AUTUMN 2016 WISCONSIN magazine ^history The Robert B.L. Murphy Legacy Circle
Robert B.L. Murphy Legacy Circle members are supporters who included the Society in their estate plans. We hold their pledges in very high regard and honor their commitment to sustain the Society's work for generations to come.
The portrait of Robert Murphy shown above Murphy served on the Wisconsin Historical hangs in the Society headquarters building Society's Board of Curators from 1948 until in a room that bears his name and honors his 1990, and as its president from 1958 to 1961. accomplishments and long years of service. He helped establish the Wisconsin Historical Foundation and served on its Board from its Murphy was considered one of Wisconsin's inception in 1954 through his service as board foremost attorneys and was a beloved civic president from I960 to 1990. Murphy was leader. In addition to his success as a founder known and loved by his friends for his lively wit of Murphy Desmond S.C., one of the oldest and gentlemanly demeanor. law firms in Madison, Wisconsin, Murphy tirelessly championed the Society's mission Work his bequest enabled remains as a fitting throughout his life. tribute to his unforgettable legacy of support.
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VOLUME 100, NUMBER 1 / AUTUMN 2016
Wisconsin Congressman Steve Gunderson GAY REPUBLICAN IN THE AMERICAN CULTURE WAR
BY JORDAN OXONNELL
ess than a year after Republican revolutionaries seized control of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections, eight-term Wisconsin 3rd District representative Steve L Gunderson laughed as he admitted to cable news show host Chris Matthews that he knew he was Republican before he knew he was gay1 First elected to Wisconsin's 91st Assembly District in 1975, Gunderson could not have foreseen the political events that would drive such an intense national interest in his personal life at the twilight of his political career. He later admitted that had he known the trials he would face in the 1990s, he would never have run for the US Congress.2 By the fall of 1995, though, Gunderson had grown accus tomed to the pressure-cooker political atmosphere his identity attracted, both from antigay elements within the GOP and from those simply made curious by the easy coexistence of his conservative values, Lutheran faith, and homosexuality. Fresh off a commanding reelection as the first openly gay Repub lican congressman in American history, Gunderson's victory would be short lived. On the timeline of events that culminated in Steve Gunderson's turbulent political end, his backing of Newt Gingrich for minority party whip in 1989 is seminal. As early as 1985, he and other young congressional Republicans began to believe that they shared a forward-looking spirit with the fiery Georgian that, if properly merged, could produce real party strength and "might well manage to unite Americans as WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
With Gingrich holding the number two Republican lead ership position in the House, minority party strategy turned sharply to the right. The economy was in bad shape and the budget deficit was deepening, and party leaders had deter mined that President George H. W. Bush could not be reelected on an economic agenda and had, according to Gunderson, "decided to embrace the radical right's social agenda."5 In August 1992, with Arkansas Democrat Bill Clinton knocking at the door of the White House, that conservative wave crested at the Republican National Convention in Houston, where Pat Buchannan's infamous culture war speech signaled a new and merciless Republican resolve to win at the expense of gay Americans.6 Gunderson, anticipating the divisive tone the convention would take and troubled by his inability to influ ence his party's strategy direction, did not attend the festivities. In those difficult years he served as Gingrich's chief deputy whip, Gunderson found little comfort in his personal life. To gay Americans living their lives openly, Gunderson's acceptance of the whip position epitomized the "closets of power" issue weakening the political progress of a gay commu nity still dealing with the AIDS crisis.7 Gunderson frequented gay bars while in Washington, and the perceived contradiction between his own apparent sexual identity, the antigay stances of many of his colleagues, and his ostensible complicity as a new member of the House Republican leadership increasingly attracted public confrontation by gay rights activists.8 Though Gingrich had been formally introduced to Gunderson's long time partner, Rob Morris, before he selected Gunderson as his chief deputy whip, Gunderson had never spoken directly to Gingrich about his sexuality. An escalating effort by gay rights groups to out Gunderson in Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional Gunderson carried his reputation as hardworking public servant into District, though, compelled Gunderson to bring the issue out the US House of Representatives in the 1980s. into the open. The first time the two spoke on the subject was a whole across party lines."3 An internal Gingrich campaign in the summer of 1991, when it was clear to both that Gunder tally sheet indicates that Gingrich was, on the back of Gunder son's glass closet homosexuality had made his congressional son's campaigning, able to nearly split Gunderson's moderate seat a political target.9 Though Gingrich quietly affirmed his Republican caucus, the so-called '92 Group, securing nine of support and shared his aspirations to lead a big-tent Repub its twenty members on his way to an incredible 87-85 victory lican Party, he did not encourage Gunderson to formally come over the Republican next in line, Ed Madigan from Illinois.4 out to his constituents.10 Gunderson's commitment to Gingrich was a transfor Gunderson held the position of chief deputy whip under mative event for both the House Republican conference Gingrich through the 102nd Congress, and his unscripted and Gunderson's place in it. Inspired by Ronald Reagan, departure from the position on the opening day of the 103rd Gunderson had carried a reputation as a hardworking Congress signaled that Gunderson had reached his breaking Wisconsin state assemblyman into the US House of Repre point.11 In his memoir House and Home, Gunderson charges sentatives in 1980, and he maintained it through unglamorous Gingrich with disqualifying his concerns over both the nega work on the Agriculture Committee, the Education and Labor tivity of their party's strategies and the emergence of antigay Committee, and the Rural Health Care Coalition. After only rhetoric by Republicans in 1992.12 In his official press release nine years in Congress, Gunderson's pivotal endorsement regarding his departure, Gunderson cited the Houston conven launched him into the Republican congressional leadership. tion as a sign that his party leadership had ceased representing Gingrich rewarded Gunderson for his influential support by moderate Republicans entirely13 naming him chief deputy whip in charge of strategy for the While his fellow Republicans worked to link themselves 101st Congress. to Republican whip Gingrich's increasingly popular brand of
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The hundreds of drafted speeches contained in Gunderson's congressional papers make clear his fondness for the words, deeds, and political philosophy of President Ronald Reagan.
conservative revivalism, Gunderson began to understand that a 1994 campaign would be a painfully personal affair. Separate faxes from conservative activists Don Brill and Chuck Lee, sent e Republican 10; directly to Gingrich's Washington office, professed a growing disenchantment with Gunderson by Wisconsin 3rd District Republicans. The letters warned that Gunderson's suspected homosexuality represented a "departure from Republican values" that voters would not support in the 1994 congressional election. The warning shots fired by Brill and Lee convinced Gunderson that, should he opt out of the race, antigay factions in the Republican Party would use that victory as an example around the nation, "and neither of us [Gunderson nor Morris] wanted that to be my legacy." Gunderson, who had briefly considered retiring from Congress, now steeled himself for a fight, and sought to quash the insurgency by promising that this would be his final congressional campaign.14 California representative Bob Dornan's March 24, 1994, accusations on the House Chamber floor stripped Gunderson of any remaining anonymity. In a contentious debate on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Educa tion Act, Dornan took issue with Gunderson's stance on an Gunderson with campaign volunteers, 1980
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amendment offered by Republican Mel Hancock of Missouri. Hancock's amendment sought to prohibit schools receiving federal funds from creating programs that encouraged or supported homosexuality "as a positive lifestyle alternative" and Gunderson had tried, unsuccessfully, to get Hancock to alter its language. In his fiery rebuttal to Gunderson's opposi tion, Dornan warned of an American moral and cultural "melt down" presaged by attitudes like Gunderson's and branded homosexuality a root cause of child pornography, drive-by shootings, gang assaults, and carjackings in the United States. Dornan then turned his sights on his Republican colleague, referencing a speech Gunderson had given at a "huge homo sexual dinner" twelve days earlier and accusing Gunderson of having "a revolving door on his closet."15 Dornan later agreed to retract his speech from the Congressional Record, but his comments to the press in the hours and days following were unapologetic. He told the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram that he was tired of Gunderson's "lectures" and expressed to the Milwaukee Sentinel that conservatives had a moral obligation to "expose ... and destroy" gay Republicans like Gunderson.16 Conditioned by old habits and the unflappable belief that Gunderson giving a speech in February 1990."After giving probably his personal life ought to have no bearing on his political one, one hundred plus speeches on health care, fifty speeches on educa Gunderson retreated from the public eye in the wake of the tion and forty speeches on agriculture," he commented elsewhere, Dornan incident. Though the Wisconsin press had reported "the only thing my district received any press coverage of any signifi cance on was the four speeches I gave on gay issues." on Dornan's attack, Gunderson continued to handle the topic of his sexuality as if it were old dynamite. His congressional colleagues had rebuked Dornan for his words, but Gunderson knew he needed to shift the attention back to his congressional successes and his conservative credentials if his campaign was to succeed. Gunderson asked Gingrich to come to Wisconsin to speak at his April 16 campaign kick-off dinner with that purpose in mind.17 He wanted to show his opposition that, despite his resignation from Gingrich's leadership team, he still had the support of the architect of the conservative move ment in the national Republican Party. Despite the political risks, Gingrich obliged Gunder son's request. Gingrich used his Wisconsin speech to call for Republican Party unity ahead of the midterm election, but his endorsement did little to convince Gunderson's critics to unite around him. In a strategic move, Don Brill, one of the conser vatives who had registered voter unease with Gingrich only months earlier, announced his candidacy for Gunderson's seat on the day of Gingrich's arrival. With Gunderson facing his first Republican primary challenger in over a decade, the concerted Christian-conservative effort to overwhelm the Eau Claire County Republican Party and "torpedo" the Gunderson reelection campaign went into overdrive.18 At the Eau Claire Republican caucus, Gunderson said he faced an unprecedented "family values army" three hundred strong. Gunderson, shown here at a Wisconsin dairy, said he never expected Gunderson was not recognized at the opening dinner of the to be presented with the "million to one" opportunity to chair the caucus, a lapse in protocol which stunned both him and his 19 House Committee on Agriculture. supporters.
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Gunderson chats with rural constituents, ca. 1980s.
