can support other Wisconsin Historical Society T P Third Down and programs by making a donation to the Wisconsin His- R 26 torical Foundation (608-264-6585). E a War to Go C The WMH has been published quarterly since X The All-American E 1917 by the Wisconsin Historical Society (Phone 608- 264-6400). Copyright © 2004 by the State Historical K 1942 Wisconsin Badgers Society of Wisconsin. Permission to quote or other- O O wise reproduce portions of this copyrighted work may B By Terry Frei be sought in writing from the publisher at the address above. Communication, inquiries, and manuscript submissions may also be addressed to Wisconsin Ends the [email protected]. Information about the maga- 30 zine, including contributor’s guidelines, sample arti- Political Career Of cles, and an index of volume 84 can be also be found Wendell Willkie at the Society’s Web site by following the “Publica- tions” link from the home page. By Ronald H. Snyder Photographs identified with PH, WHi, or WHS are from the Society’s collections; address inquiries about 26 such photos to the Visual Materials Archivist, 816 State Street, Madison, WI 53706-1482. Many WHS Cool Breezes photos are available through the Wisconsin Historical Handheld Fans in Fashion, 42 Images digital service available on the Web site. (From the home page, click “Archives.”) Art, and Advertising The Wisconsin Historical Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. By Leslie Bellais ISSN 0043-6534. Periodicals postage paid at Madi- son, WI 53706-1482. Back issues, if available, are $10 plus postage (888-748-7479). Microfilmed copies are available through University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Editors’ Choice .............................. 50 On the front cover: Artifacts from the Wisconsin His- torical Society’s Museum and Archives, the UW What They’re Reading................ 53 Archives, and nature itself form a tableau that reflects the life and work of radio broadcaster Wakelin Letters................................................ 54 “Ranger Mac” McNeel. Photo by Joel Heiman 42 Curio.................................................. 56 1 V O L U M E 8 8 , N U M B E R 1 / A U T U M N 2 0 0 4 183478.qxd 9/29/04 10:29 AM Page 2 W I S C O N S I N M A G A Z I N E O F H I S T O R Y Afield with Conservation Education and School Radio during the Great Depression By Story Matkin-Rawn n the heart of winter during one of the worst years of the Great Depression, classrooms scattered across Wisconsin grew still and hushed as teachers tuned in crackling radios to the University of Wis- consin’s station WHA. On a Monday morning in January of 1933, Ithousands of schoolchildren heard for the first time the whistle of a pipe organ and a cheerful violin refrain followed by the introduction of the announcer: “This is the Wisconsin School of the Air presenting its first broadcast of the week, Afield with Ranger Mac. Off for today’s hike, here’s your leader, Ranger Mac.” As he would for the next two decades, Ranger Mac warmly greeted his “Trailhitters” and then launched into a poem or story, delivering a rapid stream of facts in a distinctive, singsong style. “If you didn’t take a walk yesterday, you missed out on many things that may not come again,” he told 2 A U T U M N 2 0 0 4 183478.qxd 9/29/04 10:29 AM Page 3 Classified File 917 Ranger Mac started as a In the early 1930s, the success of shows like Afield with naturalist and he became Ranger Mac allowed WHA to increase its transmitter power a radio personality, from 2500 watts to 5000 watts, and extend its reception but through it all range to almost every part of the state. he was a teacher. UW Archives A U T U M N 2 0 0 4 3 183478.qxd 9/29/04 10:29 AM Page 4 W I S C O N S I N M A G A Z I N E O F H I S T O R Y University of Wisconsin Archives The Ranger Mac Science Corner in Mrs. Orpha Zajicek’s classroom at Stony Point School in Gays Mills, Crawford County. listeners in a characteristic opening sketch. He described the history, French, and mental hygiene—through quarter- or spectacle of a “myriad of silken threads that stretched from the half-hour lessons aired each weekday morning and afternoon. tops of dead weed stalks and glistened like silver in the sunshine. WHA, the University of Wisconsin station that was home to If one stooped down so that he could look across the tops of the the Wisconsin School of the Air, reported that WSA programs weeds with the sun’s rays reflecting upon them, the whole scene reached an estimated eight thousand schoolchildren in the looked as though the fairies were holding a great convention and first year. Ten years later, WSA programs, which included lit- had decorated the scene with silvery threads.” Such arresting erary dramatizations by the local Bartell Theater Company, portrayals enticed students to reconsider what was familiar on a nationally imitated art program, and direct broadcasts from the journey to school every day: barren winter landscapes, the state capitol for high school civics, received over three emerging buds, birds, beetles, soil, or trees, all common sights hundred thousand course registrations and reached countless during the different seasons.1 other students.2 From its start in 1931 until the mid-1970s, Wisconsin In its early and under-funded years, WSA survived School of the Air (WSA) offered schoolchildren a variety of through the generous assistance of volunteer teachers who subjects—art appreciation, poetry, health, literature, music, worked, as advisors and on-air personalities, to ensure that 4 A U T U M N 2 0 0 4 183478.qxd 9/29/04 10:29 AM Page 5 W I S C O N S I N M A G A Z I N E O F H I S T O R Y their passion—be it Nature-study or mental hygiene—would istrator in this rural, west-central Wisconsin town until 1910.5 retain its tenuous place in Wisconsin’s cash-strapped class- During McNeel’s first four years of teaching, the pre- rooms. One of the most memorable among these radio scribed course of study for public schools changed dramati- schoolteachers was youth forestry worker and radio celebrity cally. Wisconsin’s first uniform course of study, published in Wakelin McNeel, better known as “Ranger Mac.” From his 1882, provided a simple mandate that teachers cover reading, microphone at the WHA studio, reading the lyrical lessons arithmetic, and geography. The second manual, published in that he composed every Sunday afternoon, Ranger Mac 1889 just as young McNeel himself was entering school, taught Nature-study and environmental conservation to added nature lessons to the common curriculum. In his intro- more than 1.1 million schoolchildren over his twenty-three- duction to the new subject, the State Superintendent of pub- year broadcast career.