Gunderson understood his primary race had become a son's commitment to the issues of his congressional district and highly visible opportunity for his opponents to postpone the asked his audience to recognize the difficulties of being the first emergence of an openly gay Republican candidate for major openly gay Republican congressman in United States history. political office. As his team approached the primary, however, Chandler even included a quote from Gingrich, who credited it became clear that Gunderson had not experienced a full- Gunderson for possessing the "inner strength" to toe the line scale Republican revolt against his candidacy. Gunderson felt between the gay community and the conservative community strongly that the vehemence leveled by Brill could be credited and acknowledged, "I really admire him a lot."21 to a desperate effort to symbolically "stop the gay movement Gunderson's official coming out did not lose him the within the Republican Party," but by remaining in the race, he editorial support of regional and Wisconsin newspapers. confirmed that Wisconsin's 3rd District Republican voters did The Milwaukee Journal, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, the not share Brill's concerns. He defeated his challenger in the Wisconsin State Journal, the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, September primary by a margin of three to one.20 and the La Crosse Tribune all endorsed Gunderson over With only four weeks left before the general election, Harvey Stower, his Democratic challenger. The antigay cater Gunderson came out on his own terms. Carefully vetted by waul of the opposition had quieted considerably, and many both Gunderson and Morris, Chandler Burr's New York Times editors recognized Gunderson for handling the hostility of his Magazine article took a sympathetic view of Gunderson's unique primary challenge and its corresponding national attention political dilemma. Titled "Congressman (R), Wisconsin. Fiscal with grace. On Election Day, internal polling by Gunderson's conservative. Social moderate. Gay," Burr highlighted Gunder campaign found that nearly ninety percent of 3rd District
AUTUMN 2016 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY voters were aware of Gunderson's homosexuality when they cast their ballots. Gunderson won what he pledged would be his last congressional race, defeating his Democratic and conservative third-party challengers by a wide margin. As Gunderson's national reputation grew throughout 1994, so too did his comfort with his new public identity. Without another congressional run on the horizon, Gunderson began to openly challenge the pervasively antigay sentiments and policy positions of his House Republican colleagues. As the smooth veneer of the Republican Revolution began to crack, Gunderson emerged as a Congressman out of step with his leadership, a Republican DC reporters could depend on to articulate that all was not well in Speaker Gingrich's new insurgent majority. In one instance, Gunderson wrote to his party's chief presidential candidate, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, to challenge his rejection of a $1,000 campaign contribution from a gay Republican group.22 Gunderson asked if Dole would prefer not to receive his public endorsement and support due to his sexual orientation.23 The incident attracted intense media interest and catapulted portions of Gunderson's letter onto the front page of the New York Times.24 Gunderson was never more popular with the news media than in the 104th Congress. He went on NBC's Politics with Chris Matthews, Fox's Fox Morning News, and CNBC's, Equal Time in the first months of 1995 to shed light on the inter section of his identity and his politics. He suggested the new Republican majority offered moderates a real opportunity to emerge as party leaders, spoke critically and dismissively of the rightward drift of the party, and explained his decision to go public about his homosexuality with newfound eloquence. At the height of the 104th Congress, Gunderson even took a turn presiding over the House, a moment that would have been In 1996, Gunderson published a memoir. House and Home, with his unimaginable only a year prior. partner Rob Morris. In early 1996, Gunderson and Morris published their shared memoir, House and Home. They did not anticipate ready to challenge the prospect of another Gunderson term. that Gunderson was soon to become embroiled in what 3rd Though he remained dedicated to his regular committee District Republican Party chair Doug Knight would later assignments, Gunderson had undeniably also embraced a call the weirdest political contest he had ever witnessed. With heightened gay rights profile in the 104th Congress.26 Despite Republicans somewhat surprisingly in control of the House an energetic network of support for a ninth Gunderson term, in the 104th Congress, the June death of Republican Bill Gunderson made no move to secure a place on the September Emerson left Gunderson second in line to chair the House Republican primary ballot. On April 27, the day before the 3rd Committee on Agriculture; he later accepted the committee District Congressional Republican caucus, Gunderson called a vice-chairmanship.25 When committee chairman Pat Roberts public forum and formally ruled out another campaign, citing decided to run for the US Senate, Gunderson, who had the pledge he had made not to run against former Wisconsin publicly vowed to retire, found himself in a position to chair State Senator Jim Harsdorf, who had entered the primary the committee should Republicans hold their majority in race in Gunderson's stead.2' the 105th Congress. Local dairy interests, understanding the Support for Gunderson only grew louder over the summer major influence Gunderson would have over US agricultural of 1996. A grassroots effort to encourage 3rd District voters policy, immediately asked Gunderson to reconsider and seek to write Steve Gunderson in for the Republican nomination a ninth term. took shape. Despite the intensification of support, he kept his More so than ever, oppositional Republicans perceived pledge and did not file paperwork by the July 10 deadline.28 Gunderson as a single-issue gay rights candidate and stood A July telephone survey, commissioned by the Committee
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to Write In Steve Gunderson and requested by Gunderson himself, revealed that sixty-three percent of GOP voters would cast a write-in vote for Gunderson, a serious boon to the write-in effort.29 At the national level, Gunderson received the financial support of the Human Rghts Campaign and the STEVE endorsement of Candace Gingrich, the gay sister of Speaker Gingrich, while he lined up dates for a cross-county tour in 30 Gunderson support of House and Home. Gunderson scheduled two public addresses in Wiscon 'h our side. sin's Chippewa Valley for the first of August as the release of the positive poll data left many expecting him to offi cially back the write-in campaign. But what one Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter called "the most unusual mini- CONGRESSMAN saga in Wisconsin politics" ended that day31 Instead of supporting the write-in campaign, Gunderson used those speeches to allege that prominent Republican leaders and their benefactors were forcing him to withdraw the write-in STEVE campaign against his will. He offered details of a series of G U N D R S O N private conversations with Gingrich, attesting the Speaker Le^ersf^^p^-- had warned him that conservative activist Paul Weyrich and Future others in the right wing of the party were plotting to launch a well-financed effort to defeat Gunderson in order to prevent him from assuming the Agriculture Committee chairman Gunderson campaign buttons, ca. 1990 and 1994 ship. Gingrich even cautioned Gunderson that his detractors might spread rumors that both he and his partner were HIV- In House and Home, Gunderson admits that he has positive. Gunderson told his audiences that Gingrich had often reflected on the irony that, as a gay man and a leader promised to support him if he continued to pursue a ninth of moderate Republicans, he was "instrumental in securing term, but advised him to stop the write-in effort, warning the ascendancy to power of the most conservative Republican him that powerful people were "prepared to do whatever was leader in a generation, and one who is considered, fairly or necessary" to destroy him.32 unfairly, a vicious homophobe."37 While evidence suggests Some rose to challenge Gunderson's claims that antigay Gingrich did privately support another Gunderson campaign, bigotry was responsible for his political end. A news analyst it is clear that Gingrich's hostile brand of Republicanism had at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel argued that his speeches the inadvertent effect of putting Gunderson's conservative risked "blotting a reputation for honesty and hard work" on credentials on trial in the 1990s. Under Gingrich's leadership, behalf of voters who seemed not to care about his sexuality33 the gap that separated the moderate politics of the American The Sentinel also attempted to verify Gunderson's accusations electorate and the conservative politics of Republican activ regarding Gingrich's warnings and Weyrich's plan to defame ists widened, leaving Gunderson exposed as a gay Republican him. Weyrich denied involvement in any effort to slander representative in a political no-man's land.38 Gunderson's Gunderson, offering the press only this prepared statement: unwavering allegiance to Gingrich seems incongruous given "I wish I could claim credit for driving Rep. Steve Gunderson their dissimilarities, but Gunderson's personal reflections in out of office but regrettably I cannot. As usual, Boss Gingrich House and Home reveal a complex relationship. During his is making up the facts as he goes along."34 Gingrich, when first few congressional terms, when Gunderson admits he was questioned about Gunderson's version of events less than still uncomfortable with his own identity, Gingrich made it two weeks later, said he was not aware of any independently clear to Gunderson that his sexual orientation did not matter financed conservative smear campaign and said he had never to him. Gunderson says Gingrich was one of the few Republi urged Gunderson to end the write-in movement. "I thought he cans who saw no contradiction between being gay and being a would get the chairmanship of the Agriculture Committee. ... Republican. Gunderson actually credits Gingrich for helping I don't remember mentioning any individuals. It was entirely him come to terms with his sexuality. "When he was elected, I his decision, and he had my absolute support if he wanted to was one of two individuals asked to serve as his Chief Deputy run."35 A recorded phone call between Gingrich and Hars- Whip. He knew at that time I was gay. He took a lot of heat for dorf, released to the media in 2012, squares with Gingrich's selecting me from social conservatives and stuck to his prin account.36 ciples of what does and doesn't matter."39 Though Gingrich
AUTUMN 2016 Gunderson standing to the left of Newt Gingrich in the speaker's office in an undated photo. Any certainty regarding a right wing conspiracy that forced Gunderson's political exit remains elusive. is often characterized as an instigator of the divisive culture sive heterosexist party ethos. Though he had little ability to wars of the 1990s, Gunderson to this day remains a defender of dissuade others from attaching inordinate significance to his Gingrich, once calling him "the closest thing I have in politics sexual orientation, it became a measure of difference that to an older brother" in the early days of Gingrich's speaker allowed him to carve a niche as party outsider and strategy ship.40 critic. Gunderson promoted a persona of political indepen If Gunderson's sexuality had an uncertain impact on his dence from his leadership, packaging himself as an "unpredict failed 1996 write-in campaign, his emergence as party critic able Republican" who "supported the [Nicaraguan] Contras was an undeniable impediment. Though he explained, "the and the Arts," claims of independence he did not have to conservative element of the Republican Party . . . didn't want defend after his resignation as Gingrich's chief deputy whip.42 either a vocal moderate Republican or an openly gay Repub Though Gunderson became a genuine nuisance for the lican" in 1994 or in 1996, Gunderson's voting record inade Republican Party's family values image in the 104th Congress, quately supports the first half of that contention. In the 104th he never posed a serious threat to Gingrich's agenda. The Congress alone, thirty-nine Republican representatives voted specter of an antigay political conspiracy, real or trumped up, as or more independently of the GOP agenda on major bills discouraged Gunderson from not only seeking a ninth term than Gunderson, including his Wisconsin colleagues Mark but from serving as the first Wisconsin chairman of the House Neumann, Thomas Petri, and Scott Klug.41 What is true about Committee on Agriculture. It also silenced a sharp voice of Gunderson's claim, though, is that he took public steps, begin dissent for a House Republican Party thin in their majority ning in January 1993, to distance himself from the agenda scored with ideological fissures, and panicked by open homo of his party's leadership and to identify and oppose a perva sexuality in the ranks.
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In Gingrich's confessional Lessons Learned the Hard Way: 13. "Gunderson Steps Down as Chief Deputy Whip," Press Release, January 4, 1993, Box 14. Gunderson Congressional Papers. A Personal Report, Steve Gunderson is not mentioned. The 14. Gunderson and Morris, House and Home, 237—250. official collection of Gingrich's papers at the University of West 15. Representative Dornan asked for and was granted unanimous consent to withdraw his remarks against Gunderson, though the C-SPAN video archive still holds the conten Georgia holds no documents bearing Gunderson's name, and tious debate. Bob Dornan, US House of Representatives, House Session, March 24, 1994. my efforts to reach both the former Speaker and his attorney C-SPAN, http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/HouseSession970. 16. Gunderson and Morris,House andHome, 11. 43 went unreturned. Other than a few photos buried among 17. Richard Mial, "Gingrich Speaks at Dinner for Gunderson," Wisconsin State Journal. April 17, 1994. hundreds in Gunderson's congressional papers at the Wisconsin 18. Craig Gilbert, "On Politics: Religious Right Asserts Its Presence in the State," Milwaukee State Historical Society, there is little evidence to suggest Journal, May 23, 1994. 19. Gunderson and Morris, House andHome, 250—251. Gunderson and Gingrich shared a close relationship. Together 20. Steve Gunderson, email to author, February 2, 2011. they headline a congratulatory Lincoln Day video sent out to 21. Chandler Burr, "Congressman (R), Wisconsin. Fiscal conservative. Social moderate. Gay," New York Times Magazine, October 16, 1994. Gunderson's take on the article can be major campaign donors only weeks after their historic takeover found in House and Home, 306—307. of the House of Representatives, but they speak to the camera 22. Log Cabin Republicans is a national organization of Republicans who support equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans. individually, leaving the impression that the two men could have 23. "Letter to Majority Leader Senator Bob Dole," September 6, 1995, Box 14, Gunderson filmed their parts on different days or even in different cities.44 Congressional Papers. 24. The story is featured in the September 8, 1995, edition of the New York Times. Though I found personal correspondence Gunderson and his 25. "Gunderson Named Vice-Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee," July 23, staff had saved from Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and 1996, Box 14, Gunderson Congressional Papers. 26. "Gunderson Tells Colleagues Take 'Meanness' Out of Defense of Marriage," July 12, Bill Clinton, no communications from Newt Gingrich, personal 1996, Box 14, Gunderson Congressional Papers. 27. "Rep. Gunderson Speech on Decision Not to Run for Reelection, Achievements During or professional, can be found among Gunderson's congressional Tenure, etc," Audio, April 27, 1996, Box 8, Gunderson Congressional Papers. papers. Gingrich did, however, read Gunderson's House and 28. Patrickjasperse, "Gunderson Leaves Door Open for Write In Bid," Milwaukee Journal Sentineljuly 10, 1996. Home and provide a quote for the dust jacket. Gingrich prom 29. Associated Press, "Survey: Gunderson Win Possible," Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, LA), ises readers an insightful examination of the hazardous path "all July 29, 1996. 30. Associated Press, "Gay Group Pledges Money to Gunderson Campaign," Milwaukee true leaders must tread—balancing the sometimes conflicting Journal Sentinel, July 20, 1996. responsibilities of our private and public lives," a difficulty 31. "Some Calling 3rd District Congressional Race 'Weird,'" Saint Paul Pioneer Press, July 15, 1996. certainly shared by both men. kVi 32. GregZoroya, "A Leader Falls Amid a War in the House," Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1996. 33. Dennis McCann, "Gunderson's Exit Not His Finest Political Moment," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 5, 1996. A lengthier version of this paper was previously published in 34. Craig Gilbert, "Congressman Says Bigotry Ended His Career," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 1, 1996. The Moral Panics of Sexuality edited by Breanne Fahs, Mary 35. "GOP Convention Insider," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 12, 1996. L. Dudy and Sarah Stage, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 36. Harsdorfs former communications director Blane Huppert released the audio of the phone call to Buzzfeed Politics during Gingrich's run at the presidency in early 2012. "Audio Exclusive: In 1996 Phone Call, Gingrich Sought to Ease Out Wisconsin Challenger," avail Notes able at wihist.org/lro2xpI. Page 6 captions: "After giving . . ." Steve Gunderson, speech to the Human Rights Campaign 37. Gunderson and Morris, House and Home, 107. Fund, audio, March 5, 1995, Box 8, Congressional Papers of Representative Steve Gunderson. 38. Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Wisconsin Historic Society Archives, Madison, Wl (hereafter, Gunderson Congressional Erosion of American Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 21. Papers); "Million to one," Steve Gunderson speech, audio, April 27, 1996, Box 8, Gunderson 39. Steve Gunderson, email to author, February 2, 2011. Congressional Papers. 40. Gunderson and Morris, House and Home, 100—102. 1. Steve Gunderson, interview by Chris Matthews, VHS, Politics with Chris Matthews, Amer 41. Representative Steve Gunderson, US Congress Votes Database, Washington Post, accessed ica's Talking, September 7, 1995, Box 8, Gunderson Congressional Papers. at http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/G000524. The US Congress Votes 2. Steve Gunderson and Rob Morris, House and Home: The Political and Personal Journey Database documents every vote and member of the House and Senate since 1991. Data is of a Gay Republican Congressman and the Man with Whom He Created a Family (New pulled from several sources, including the House clerk, the US Senate, and the Biographical York: Dutton, 1996), 106. Directory of the US Congress. 3. Ibid., 98-102. 42. Representative Steve Gunderson, interviewed by Mary Matalin and Dee Dee Myers, 4. Douglas Harris, "Legislative Parties and Leadership Choice: Confrontation or Accom VHS, Equal Time, MSNBC, 1995, Gunderson Congressional Papers. modation in the 1989 Gingrich—Madigan Whip Race," American Politics Research 34, no. 43. Suzanne K. Durham, email to author, Ingram Library, University of West Georgia, July 2 (March, 2006): 203. The tally sheet was uncovered in the Gingrich archives by Douglas 5,2012. Harris. The sheet had prospective Madigan supporters marked with Mad. and committed 44. Republican National Committee, Lincoln Day Video, VHS, NRCC Communications, Gingrich supporters denoted with stars beside their names. It is almost certainly accurate February 9, 1995, Box 8, Gunderson Congressional Papers. because its final tally numbers match the actual vote figures. 5. Steve Gunderson, email to author, February 2, 2011. 6. Jackie Calmes, "Tougher GOP Stance on Social Issues Reflects Surge of the Religious Right," Wall Street Journal, August 20, 1992. ABOUT THE AUTHOR 7. Michaelangelo Signorile, Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power 'New York: Random House, 1993). Signorile argues that powerful gay Americans should be Jordan O'Connell earned a BA in his outed in order to abolish the closet as a homophobic means to ensure the repression of gay tory from the University of Wisconsin- rights, culture, and identity. Platteville and an MA in history from the 8. Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 16. University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He is 9. The efforts to out Gunderson by activists Michael Petralis and Tim Cambell are partially finishing up political science coursework recounted in Gunderson's House and Home, but more complete information on the effort can be found on in Signorile's Queer in America, 87. at Sul Ross State University and currently 10. Gunderson and Morris, House and Home, 139—141. teaches American history at Howard 11. Gunderson announced his departure unexpectedly to the press but later described it as a "mutual" decision he had previously reached with Gingrich. See Jill Lawrence, "House College in west Texas. mates," Washington Post, June 2, 1996. 12. Ibid., 162-175.
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• i
BY PETER SHRAKE
'hen it comes to circus heritage, few states compare The Lindemann brothers grew up surrounded by with Wisconsin. Over one hundred shows originated performers. Their father, William Lindemann, was a profes W:from within its borders. Communities including sional musician who led a brass band at a Sheboygan vaude Antigo, Wonewoc, Sparta, Racine, and Janesville can all ville theatre. Among the variety of acts that came and went claim to be the hometown of a circus. Delavan served as the on the stage were circus performers who toured the vaudeville home base, at one time or another, to twenty-six shows.1 Some circuit during the winter months. William made sure his sons circuses lasted only a few weeks, while others, like the Rngling each learned to play an instrument and encouraged them to Brothers Circus, grew to be the standard bearer of the industry. develop their own vaudevillian routines. Raised in this kind of Some were innovators, like the Barnum & Bailey Circus, which an atmosphere, it is easy to imagine why the brothers decided started when Dan Castello convinced P. T Barnum to come out to make show business a career. of retirement and lend his name to a new railroad-based circus. By 1904, Pete and Bill were on the road. Al would join It was such an incredible commercial and financial success that them soon thereafter.2 Over the next fifteen years the Linde- it transformed the circus profession forever. Then there were manns drifted, eventually working fifteen different circuses the Lindemann brothers, Pete, Al, and Bill, from Sheboygan. between them. As each brother married, their brides joined Their show, the Seils-Sterling Show of a Thousand Wonders, them as performers. Together they would perform acrobatic was as innovative and successful as any from the Badger State. and contortionist stunts. They were also known to work with
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A panoramic view shows the Seils-Sterling Circus on the shores of Lake Michigan at Sheboygan, Wisconsin, in 1934 when the show was at its height. bicycles and unicycles and walk the slack wire. Sometimes At first the Lindemanns had only a few vehicles. In 1922, couples partnered together, forming a quartet, and some the show, now under the fictional but grand title of Captain times they worked on their own. By 1919, the brothers felt William Sells Trained Wild Animals and Sterling Bros. Shows confident enough to put together their own show under the Combined, moved on only nine trucks. The circus sported an title Lindemann Bros, and Yankee American Shows. eighty-foot-round big top tent, a cook house, and a dressing There was a certain level of pragmatism among the tent.4 It was a humble beginning, but it was enough to garner Lindemanns from the start. Unlike many other circuses of the the attention of John M. Kelley, attorney for the mighty time that used railroads to travel between towns, the brothers Rngling brothers, owners of the Adam Forepaugh and Sells decided to mount their show on trucks. It was a well-timed Bros. Circus. The Ringlings considered the "Captain Sells" decision. World War I had generated a surplus of vehicles title an infringement on their copyright and threatened legal produced for the war but never shipped overseas. Trucks could action. The Lindemanns quickly changed the spelling of Sells be purchased cheaply3 Around the same time, the state of to Seils, and from then on the circus operated under the title Wisconsin embarked on a program to reclassify and improve Seils-Sterling Show of a Thousand Wonders. its roads, making it easier for traveling amusement shows to The show had grown sufficiently by 1926 to require twenty reach smaller communities not accessible by rail and opening a trucks and employ thirty-five people. The program boasted whole new market. twenty-six acts and included twenty dogs, seven ponies, three
AUTUMN 2016 13 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY horses, three monkeys, two lions, a mule, a black bear, a camel, The Show of a Thousand Wonders continued to grow at a and an elephant. The sideshow presented a fire-eating act, a steady pace throughout the 1920s and even the Wall Street crash magician, and a knife-throwing act.5 As the circus grew in size, of 1929 seemed to have little impact on its success. The Linde so did its tour route. At first, the Lindemanns focused almost manns found an effective formula of working at the numerous entirely in Wisconsin, but they soon branched out to the upper fairs that dotted the Midwest. In 1933 alone, the show held Midwest, performing shows in Minnesota, Michigan, Illi "exclusive contracts" for fourteen fair dates, mainly in Tennessee, nois, and Iowa. In 1930, new dates were added in Oklahoma, Alabama, and Texas.10 The good business allowed the brothers Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Two years later, the Linde to keep improving the show. In 1933 and 1934, the show offered manns would reach Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. As an expanded lineup of performers and purchased new trucks the tour expanded, it became more practical to store vehicles and a larger big top tent. Among the new performers were the and animals for the winter farther south, usually in Missouri.6 flying Valentions, a double trapeze act, and the Holland Dockrill The brothers, however, still considered Wisconsin their home, troupe, noted equestrians from Delavan, Wisconsin. The show and the show's offices and paint, printing, and machine shops also added two acts with the enigmatic titles "Duke, the Football remained in Sheboygan.' Horse" and "Chris DeLaney, the Upside Down Wonder."11 Similar to other circus owners, the Lindemanns employed Throughout its history the circus remained a family-run traditional means of advertisement including "the advance"— business. Bill retained the position of director general, and his teams of men who traveled ahead of the show securing show wife, Millie, looked after the show's finances. Al served as the ground lots and distributing posters and handbills. The brothers equestrian director and elephant handler in addition to running also made use of an emerging technology, as one reporter noted the sideshow. Al's wife, Clara, was the show's purchasing agent in 1922: "A crossroads village might appear to be an unfruitful and secretary. Pete was the general manager while his wife, source of ticket buyers, when a store, garage, post office and a Louise, sold tickets and audited the books.12 Even some of their couple of houses make up the entire town. But there usually is children worked for the show. Orval, Pete's son, worked as a a rural telephone exchange, [and] the post office has a list of clown and performed on the trapeze with his wife, Verna, who people who[se] mail is delivered by rural carrier. These avenues also doubled as an equestrienne. are employed to broadcast the glad tidings: 'The Circus is The family was noted for running a clean show free of Coming.'"8 The network was effective. Not long after the show graft, a point emphasized in an advertisement that read, "Seils- came to town, local residents would arrive. Bill Lindeman Sterling never has or never will tolerate gambling, immoral boasted to local papers that at even the most remote locations shows or skin games. Beware of any small truck shows that he could always fill the tent to capacity9 may invade your community, tolerating these unfair practices and misrepresenting themselves as a circus."13 To emphasize the morality of the show, the Lindemanns christened their star elephant Billy Sunday after a noted evangelist of the period. But the owners were not above employing a little bombast, heralding the animal as the "oldest known living elephant in America," speculating that the pachyderm was an astounding three to four hundred years old!14 The 1930s also brought occasional troubles. In 1935, an auto accident damaged two trucks, including No. 85, which can be seen today at Circus World in Baraboo. That same year, a windstorm in Green Bay badly damaged the sideshow and menagerie tents. In 1937, a tornado blew down the big top tent. Later that same year three lions escaped when the cage wagon carrying them tipped over. Fortunately the lions, well trained, were returned to their cage before anyone was hurt.15 In 1937, the show was also at its peak. It had grown to a four- ring circus and its show grounds were spread out over nine acres. The big top tent could seat over six thousand people.16 But even the most successful show could see its luck turn on a dime. The Perhaps no other image reflects the difficulties of circus life better 1938 season would be the last for the Seils-Sterling Circus. than this image of the Lindemann Bros, and Yankee American Circus, The year started out well enough. After the opening show ca. 1920, struggling to pass through a muddy road as it travels to the at Aurora, Missouri, on April 23, the Show of a Thousand next town. Wonders played towns in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota,
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Three cage wagons are loaded on a flatbed truck and ready to move to the next town, ca. 1935.
Semitruck and trailer no. 85, ca. 1936. The trailer was built in Evansville, Wisconsin, by the Highway Trailer Co. for the Curtis-Gregg Circus in 1934 and acquired by the Seils-Sterling Circus later that year to haul horses. Today, trailor no. 85 (pictured above left) is housed at Circus World.
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and Wisconsin. But several weeks of bad weather kept audi ences away. The sharp drop in attendance cut into revenues, and after only a few weeks into the season, employees had to take a 25 percent pay cut.17 At the same time Bill, Millie, and Clara Lindemann were all suffering from health issues. On July 4, at Iron Mountain, Michigan, after less than three months on the road, the Seils-Sterling Circus folded its tent for the last time and returned to Sheboygan. Within two months, the equipment and animals were sold off at auction, attracting buyers from across Wisconsin and the upper penin sula of Michigan. The Madison Shriners bought a camel and donated it to the Vilas Zoo in Madison. The bulk of the equip ment and animals, including most of the vehicles, were bought by a Chicago lumber man with plans to put on free shows for local children.18 The show was over, its abrupt demise a manifestation of the harsh reality of the circus business. Yet for eighteen years, the Lindemann brothers successfully played to rural audiences across the Midwest, succeeding even during the lean years of the Great Depression. It was, after all, the Show of a Thou sand Wonders, ft'i
Notes 1. A detailed listing of Wisconsin-based circuses can be found in Dean Jensen, The Biggest, the Smallest, the Longest, the Shortest: A Chronicle of the American Circus from Its Heart land (Madison: Wisconsin House Book Publishers, 1975), 189-192. 2. "Lindeman Bros. Declare Official Opening of Summer," Sheboygan Press Telegram. April 19, 1922; Norman H. Wilbert, "Circus Life with the Lindemann Bros, and the Seils- Sterling Circus [Part 1]," White Tops 44, no. 3 (1971): 9. 3. News Release, "A History of International Trucks," 1961, International Harvester Company Corporate Archives Central File, 1819-1998, Box 1131, Folder 1276, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Madison, Wisconsin. 4. George Chindahl, "The History of the Seils-Sterling Circus," White Tops 30, no. 5 (1957): 3. 5. Advertisement solicitation letter, 1926, Seils-Sterling Business Records, Box 1, Folder 1. Robert L. Parkinson Library and Research Center, Baraboo, Wisconsin. 6. Fred Dahlinger and Stuart Thayer, Badger State Showmen: A Hstory of Wisconsin's Circus Heritage (Madison: Grote Publications, 1998), 119-120; "Knoxville Will Be Home of Circus," Knoxvillejournal (Kxioxville, Tennessee), April 17, 1924; "Seils Show Has Crew at Winter Quarters," Billboard, December 28, 1935, 83. 7. "Seils-Sterling Will Appear Here," Rhinelander Daily News, July 2, 1937; Jensen, The Biggest, the Smallest, 167; Business ledgers of the Seils-Sterling Circus, Box 1, Folder 1. Seils-Sterling business records indicate that the location for the show's winter quarters varied from year to year throughout the 1920s; "Seils-Sterling to Be Enlarged," Billboard, February 10, 1934, 28. 8. "Lindeman Bros. Declare Official Opening of Summer." 9. Ibid. 10. "Seils Show Has 14 Fairs," Billboard, August 12, 1933, 29; "Big Biz for Seils-Sterling," Billboard, June 3, 1933, 26. 11. "New Cars Received on Seils-Sterling," Billboard, June 24, 1933, 27; Norman H. Wilbert, "Circus Life with the Lindemann Bros, and the Seils-Sterling Circus [Part 2]," White Tops 44, no. 4 (1971): 24; "Seils-Sterling Circus Augments Motor Fleet," Billboard, July 7, 1934, 38. 12. Complete listings of show employees and jobs can be found in the Route Books for the Seils-Sterling Circus for the years 1930, 1931, and 1932, Route Book-Route Card Collec tion, 1842—2007, Drawer 3, Folders 63—65, Robert L. Parkinson Library and Research Center, Baraboo, Wisconsin. 13. "Warning Notice!," Rhinelander Daily News, July 12, 1937. 14. "Seils-Sterling Circus Has Oldest Living Elephant," Moberly Monitor-Index (Moberly. Missouri), April 17, 1936. 15. Wilbert, "Circus Life with the Lindemann Bros. [Part 2]," 24; "Seils in Storm at Green Bay, Wis.," Billboardjune 22, 1935, 38. 16. "Seils-Sterling Circus Coming," Carroll Daily Herald (Carroll, Iowa), August 18, 1937. 17. Jensen, The Biggest, the Smallest, 169—170. 18. "Seils-Sterling Show Sold," Billboard, October 1, 1938; "Chicago Man Buys Most of Seils-Sterling Circus," White Tops 11-12, no. 12-1 (Oct.-Nov. 1938): 15.
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The Lindemann brothers,along with Carl Lindemann, a cousin who worked briefly as a show carpenter, stand next to their star elephant, Billy Sunday, ca. 1925. From left to right, Al, Carl, Pete, and Bil Lindemann. Behind them is a truck used by the show as living quarters.
Staff, performers, and the sideshow band pose for the photographer at Wausau, Wisconsin, in 1937. Fat man performer Clifford W.'Tiny" Krueger can be seen seated at center. Krueger later served a combined thirty-four years in the Wisconsin State Senate. In addition to tattooed artists, a magician, knife throwers, and snake charmers, the sideshow also included vaudeville acts and a minstrel band, six members of which are shown here on the right.
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An early picture of Pete, Milly, Louise, and Bill Lindemann when they performed under the name Lindemann-Nelson Troupe, ca. 1916
Interior of the big top during a performance, possibly in Madison, Wisconsin, between 1930 and 1936
18 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY o i§«§ray NK§ 4 RING
I J\ COMPLETE SOMERSAULT THROUGH SPACE I CATCHING BY HER HEELS and TOES ON A HIGH TRAPEZEJ FAIR OSHKOSH GROUNDS TUE. MAY A poster highlights the talents of aerialistThressa Morales, the "Sensation ofTwoContinents."Adate tag at the bottom of the poster advertises for a showat Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on May 31,1938.
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__ vnz P^ TRAINED "*"^> WILD • ANIMALS S AND THE STERLING BROTHERS SHOWS COMBINED
Sterling Bros. Great Company of Aerialists& Gymnasts
Single Trapeze, DoubieVTrapeze, Triple Trapeze, Digit Dire, Leap for Lite, Fioatiog Web & Flying Trapeze Oax Shows "have been Imitated, Copied and Patterned After by Many But Equaled by None. AN AVELANCHE OF STARTLING SURPRISES THE CELEBRATED HIGH* CUSS KIZAR FAMILY
and A Laughing Traveety that Evokes Constant Shouts of Merriment, done in the Droll- Strictly Moral eat & Most Grotesque Fashion, Thousands that have at the same time Displaying tnessed the Perform Skill, the Daring and Expert, ance were elated. The lies of the Great Artists that best evidence of merit is they are. It ie an Absolute success, far and wide. It Novelty. is the best show of its kind ever placed b^-re HERR SCHP.NK the public. cr Pi'versc Suture by Walking. There is Nothing Dmoltig, Skippiogjhe llope and JiiinpiiiL'oo life bands and with Misrepresented Feet Straight up. Tin act Cre ated a Sensation in Paris last
all Wfa'o Come • Most Enjoyable, Moral -LIST OF ACTS- Refined and Artistic PIGMY PONIES ENTERTAINMENT Parlor Posturinrj Hidh Sommersaults EDUCATED DOGS AERIAL EXPLOITS GYMNIC CELEBRITIES SAMSONIAN LIFTS TIGHT ROPE FEATS
HIGH - WIRE PERILS
NIGHTINGALE VOCALISTS DON'T FOR TRAINED STALLIONS GET THAT DASHING ATHLETES WEiGIVE ARTISTIC GYMNASTS DARING ACROBATS COMPLETE BURNT CORK FUN- PERFORMANCES ADROIT JUGGLERS 2 An Elei-atedStadje DAI LY .fternoon and Niftht TOKIO - MAKA TROUPE TRAINED DOMESTIC DORS OPEN U 7 P. M. The Brown Wonders From JAPAN ANIMALS Taught to do a most Mar Performances velous Repertoire of at2and=8P.M. • Tricks and Feats of Equipose and " BAND Acrobatic Agility. A Performance For CONCERTS The Little Folks A Full Half Hour before the performance Our superb Ttiat never fails to please Band, rendering selections them immensely from standard overtures and RareiTi highly fur il- IIan
ONE TICKET WILL EXHIBIT AT CntlHD HEW; FREE ADMITS TO ALL WILD-ROSS, WIS. EXHIBITIONS THF COMBINED SAT, SEPT. -30- Will be given on show SHOWS lot at 1 and 7 P. M.
SHEBOYGAN PUBLISHING CO., PRINTERS
The front of a two-sided handbill distributed by the Seils-Sterling poster, ca. 1937 Lindemann brothers when their show still operated under the title Captain William SellsTrained Wild Animals and Sterling Bros. Combined.
20 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
ecu; /95Z&
AUTUMN 2016 21 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
Phone Daly GRONIK, Inc. AUCTIONEERS . M. • •r-Tirtki i » »°B™ W"EBST,EET AUCTION! AUCTION! *—•- *"•»-»
BY ORDER OF THE OWNERS Photographic portraits of the three Lindemann brothers, Pete, Bill and Al, dominate this circa 1937 poster. I We Will On O MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1«h, AT 10=30 at SHEBOYGAN, WISCONSIN
OnUrHlshw.,«,.SMI,..S.-..h..Sk.h.,s."
SELL AT PUBLIC ABOUT THE AUTHOR AUCTION Peter Shrake is a lifelong resident of Wis THE ENTIRE consin. He earned his master's degree in SEILS-STERLINO history from the University of Wisconsin- CIRCUS Eau Claire and a master's degree in library Consisting of „„T„BS TRAILERS, and information studies from the Univer sity of Wisconsin-Madison. Since 2011, he VALUED AT OVER $75,000 has been the archivist at Circus World. He ATTENTION lives in Baraboo, Wisconsin, with his wife, Kim, and his sons, Ethan and Ben.
Gronlk, Inc., Auctioneers
The front page of a flyer announcing the auction of the Seils-Sterling Circus, 1938
22 wisconsinhistory.org Madison Gas and Electric is Proud to Support the Wisconsin Historical Society.
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The following is excerpted Terry's living room began to from the book Wisconsin on emit the faint sound of a piano the Air: 100 Years of Public playing "Narcissus," a popular Broadcasting in the State That tune of the day2 The guests Invented It, published this fall were underwhelmed. Years by the Wisconsin Historical later, one of them said that Society Press and available she liked to think that all the at bookstores everywhere. Its guests "were as dumb about publication coincides with the whole thing as I was."3 the hundredth anniversary of Not a single guest realized that public radio in Wisconsin. one hundred years of broad casting from the University of Jk A o one knows the exact Wisconsin had just begun. f\f date, but it happened The lack of enthusiasm f V during the first three in the Terry living room months of 1917. Physics depart that night matched the lack ment assistant professor Earle of enthusiasm in the profes Terry and his wife, Sadie, invited a group of faculty, deans, and sor's academic home, the physics department. Pioneer friends to their home to hear the "first broadcast" of the Univer broadcaster Edgar "Pop" Gordon dubbed the department's sity of Wisconsin radio station. For several years, Professor Terry attitude "scornful."4 The physics faculty prided themselves and his students had been transmitting the dots and dashes of on the theoretical nature of their work and looked down on Morse code. Only the geeks of the day who shared their interest the "engineers," who sought practical applications for their in radio technology could decipher it, but this night would open theories. Using radio gear to reach a broad audience had little the transmission to all who listened. In Terry's Science Hall to do with the physics of radio waves, and Terry's colleagues lab, graduate student Malcolm Hanson had rigged a telephone punished his devotion to this peripheral activity. They objected mouthpiece to capture the sound from the horn of a phono to the time he wasted on radio and to the noise his radio trans graph.1 When his guests gathered, Terry called Hanson and mitter poured into the offices, labs, and classrooms of Science said, "We are all ready." Hanson flipped the necessary switches Hall and later Sterling Hall.5 to excite the wire strung between the top of Science Hall and The only other professor who shared Terry's interest in the chimney of the old university heating plant behind it. He radio and with whom he collaborated was, in fact, an engi placed the phonograph needle on a record, and a receiver in neer. In 1914, engineering professor Edward Bennett received
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Professor Earl Terry, right, with chief radio operator Malcolm Hanson, ca. 1920s a license from the federal government for experimental incrementally, starting with point-to-point messages in Morse station 9XM, but he soon turned the project over to Terry code, eventually adding voice and music, inviting people to whose passion for the enterprise exceeded his own. Explained listen to these "broadcasts," and, ultimately, producing a full Bennett, "Professor Terry's vision extended beyond the stage schedule of broadcasts aimed at a broad audience. Wisconsin of experimentation with physical principles and properties. followed that progression. It was not until four years after When telephonic transmission [voice and music rather than 1917's "first broadcast" that 9XM announced a limited broad dots and dashes] became a possibility, Professor Terry grasped cast schedule. It took ten more years to produce a full and the significance of radio broadcasting for the Extension work reliable schedule. of the University"6 The Wisconsin Idea, extending the bound Relicensed as WHA in 1922, 9XM's significance in broad aries of the university to the boundaries of the state, drove cast history has less to do with being first to broadcast than Terry to push beyond Morse code and make broadcasts acces with being first to implement a public service philosophy of sible to anyone with a receiver. broadcasting. The two great progressive leaders, Professor Transmission of voice and music required glass vacuum Charles McCarthy and President Charles Van Hise, died tubes, which were not yet manufactured commercially. The before WHA replaced 9XM, but their Wisconsin Idea domi only way to get them was to blow molten glass into the shape nated the campus when Professor Terry started his work in needed, install the required electronics, and then remove the 1910. Terry embraced the ideal of the university as an empow air from the tube to create a vacuum. The process presented ering force for all state residents. Unlike the engineers, physi many opportunities for failure, but Terry mastered the tech cists, and tinkerers who developed radio technology at other niques and taught them to his students. After two years of universities early in the twentieth century, Terry cared about experimenting, they produced tubes that worked well enough to the content his transmitter would broadcast. Terry under transmit the feeble sound that the guests in Terry's living room stood that the real potential for radio was less about point-to- could barely hear that winter night in 1917.7 Because tubes blew point communication (such as ship to shore) and more about up frequently and sometimes dramatically, students needed to reaching many people simultaneously, in "broadcasting." He continuously produce replacements. They became so skillful conceived of radio as a mass medium with receivers "more that they supplied tubes to other fledgling broadcasters. common than bathtubs in Wisconsin homes."8 Terry envi Partisans of the University of Wisconsin's pioneering sioned radio's power to do good, to educate, to inform, and efforts in radio have proclaimed 9XM (later WHA) "the oldest to inspire large numbers of people simultaneously. The first station in the nation." This boast headlines the historical program director at 9XM, Professor William Lighty, wrote marker affixed to Vilas Hall, which now houses public broad that Terry and Hanson, "who approached the problems . . . casting on campus. In reality, no broadcast pioneer can iden from the technical side, also had the uncommon insight into tify precisely when a station began. Each station developed its social possibilities."9
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Terry accepted the appointment as the first manager of Lighty tried to entice as many faculty members as possible 9XM, a part-time assignment, in addition to his other profes from all university departments to prepare "talks" for the sorial duties. With no budgeted staff, he needed to enlist the radio station. He asked faculty experts to write the talks, just services of other faculty and graduate students to operate and as they might write short articles for publication in print. They program the station. He found a coconspirator in William could read the talks themselves or Lighty could read them on Lighty, head of correspondence study for General Exten the air. Recollections differ on Lighty's success in attracting sion. Lighty cited the Chautauqua circuit as his model.10 The the biggest names on campus. In 1924, he bragged that three Chautauqua tent shows traveled among rural communities, hundred faculty or staff members had appeared on the station bringing musical and dramatic presentations and lectures that that year.16 Others said most faculty regarded radio as a play sought to inform, entertain, and inspire. They brought to rural thing "beneath the dignity of a true educator."17 Perhaps faculty residents some of the cultural opportunities available to those feared having the same experience as Charles E. Brown of the who lived in urban areas. Radio, wrote Lighty, should function State Historical Society. He reported delivering his talk in a as a primary socializing agent that would aid in "the ratio "telephone booth" draped with heavy curtains. The booth, nalizing of all citizens."11 He did not support broadcasting full he said, had "no air, no sound, and no hope for him who courses on the radio. Rather, he saw radio's positive contribu entered there."18 He described lights that flashed directives tion to society more broadly, "to secure broadcasts that have a such as "begin," "faster," "slower," "one minute," and "end." general human interest appeal for the vast invisible audience, The lights so distracted him from his script that he was unsure and at the same time to interpret the true spirit, the life and whether he had read intelligently or "mumbled it to an unseen the work of the university, as well as to instruct, stimulate, and friend or foe." He concluded, "Weak with nervous exhaus enrich the lives of listeners."12 tion and heavy perspiration, I stepped limply from the ordeal, Lighty's General Extension colleague, Lilia Bascom. hoping that never again would I be called upon to participate said he was interested in bringing cultural programs to the in this strange new field of broadcasting."19 people of the state, "for example, good music, not jazz; talks At a faculty meeting, the chair of Professor Terry's own on political questions; lectures and university events."13 Good physics department opposed faculty participation because music meant classical music to Lighty. A very traditional man. radio had "no experimental significance."20 Another scientist he sought to raise the cultural standards of those less fortu responded that radio "had significance as a social experiment."21 nate in their tastes than he. Not surprisingly, his attempt to University president Edward Birge provided no support to elevate tastes was not always appreciated by those whose tastes Lighty's efforts. In fact, the president insisted on receiving copies he targeted for elevating. In 1925. Professor Terry received a request from listener C. H. Alzmeyer: "Give me something with a melody and you will git [sic] the applause." He suggested songs such as "Carry Me Back to Old Verginia [sic]." He wanted fiddle tunes. "Fiddle don't mean a VIOLIN," he clari fied.14 Terry's response might have been written by Lighty. "Having been brought up on a farm myself I think I understand quite well the character of the programs you would most enjoy." But WHA, he said, broadcast only material of merit. "The air is overcrowded every night with jazz and other worthless material, and it would be quite beneath the dignity of the university to add to it." He closed with the emphatic promise that WHA would never broadcast "old 15 time fiddle music." The original heating plant for the University was transformed into Radio Hall in 1934.
26 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY of all faculty talks five days before broadcast to establish, he said, among diverse groups. He grasped that educational radio a written record in case he received complaints. must seek out listeners who would not automatically flock Lilia Bascom remembered Lighty telling reluctant partici to "quality." "Quality must learn to sing," he wrote, and pants that WHA needed to broadcast more than two or concluded that education could "get away" with dullness if three hours a day or the federal government would give the its target was a prisoner in a classroom, but not when that frequency to a commercial broadcaster prepared to provide target could turn from dull quality to interesting frivolity with far more programming—probably including jazz and "fiddle a simple twist of the dial.25 (He expressed no opinion on the music."22 Lighty's concern was justified. In its first decade of role of fiddle music in making education sing.) operation, WHA's programming consisted of the weather fore In the view of the president of the University of Wisconsin cast, current prices for livestock and other agricultural prod in 1935, the weak signal that failed to impress those gathered ucts, and farm and home economics information for one hour in Professor Terry's living room in 1917 had acquired the at midday. The station returned to the air some evenings for an power to become central to the future of democracy, to a more hour or two of educational talks, music appreciation, and live educated nation, and to a better understanding among diverse broadcasts of concerts and athletic events. The station needed people. For the Wisconsin Idea to have any meaning at all, it to do much more to sustain its spot on the radio dial in the face had to use radio.IXfl of a frenzied gold rush for frequencies in the 1920s. In 1925, the University Board of Regents sought a Notes 1. Roger Perm, "The Origin and Development of Broadcasting at the University of Wisconsin new leader to reinvigorate the progressive activism that to 1940" (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1950), 128. had declined after the death of President Van Hise in 1917. 2. Ibid. 3. Mrs. I. F. Thompson to H. B. McCarty, May 2, 1949, quoted in Penn, "Origin and Devel At only thirty-nine years old, Glenn Frank became the opment," 110. youngest university president in Wisconsin history. He had 4. Penn, "Origin and Development," 56. 5. Ibid., 52. no advanced degree nor any significant experience as an 6. Ibid., 46. academic. He was, however, something of a celebrity. He 7. Some of those tubes are still intact and on display in Vilas Hall. 8. Penn, "Origin and Development," 35. was a writer and public speaker and editor of a nationally 9. William Lighty to Malcolm Hanson, n.d., in Roger Axford, research papers for dissertation. prominent progressive magazine. Frank never enjoyed the "William Henry Lighty, Adult Education Pioneer," Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Madison, Wl. confidence of the faculty. Nonetheless, Frank's administra 10. Axford Papers. tion elevated WHA from a physics experiment supported by 11. William Lighty, conference paper written for the 8th Annual Convention of the National University Extension Association in St. Louis, 1923, William Lighty Papers, Wisconsin the uncompensated time of idealistic volunteers to a perma Historical Society Archives, Madison, Wl. nent part of the university's mission. 12. Penn, "Origin and Development," 261. 13. Roger Axford, William Henry Lighty, Adult Education Pioneer (Chicago: University of Frank may have had reservations about radio when he Chicago Press, 1961). 14. C H. Afzmeyerto Earle Terry, 1925, WHA General Correspondence File, University of took office in 1925 but they had changed to enthusiasm by the Wisconsin Archives, Madison, Wl. time he left in 1937. Writing in the Annals of the American 15. Ibid. 16. Axford Papers. Academy of Political and Social Science in 1935, he declared 17. Ibid. that radio would transform society as much as the printing 18. Penn, "Origin and Development," 182. 23 19. Ibid. press had five hundred years earlier. He hailed the technical 20. Henry Ewbank, quoted in Penn, "Origin and Development," 54. "genius" of those who developed radio, but expressed doubts 21. Ibid. 22. Axford Papers. about those who programmed it. He criticized educators who 23. Glenn Frank, "Radio as an Educational Force," Annals of the American Academy of were "reluctant to change" and who regarded radio as inher Political and Social Science 177 (January 1935): 119-122. 24. Ibid. ently shoddy. Frank urged the use of broadcast technology in 25. Ibid. formal education, but he saw even greater potential for radio to shape democracy. He predicted that the technology itself ABOUT THE AUTHOR would produce "a new kind of statesman and a new kind of voter." Whether commercial or noncommercial, he said, "the Jack Mitchell, PhD, led Wisconsin Public microphone is the deadly enemy of the demagogue—a ruthless Radio from 1976 until 1997, initiating the transition from educational radio revealer of'hokum.'" He believed individual citizens sitting by to WPR. Mitchell was the first employee their radios were more critical, and more rational, than groups 24 of National Public Radio, where he was of citizens hearing the same information in a public meeting. instrumental in developing the ground His article laid out goals for educational radio that remain breaking newsmagazine All Things Con relevant in the twenty-first century. Radio programming, he sidered. He is the author of Listener said, needed to promote "intelligence and moral responsi Supported: The Culture and History of bility." It should seek not only a more intelligent nation but Public Radio. a more integrated nation, one that encourages understanding
AUTUMN 2016 27
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^ Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, pictured here in an 1867 bird's-eye view, was the adopted home of William F.Weber, a newspaper magnate who owned eight German-language newspapers.
SBgfiS (Inset) Born in Germany as Wilhelm Fridolin, Weber immigrated to Wisconsin in his twenties and began publishing newspapers in 1874. $ctmrttttit. ben Oregon =;J5rciroiftigeu einfad) nieber= w ©svcfcitioii 280 aBeftiDflfferfirflge. gemcjjcJt lborbcn. g Svfdjciilt jeben TOiltrood). £ie 2)cVfd)cu, rocid)eitbe r biefen Worb K 3*tei« $2.50 pet 3a(>r. bcrid),cn, finb bom 8. b. TO. batirt unb JT Haft Xcnt|d)Innb liorlofrri W.50. bringen etroa golgenbe*: - 3mSorauS j«H*»t- 3ot)n unb ^atnc3 ?5aird)ifb bcrlicfeen - -.^^irl^ttl am genannien £agc mit ettoa cinem ®u= igftfltn «nr ;rr ttudj'Hufnalwx finbtn |oUm. Hiiitr|rf,rtfl Cti einjtnbtti lutr. Jjenb nnberer Wanner 2faird)tlb'8 Scand), ffiottr Iponbtnjtn unb OTitiljdiuHgtn,mtldi t [iiv unltrt Sottonrooob = Sreel, um 17 gefangene S»|f[ ton 5n!(Hi'( f.v.b. ivfrtc:i mil lout angtnom. • nun unb. Hxnn pafiVnb. Wtl![rallid|t. eturotta 5Tioboc=3nbianer nad) Soulc'S 6am() 311 9H( Xiitfc find )U atttiiircs: trauSporttren. Unterrocg* begegneten C*trmoiiia;Officf, SB o df c it 11 i d> c 31 it s $ a b c. S80SS(H-SB(intt.6t«i(. iijnen bie Oregon = Steiroifligen unter Sittttoren btr ffittman ^roteftant f riuting ©ommanbo tfjrefi gapitdn^ .^ifton. Stffociation. (eigenthiimct unit Sjcriutsgcticr: (Serman JJrottllant printing a|Tociatioit. Stefe umrtngtcn fofort ben SBagen, rpur= ?ti|ib(nf: (5. tSiilfelbi, ton beta. lull), tint. ben aber anfd)cinenb burd) Saird)i(b be* i:ii!j!ci!<.Oitinrtn-••- m—J^be , fflilfDuri.SuiiDnt. Stto. *rl)iniM, tu b(r rrfoi. frljroidjtigt unb Iief;en ifjn mit fcinen @e= mi;sea ffjttnrlnbt. ®
Following its launch on June 18,1873, the Milwaukee German-language newspaper Germania was published for forty-five years.
hough today we are citizens—loyal citizens— Beginning in the 1850s, railroad connections between New of the great United States, we do feel a deep York and Chicago and across Wisconsin made the overland connection to our dear home country."1 These journey easier and faster.4 German communities mushroomed 'words introduced a new German-language across the state, although most immigrants settled in north newspaper, Germania, on June 18, 1873. The central Wisconsin and in the eastern part of the state close to weekly paper, which was published in Milwaukee, was Milwaukee and Lake Michigan.5 Many town names, such as one of the many German-language newspapers scattered Kiel, New Holstein, and Berlin, derive from the state's heavily throughout the state of Wisconsin that served the numerous German population. In such communities, and in the German German American communities that had formed here. What neighborhoods of Milwaukee, immigrants were able to enjoy arose as a side effect of German immigration and declined the promised freedom of the new world while still feeling under the rise of US patriotism during World War I mirrors connected to their native country as they continued to cele the state's transition from a loose agglomeration of Euro brate the culture they shared. pean immigrant groups to a society developing a shared state Of course, Germans were not the only immigrants to settle identity influenced by journalistic efforts to preserve facets of in Wisconsin. Waves of settlers from various European coun beloved Old World culture. tries, particularly Ireland and Norway, came to the state and Almost five and a half million German immigrants created a patchwork of cultural influences; holding onto their arrived in the United States between 1820 and 1910.2 Encour native language was a significant part of the cultural mainte aged by pamphlets promoting Wisconsin's soil, climate, and nance in these communities. In German settlements, private industry and by friends and family who had already settled schools were established first and foremost to educate children in Wisconsin, many chose to make the Badger State their in German. The language was spoken at home as well as in home. For the first wave of German immigrants, who arrived the streets, where it was used to conduct everyday business. between 1845 and 1855, the trip to Wisconsin required ten And when the paper arrived at the doorstep, it was, of course, long days of travel on board various ships on the Great Lakes.3 printed in German.
30 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
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Immigration brochures, like this German-language version from 1870, aimed to inform newly arrived immigrants about the"Bevolkerung, Boden, Klima, Handel und die industriellen Verhaltnisse"—"popu lations, soil, climate, trade, and industrial circumstances"—in Wisconsin.
AUTUMN 2016 31 HEIFER Apotljelm Between 1844 and 1957, at least 220 German-language papers were printed in the state of Wisconsin.6 With the fluctu ation of immigrant waves, the number of publications rose and fell, but by the beginning of the twentieth century there were sixty-six well-established papers that served an even greater number of communities.7 Eight were edited by one man: German immigrant William F. Weber. Born on October 3, 1851, in a small town in Wiirttemberg, a southwestern region of Germany that is now known as the state of Baden-Wiirttem- berg, Weber was the son of Carl, a government employee, and Victoria Weber.8 Weber, who grew up without a father after Carl's sudden death in 1855, attended school and later studied the bookbinding trade before leaving his home to move to the United States at the age of twenty9 After moving back and forth between Chicago and Marquette, Michigan, he eventu ally settled in Fond du Lac in July 1874. There, he started his own bindery business and met his future wife, Matilda, who was the American-born daughter of two German immigrants. Weber's career as a German-language newspaper magnate began a few years later when he bought his first publica tion, the established Democratic newspaper Nordwestlicher Courier (Fond du Lac), in April 1878.10 While the first wave of German immigrants had brought about a boost in the number of liberal newspapers, Weber, who arrived during the second wave (1865-1875), represented the more conservative side of German-language journalism in the state. Similar to most American newspapers, German-language papers were established to inform readers about local and national news, fn addition to the common news coverage, editors tried to suit their readers' special interests. Reporting on what was happening back in Europe, where many readers still had relatives and friends, created a connection to the native country that no American newspaper could offer. Categories like "Old World" and "New World" offered a quick overview of the most important news. Moreover, the papers often had an educational purpose designed for the needs of the immigrant readership. Germania planned to provide practical articles for new settlers: "The narratives shall be interesting, educational, and suited for the family circle. We will address regional geog raphy and ethnology, as well as other sciences. Yet, we will also not forget the practical matters of life, fn this regard, we will direct our attention ... to farming and gardening."11 Other publications, including Weber's Nordwestlicher Courier, added serialized historical narratives from the area to familiarize its readers with the background of Wisconsin Indians and settlers. The Racine Correspondent printed essays on German history to encourage readers' interest in their native land. Under the title "Die alten Deutschen," meaning "The Old Germans," the paper would, for example, inform
A group of people poses in front of a German drug store in Plymouth, Wisconsin, in 1888. Upon their arrival, German immigrants often started their own schools, churches, and businesses.
33 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
—* ^ .w »_ .. gold, novelties in Rattan. Furniture prices A^T. Q. [£/. gjxCRCTXXXCXYly are from 10 to 25 per cent lower than those of Chicago or Milwaukee houses sell. Hr$t unb Goods delivered free to any R. R. Station in Munfcarst. the state CHEAP PRINTING? Will we fuminh it t Yes and no. We will fur *ritdnpc;ialtr. nish at moderate cost GOOD PRINTING. <£efet, ueerfcgf un6 And good printing at a fair price is cheap print Tnir ing, whereas poor printing is too dear at any price. fyaxibett. MODERN PRINTING is what we furnish. Our plant is equipped with hundreds of fonts of type of the latest designs. Qetfimg nfifofnl uuf) pufilin. ON SHORT NOTICE ftfin sJKeffcr, trine Wbbaltung pom ©cfdjdft. We can furnish small jobs as well as large ones. Before giving your order, please call at the ftfint Se jabjung utrb wrlangt bis getjeilt wirb. rBegen nab/rcn 6i,n3el^ctten obreffht man on obine Courier Printing House, . Corner Purest and Hacy Street*.
Advertisements reflected different typefaces based on the language used. The Dr. Ackerman ad in an 1896 issue of the Nordwestlicher Courier is printed in German using Fraktur, while the English ad is printed in Antiqua.
Wisconsin's German-language papers were traditionally printed in Fraktur, a typeface commonly used in Germany atthetime. Examples of this include itsIiitiNb 2!alt the Das Dienstags-Blatt (1905-1917) the Racine Correspondent (1883-1918), and the West Bend Beobachter (1879-1917). ori.r,"*-,,:;:'s,:ir'' stMwi |2Sel* toffctcn ©ewctS > im SJ... but »<4ubi. iibolt.n En ,^bi Mtlb lutw. «_. .. ,;nt imla.t* Epinv.. bit .in it&tiUbtiuti Bnabt i'i iautn unnanbt it. unb bo* it unttir Hit unb Wtilr btnu Vnyi. * *«'«', m»m,, vn. tinUAf IlnKnktn. Bfnu,i nf bit ntltn ftnnhlM.lit.l, "WfrftaJOiBB, Manuel una or!l tJic «tr«MnH'« e»r>ial 'Jlitiiiat **JM fin. K>nT,., J *&££** »f"" W ,t ©r«( 8BtW Miiliinctt. [Hollttn n-trbtn jmlli* fannl ^icb.-n. WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY readers about historic weapons of the Romans and Germanic peoples.12 The mixture of news, anecdotes, and general infor icn. mation about the Old World and the introduction of the culture, history, and politics of the new worked well for the i ltit SHainfrroftf. readers who had decided to come to the United States for a better life, but were, needless to say, still deeply connected to what they had left behind. The German-language media, therefore, played two important roles in the young state. On the one hand, the papers served to inform their readers and update them on the most important happenings on either side of the Atlantic. On the other, they functioned to perpetuate German cultural heritage and, thereby, the state's diversity of languages and customs. This cultural maintenance even went beyond the language and the type of news published. The editors of German-language papers also continued the printing tradi tions they had been familiar with in Europe. The publica tions were printed in Fraktur, the so-called "broken script" typeface commonly used in Germany until 1941.13 With this (£1 *y* 3efrl }ii ben iduineii ^riih feature, they stood out clearly against English papers, which johr? ^rirfdien u. hiibfdieii (Imfe* were printed in Antiqua typefaces as they are today. The type rtgftrtl bti i>minln'rf\\ 3tyi merbct fie face was an important part of German identity in the Euro it x\l)r iii Tndi, Banuitt obet ifibefin pean publishing business, and it also became an identifier for tftl, HH-UIU' tununt jo billig uue r German culture in Wisconsin. > J ~.> lii'iito, liu'ldie iii tbciier uue Advertisements contributed to cultural preservation as \X\+ 118.00. well. German-language papers made use of them not only to ^nu'iib rrHMrf, uni Cm- Miinbfii finance their publications, but also to support the commerce of \w bffriebioen. the German American community. Whether it was a German leather manufacturer, furniture merchant, or clothing shop, readers were bombarded with slogans, pretty drawings, and bargain claims. Fond du Lac outfitter Griinheck's, for example, took an entire half-page column in Nordwestlicher Courier in April 1896 to advertise its new line of women's capes in various fabrics ranging in price from 75 cents to $ 18.14 Even physicians tried to generate a bigger clientele by promoting their practices in the local press. The surgeon and bone fracture specialist Dr. Ackerman promised a top-notch treatment—without the use of knives—for which the patient would have to pay only after successful healing.15 The papers also included a noncommercial service- oriented section. Some early publications, such as the Milwaukee Herold, included lists of persons who should retrieve mail that had arrived from Germany. Another list reminded those who had not yet picked up their mail to do c vncv if) fin gan^ivoflettfti slid- so before it would be shipped back across the ocean. The Dienstags-Blatt (Oshkosh), which was eventually also edited nfeungdfttirf, tuna) gefHtft, unirbc by Weber, printed sheet music for readers to play at home. ' gilt $5 (KJ uuttl) frill, ft it IjiiuTi Many of the newspapers also included entertainment pages aerobe 0 ioldic \u wrloufcu \u < with jokes, caricatures, and fictional narratives. After one year of successfully establishing a reputation as If .... editor and publisher of the Nordwestlicher Courier, Weber Griinheck's placed advertisements for their 1896 spring took his career a step further. He launched his own publi- jackets and capes in the Nordwestlicher Courier AUTUMN 2016 35 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY cation in 1879.16 Under the title Beobachter (Observer), the County produced a total of forty-five publications throughout entrepreneur addressed the German American community of these years, while Chippewa County published only one, West Bend in its native language. Four years later, he estab the Chippewa Falls paper Thalbote (Valley Herald), which lished the Racine Correspondent; one year after that, the debuted in 1895.19 Fond du Lac Sunday paper Daheim ("home"); and in 1885, The sheer number of newspapers published in German the Ripon Post.11 And Weber was not the only publisher who and the long duration for which many of them were printed seemed to have a formula for success during that time. During indicates a great demand for a variety of publications for the century following the first major German settlements reasons beyond the geographical distribution of the immigrant in Wisconsin, forty-four of the state's seventy-two counties communities. Although to many non-German Wisconsinites, published an average of nearly five papers in German.18 Some German immigrants seemed to be a large homogenous group, counties, of course, had much bigger German communities German settlers differentiated between the various commu than others, resulting in higher circulation. Hence, Milwaukee nities.20 The immigrants had not left the united nation that 36 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Finished in 1896 for the flourishing German Protestant Printing Association, the Germania Building remains a Milwaukee landmark to this day. Germany is today; they had come from a looser association became involved in the labor movement in Wisconsin, and of territories and states of the German Confederation (1815- some helped launch socialist newspapers in the Milwaukee 1866) and, later, the German Empire (1871-1918). The first area. The second and third wave immigrants, by contrast, wave of German immigrants (1845-1855) had come mainly generally came to the United States due to economic hard from the southwest of the German Confederation, while most ships. Free thinkers, revolutionaries, and Protestants tended to of the second wave (1865-1875) arrived from the northwest have different political views than German Catholics, such as and the third wave (1880-1893) from the northeast of the Weber. The former, for example, supported President Lincoln German Empire.21 Hence, when they settled in Wisconsin, and the Republican Party during the Civil War, while the they brought over a variety of customs, traditions, and political latter opposed the North's involvement.24 and religious views. German immigrants identified themselves The newspapers in the different communities often as Catholics or Lutherans or as Pomeranians or Bavarians reflected the respective take on current events. Some papers' rather than as Germans.22 They were not assigned nor did names, such as the Sheboygan Arbeiter-Zeitung (Laborer they adopt a more general German identity until after they Newspaper) or Chilton's Wisconsin Demokrat already came to the United States, and even then it did not trump their suggested their political affinity; others were affiliated with former affiliation.23 As a result, the German-language newspa churches. The previously mentioned Germania, for example, pers they established reflected this diversity. was owned by the German Protestant Printing Association. The first wave brought many religious refugees but also Editors George Koeppen and George Brumder elaborated on failed revolutionaries who had left the German Confederation this affiliation in their front-page address to the reader in the for political reasons. Many so-called "Forty Eighters" then first issue: AUTUMN 2016 37 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The Dodge County Banner printed this war caricature on January 26,1916. It refers to the October 1915 British seizure of the American steamer/-/odcv'ng, to which Uncle Sam reacts by saying:"First this guy exploits my goodwill and then he snatches the best dumplings away from me. I can't get anything in anymore." Our stance is that of the positive Christian belief.... established in 1866, and the associated Dienstags-Blatt to his Many acknowledge the doctrine of consumerism flourishing publishing empire in 1910.28 Around the same rather than the Christian belief of their forefathers. time, Weber ventured out into the English-language press. Unfortunately, they are reinforced by the attitude of The short-lived Fond du Lac Commercial and Fond du Lac part of this country's German press. .. . Here in the News were both edited by Weber at the turn of the century. New World, the first duty of Germanity is, in our On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia opinion, to be the guardian of piety and faith. .. . after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria This newspaper does not represent the interests of one and his wife. As an ally to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, denomination; it does not favor one parish.... ft is to Germany soon joined the war and sent its troops to invade represent the interests of all Protestants to the outside.25 Belgium and Luxembourg to eventually attack France. With the commencement of World War f, Wisconsin's German-language The editors' agenda was to establish a serious and objective news newspapers became even more important to immigrant commu outlet while preserving German traditions and the Protestant nities. Readers were concerned about the happenings in their faith. This concept appealed to a large immigrant readership homeland and the possible threat to relatives who had stayed for just over fifty years, making Germania the biggest German- behind. Media coverage was in greater demand than ever, fn language newspaper in the state and giving it a lasting impact publications such as the Dodge County Banner, readers were on Milwaukee.26 fn 1896, the newspaper moved into the newest able to learn the extent of the war's impact on Germany. Reports and largest office building in the city, the Germania Building.2' on the German economy, for example, supplied readers with Eager to build similar success in the conservative news details, such as current food prices in Munich, which assured business, Weber further expanded his own network of newspa them in January 1916 that the state of the German market was pers. He founded Rpon's Deutsche Zeitung (German News not as dire as people had thought.29 Later that year, Weber's paper) in 1899 and added Oshkosh's Wisconsin Telegraph, Dienstags-Blatt printed an article about ongoing tourism in 38 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY This issue of the Dodge County Banner, printed before the US declaration of war, informed its readers about Turkish successes, British losses, and other war news. In the fifth column it asks who was allegedly responsible for the war ("Wer begann den Krieg?""Who started the war"?),answering,"Russia." southern Germany. A Swiss traveler had written to the paper Dienstags-Blatt discussing German tourism also informed its about the crowds of tourists he had encountered during his visit: readers about the disappearance of the German submarine "fn a widely known south German resort, in which f was fortu Bremen and the possibility of its having been captured by the nate to spend a few days of my vacation this spring, f was barely British.31 Since journalists used terms such as "our archnem- able to get a room at the lodging house.... Relying on an abun esis" when talking about the United Kingdom and printed dance of rooms during this time of war, f had arrived without a caricatures mocking and criticizing the British, there is no reservation. During the holidays, the old porter ... told me that doubt that many, if not all, German-language newspapers it was busy as never before."30 were somewhat subjective in the way in which they covered fn contrast to many English-language newspapers in the war.32 Yet they supplied the great demand for information the United States, German-language publications did more in the crisis. The beginning of the war and the United States' than focus solely on the politics of the war; they emphasized initial neutrality therefore promised great times for German- the civilian perspective on the conflict. The editors of these language journalism. papers knew that they were dealing with a readership that ft was not until April 6, 1917, after Germany had resumed had emotional ties to what had become a war zone. Their unrestricted submarine warfare and suggested an alliance task was to find a balance between comforting the commu to Mexico, that the US government declared war. Fifty nity and presenting the cold hard facts. Hence, the issue of the congressmen had voted against the declaration; among them AUTUMN 2016 39 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY were nine of the eleven delegates from Wisconsin.33 The state the state where a large proportion of the population continued was known for progressive leadership and its large German to speak and learn mostly in German. According to the 1910 population, but it had also experienced a conservative revival census, the rates of monolingual German-speaking residents during the 1914 elections.34 Wisconsin was deeply divided, were as high as 24 percent in some areas.41 A great backlash in and the vote in Washington dramatically and swiftly changed these communities led to the quick repeal of the Bennett Law. the atmosphere in German American communities and in However, in light of Germany's involvement in the war, anti- German-language newsrooms. German sentiment gained new momentum. The day before The Dodge County Banner clarified the new situation for the US declaration of war, the Dodge County Banner reported its readers on April 12, 1917, its first issue after the US entry on the increasing amount of anti-German propaganda. A into the war. All German-born residents who had not yet been commentary on the latest efforts to denounce German Ameri naturalized had officially been declared enemies of the state cans described them as "evil calumny": "If all those adven and, as such, were subject to all consequences were they to turous tales about spies, which the readers of the American act in a suspicious manner. The paper advised all readers of newspapers are presented with . . . contained as much as one German descent to be careful, to act strictly according to the ounce of truth, our prisons would have long been overcrowded law, and to refrain from any actions that could suggest connec with the sad heroes of such scribblings. . . . The craft of these tions to German warfare. Germania summarized the new troublemakers is fueling the hatred of Germans to the best of circumstances in a quote printed on its front page on April their ability"42 10: "Gehorche dem Gesetz und halte den Mund," meaning The US entry into World War I intensified the situation. "Obey the law and shut your mouth."35 There were also trans Wagner's music vanished from the opera houses, German lations of official government statements reassuring German theaters were closed, and German books were burned. In Americans that they had nothing to fear: "When it comes 1917, the Germania statue disappeared overnight from the to foreign enemies who live in accord with the law, all citi top of the entrance of the Germania building.43 On March zens are asked to keep peace with them and treat them with 31, 1918, Northland College Professor Schimler, a second- appropriate kindness."36 Hence, the German-language press generation German immigrant who had taught languages on presented both warning and reassurance. the Ashland campus, was kidnapped, tarred, and feathered.44 The warnings would soon prove to be legitimate. Successful Though he was widely considered a loyal American citizen, warfare called for a strong and united American home front, and it was suspected that he had become a victim of a mob with the existence of enemy residents within US borders destroyed extremist anti-German views. this ideal. With the help of propaganda spread by the Wisconsin Because it affected all of its readers in one way or another, Loyalty Legion, sympathy for German Americans shrank and the German-language press was eager to adapt to the change hostility grew. The Legion warned about "Pro-Germanism" by in attitude in Wisconsin's society. The October 23, 1917, issue distributing a "sedition map" of "infected" areas in Wisconsin of the Dienstags-Blatt encouraged German Americans to buy and calling for action.37 Suddenly, everything German was inter liberty bonds to prove their loyalty to the United States. Weber preted as suspicious. Residents with German names were seen and other editors seemed to believe that by contributing to as potential spies and risked being harassed.38 The anti-German the war effort the German American community could prove sentiment soon affected Wisconsin culture in general. German patriotic organizations wrong and show how faithful it was. classes disappeared from school curricula and many German Instead of writing about the "archnemesis" England, the press Americans started avoiding the use of the language in public began to refer to the United Kingdom and France as "allies" as it was now frowned upon. By the end of 1917, the Univer and to Germany as the "enemy"45 sity of Wisconsin registered a 40 percent drop in the number Even though the war and its social consequences gave the of German philology students.39 Even the German vocabu German-language press much to write about, the hysteria and lary that had made it into the American vernacular, aided propaganda also affected the press negatively by making it by the perpetuation of the language through the papers, was harder to publish. Now that the papers, as German-promoting altered to make it more American. Because one did not want to publications, were seen as a potential threat to national secu completely get rid of the beloved German cuisine, for example, rity, the US government included section 19 in the Trading popular dishes were simply renamed, turning sauerkraut into with the Enemy Act of 1917. This section declared all articles "liberty cabbage."40 concerning the war or a party of the war published in any ft was not the first time the local German-language other language than English to be unlawful unless "a true and culture had been under attack. Under the 1889 Bennett Law, complete translation of the entire article" had been filed.46 politicians had tried to, among other things, ban schools that Forced to surrender to the new censorship, the German- did not teach elementary subjects such as reading and writing language press started handing in translations and indicated in English. This had a profound effect on the many places in that they had obeyed the new law by including a note in 40 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The Wisconsin Loyalty League published this "Sedition Map" in 1918 to reveal the areas in the state where German "disloyalty" was widely spread. English before every war-related article. "True translation shared ancestry, Germania announced that it would no longer filed with the postmaster at La Crosse Jan. 1, 1918 as required come to the readers as such in October 1918. Fused with the by the Act of Congress of October 6, 1917,"47 read one such German-language Herold, the publishers had decided to disclaimer in the La Crosse Volksfreund (Friend of the People) rename the paper, which was from that point forward printed before an article about the December 1917 truce at the Eastern as Milwaukee America. The new title was meant to be less Front. This censorship constituted a logistical challenge that suspiciously Germanic and reflect the loyalty to the home not all papers could manage. German Americans had chosen. In a note to the reader in One way of dealing with the pressure and hostility was the first issue of the new Milwaukee America, the editor to change the name of the publication. After nearly five explained that through this new edition, the publishers were decades of presenting its title as a meaningful symbol of distancing themselves from the term "Germania" which had AUTUMN 2016 41 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Growing anti-German sentiment resulted in the burning of German textbooks in Baraboo in 1918. become more and more politicized. Further proving loyalty to While there had been sixty-two German-language publi the United States rather than to European ancestry, the editor cations in the state at the beginning of World War I, forty- finished with a remark printed in English: "America first."48 one were left when the war came to an end four years later. Under the new name and philosophy, the publication was able Four newspapers had shut down during US neutrality, and to dodge a shutdown for another six years. seventeen disappeared between 1917 and 1918. Weber's busi Many other publications proved less persistent. On March ness was not immune to changes in the industry. Two of his 28, 1918, the last German issue of the Dodge County Banner four remaining German-language papers, the weekly Dien was delivered. In the address to the reader, the publisher, stags-Blatt and the Sunday paper Daheim, were discontinued Husting, emphasized the importance of the English language during the war and those that survived the immediate crisis "which all our sons and daughters ought to know."49 Statis vanished in the decade following, along with twenty-eight tics from Washington, DC, had allegedly shown that illiteracy others throughout the state. His weeklies Wisconsin Telegraph was a serious problem for the American public and had led and Nordwestlicher Courier were both discontinued in 1920.52 Husting to the conclusion that there was only one language The reasons given for the shutdowns of German-language in the country that all should speak and understand. From publications varied but were all related to the war-induced that day on, the Banner was printed in English to capture changes. The last issue of the Racine Correspondent, which and reflect "the right sort of American spirit."50 The sudden Weber had edited until 1886, claimed that it had become a change in direction did not save the paper from its fall after all; burden that the publishing company could no longer afford.53 the last issue was printed in December 1919.51 The West Bend Beobachter, which Weber had launched and 42 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY successfully run for its first nine years, shut down due to "diffi 12. "Die alten Deutschen," Racine Correspondent, January 8, 1916. 13. Susanne Wehde, Typographische Kultur: Eine zeichentheoretische und kulturgeschich- culties in publishing" after nearly thirty-seven years of striving tliche Studie zur Typographic und ihrer Entwicklung (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. to educate the readers "to be great American citizens while 2000), 279. 54 14. Griinheck's advertisement, Nordwestlicher Courier, April 8, 1896. preserving the ideals of German customs and traditions." 15. "Dr. J. O. Ackerman, Arzt und Wundarzt," advertisement, Nordwestlicher Courier, April Similar to the reasoning of the Dodge County Banner, the 8, 1896. 16. Oehlerts, Guide to Wisconsin Newspapers, 268. publishing company said farewell to the readers on October 17. Ibid., 211, 81,84. 18. Ibid. 12, 1917, claiming to have realized that English had become 19. Ibid., 26. the language of the youth. As the war's need for a unified 20. Zeitlin, Germans in Wisconsin, 41. 21. Ibid., 6-7. American identity and the pressure of censorship grew, the 22. Ibid., 41. fall of the German-language press became inevitable. 23. Ibid., 17. 24. Ibid., 17-18. Within four years of the outbreak of the war in Europe, 25. Koeppen, "An unsere Leser." 34 percent of Wisconsin's German-language papers had disap 26. Oehlerts, Guide to Wisconsin Newspapers, 157. 27. Germania Building, National Register of Historic Places, accessed at wihist.org/265y7bG. peared. They vanished during a time when covering the news 28. Oehlerts, Guide to Wisconsin Newspapers, 84, 290, 288. from their readers' country of origin was especially important. 29. "1st nicht so Schlimm!" Dodge County Banner (Mayville), January 11, 1916. 30. "Im blockierten Deutschland," Dienstags-Blatt (Oshkosh), October 3, 1916. Thus, it was not a diminishing need for news that made them 31. "'Bremen' soil gefangen sein," Dienstags-Blatt, October 3, 1916. dispensable. The rapid decline rather mirrored broader social 32. "Gegen Erzfeind England," Dienstags-Blatt, October 3, 1916. 33. Paul W. Glad, History of Wisconsin, Volume V War, a New Era, and Depression, 1914— developments in the state. For decades, German immigrants 1940 (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1990), 22. 34. Ibid., 3. and their American-born descendants had celebrated the heri 35. "Feindl. Auslander sind sicher," Germania, April 10, 1917. tage perpetuatedby their newspapers. Yet they also increasingly 36. "Krieg gegen Deutschland jetzt Erklart," Dienstags-Blatt, April 10, 1917. 55 37. Wisconsin Loyalty Legion, Sedition Map, New York Sun, March 21, 1918, accessed at identified themselves as Americans, even before 1914. The il.i I I . I Ni ,- i , | i , war and the growing anti-German sentiment, therefore, merely 38. Erikajanik, A Short History of Wisconsin (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2010), 119. accelerated what scholars Miranda E. Wilkerson and Joseph 39. Don H. Tolzmann, German-Americans in the World Wars, vol. 1 (Munich: K. G. Saur. Salmons have have called "a process already under way"56 1995), 192. 40. Theodore Huebener, The Germans in America (Philadelphia: Chilton Book Company. The pressure on German-speaking Wisconsinites drasti 1962), 151. cally affected the demand for German-language journalism. 41. Miranda E. Wilkerson and Joseph Salmons, "'Good Old Immigrants of Yesteryear' Who Didn't Learn English: Germans in Wisconsin," American Speech 83, no. 3 (2008): 259-283, Some subscribers probably feared the public's aversion; others 268. 42. "Der deutsche 'Massenauszug' nach Mexiko," Dodge County Banner, April 5, 1917. may have believed that loyalty to the United States was more 43. Germania Building, National Register of Historic Places. important in a time of war. Either way, the downfall of the 44. "Professor of Northland Tarred and Feathered," Ashland Daily Press, April 1, 1918. 45. "Erfolgreiche Gegenoffensive der Alliierten," Wisconsin Staats-Zeitung (Madison), July German-language press reflects developments within the 23,1918. state's largest immigrant group and the change within the 46. United States, Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, passed October 6, 1917, Chapter 106, 40 Statute 411, accessed atwihist.org/lMxOoQu. general public of Wisconsin. The conglomerate of immigrants 47. "Waffenstillstand zwischen Bolschewiki und Kaledines," La Crosse Volksfreund, January with distinct European identities, cultures, and traditions 1, 1918. 48. William C. Brumder, "Ankiindigung," Milwaukee America, October 1, 1918. morphed into a unity. Identities shifted from being German, 49. B.J. Hufting, "An die Leser des Dodge County Banner und an das Publikum," Dodge Irish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Polish to being American, County Banner (Mayville), March 28, 1918. 50. Ibid. or more specifically to being Wisconsinite, with an identity 51. Oehlerts, Guide to Wisconsin Newspapers, 481. shaped by bilingualism and multiple cultural influences. The 52. Ibid., 290, 82. 53. "An die Leser," Racine Correspondent, June 29, 1918. German-language press had been an important medium in 54. "An unsere Abonenten," West Bend Beobachter, October 12, 1917. 55. Miranda E. Wilkerson and Joseph Salmons, "Linguistic Marginalities: Becoming American this shaping process. A necessity for those who arrived to find without Learning English/'^/ouraai of Transnational American Studies 4, no. 2 (2012): 20. their place in the New World, it helped preserve the values and 56. Wilkerson and Salmons, '"Good Old Immigrants of Yesteryear,'" 264. customs that have contributed to Wisconsin's cultural diversity and that still influence us today. IM« ABOUT THE AUTHOR Notes 4l£lM*W£2S Randi Julia Ramsden recently received 1. George Koeppen, "An unsere Leser," Germania (Milwaukee),June 18, 1873. her master's degree in American stud 2. Richard H. Zeitlin, Germans in Wisconsin (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, TM '"-W»>-*. ^ 2000), 5. ies from Johannes Gutenberg University 3. Zeitlin, Germans in Wisconsin, 6—7. Mainz with a thesis on Freedom Summer's 4. Ibid., 10. 5. Ibid., 13. JTJ^I White Community Project. Originally from 6. Donald E. Oehlerts, Guide to Wisconsin Newspapers: 1833-1957 (Madison: State Histor Germany but now living in Wisconsin, she ical Society of Wisconsin, 1958), viii. HJTAI^^ 7. Ibid. •i* jLj :.;• studied in Mainz, Germany, and Madison, 8. Maurice McKenna, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin: Past and Present, vol. 2 (Chicago: Clark. W Wisconsin, with a focus on American his 1912), 139. tory, politics, and literature. 9. McKenna, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 139. 10. Oehlerts, Guide to Wisconsin Newspapers, 82. 11. Koeppen, "An unsere Leser." AUTUMN 2016 43 ••-••. • |^^^HI^BnB*^a9L^HI ^HHB9»^HH.*HEK Tic? DisiUusionrnent of Father Lithograph of a Menominee camp by French artist and naturalist Francis, Comte de Castelnau, 1842 • . .... ••. Bonduel A priest performs a baptism of a Menominee woman in this drawing by an unknown artist published in Father Florimond Bonduel's 1855 book, L'Enfant Perdu {The Lost Child). BY ANNE BEISER ALLEN ne spring morning in 1855, Father FlorimondJ. Bonduel, Catholic missionary Oto the Menominee at Keshena, took an ax and chopped down the large cross he had erected in front of the mission chapel three years before. Furiously, he shouted that the Menominee were an ungrateful people who didn't deserve the services of a priest.1 The Office of Indian Affairs had been notorious for its venality since its organization in 1834. All of its employees, from the commissioner down to the agents in the field, were political appointees, chosen for their party loyalty more than their honesty. They handled large amounts of money, paid to the various tribes in exchange for the lands on which they had lived for generations. Traders paid agents for licenses to trade with the tribe, then padded their bills and paid the agents to turn a blind eye. Bribery and embezzlement were rampant. The web of corrup tion was so complex that an honest man who tried to function within the system often found himself entangled in its threads.2 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY John Martin Henni, bishop of Milwaukee from 1844 to 1875, appointed Father Bonduel missionary to the Menominee in 1846. Poygan, where the tribesmen received the annuities prescribed in the 1831 treaty, subagent Albert G. Ellis introduced the Florimond Joseph Bonduel, born in Belgium and ordained in Detroit, leaders of the tribe to Commissioner William Medill, who had was missionary to the Menominee from 1846 to 1855. been sent from Washington to arrange a new treaty. ft took the parties four long days to come to terms. Florimond Bonduel was such a man. Born to a wealthy The new treaty called for the Menominee to cede all their family in Comines, Belgium, in 1799, he came to the United remaining land in Wisconsin and resettle on land that the States in 1831 and was ordained in Detroit three years later. government had purchased from the Ojibwe in Minnesota. He served in a number of posts around the diocese, and was When the Menominee appeared determined not to accept this pastor in Prairie du Chien in 1846, when Milwaukee's bishop plan, Medill sent his assistant, Morgan L. Martin, to speak John Henni chose him to head the Menominee mission on privately with Augustin Grignon, patriarch of the long-estab Lake Poygan near present-day Winneconne.3 lished trading family from Green Bay, who had often served as The story of Father Bonduel's disillusionment begins with an interpreter for the Menominee. Grignon must make it clear the treaty signed at Lake Poygan on October 18, 1848. ft had to the Menominee, Martin told him, that the Menominee had been government policy since the end of the War of 1812 to no choice, ff they refused to accept the government's terms, persuade the native peoples to move west of the Mississippi they would be moved "without ceremony"—and without the Rver, in order to free up land for the settlers from the eastern $350,000 the government was prepared to pay them.6 states and Europe. White businessmen contracted with the Believing that they were being threatened with military government to organize the removal of the tribes to their new intervention if they held out, the chiefs signed. As one of their homes, usually at a profit.4 chiefs, Oshkosh, put it, "My friends, we cannot do otherwise; Settlement of Wisconsin had begun in earnest in 1832, we are forced into it." They were allowed two years to prepare following the Black Hawk War. The previous year, the Menom for the move, and the government agreed to pay the expenses inee had ceded their hunting lands east of the Fox River to the of a delegation to go to Minnesota and "examine their new US government, with the understanding that the land west country ... as an inducement to an early removal thereto."7 of that river would remain theirs "until the President of the Among the witnesses to this treaty was Father Florimond United States shall deem it expedient to extinguish their title."5 Bonduel. Bonduel had become head of the Roman Catholic fn 1848, the Polk administration decided that time had mission to the Menominee after Agent Ellis complained to come. At the annual gathering at the pay-ground at Lake Bishop Henni that the schools run by Bonduel's predecessor 46 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Albert Ellis, head of the Office of Indian Affairs sub- Oshkosh, noted warriorand leading chief of the agency in Green Bay, helped negotiate the 1848 treaty Menominee, was a talented orator. in which the Menominee ceded theirWisconsin lands to the US government. were ineffective and poorly staffed.8 Father Bonduel and his about the petition (which he believed Bonduel had personally assistant, a widow of mixed French and Ojibwe ancestry named composed), he asked Bishop Henni to replace Bonduel with Rosalie Dousman, founded a new school at Lake Poygan, someone willing to "use his endeavors to induce the Indians to and they soon had 104 families farming, living in log houses, comply with the terms of the late treaty." Offended at being worshiping at the Catholic chapel, and sending their children told how to select priests for his diocese, Henni declined to do to the school. The priest started a temperance society among so, and complained to Bruce's superiors in the Office of Indian his converts to reduce alcoholism among the Menominee and Affairs. Secretary of the fnterior Thomas Ewing sent a sharp held his classes entirely in English, which Ellis regarded as note to Commissioner Brown, observing that "the attempt of an important factor in the "civilizing" of the Indians. As offi Mr. Bruce to expel a member of the gospel from his mission cial head of the government school, which was supported by and cut off his connexion [sic] with the Indians under his government funds under the 1830 treaty, Bonduel received an charge is wholly unwarranted."11 annual stipend of $512.9 Bonduel accompanied the Menominee delegation to But Lake Poygan was not an ideal site. The ground was Minnesota in June 1850 to view the proposed reservation site too wet for farming. There was no running water available for along the banks of the Crow Wing River near present-day drinking. The tribe (divided into nine bands, each with its own Brainerd, along with Agent Bruce, interpreters William Powell chief) had a population of 3,900 in 1822, but by 1850, depleted and Talbot Prickett, and surveyor Charles Tullar. When they by a cholera epidemic in 1847, recurrent fevers, and drunken saw the proposed reservation site, the chiefs were not pleased. fights, it barely numbered 2,000. Meanwhile, white settlements The new site had no wild rice, very little game, longer winters had advanced up to the boundary of the Menominee territory and—what was worse—was located between the Ojibwe and and loggers were bringing logs across Menominee land to reach their mortal enemies, the Dakota. Bruce rhapsodized about sawmills on the Fox Rver. Ellis concluded that it was time for the rich soil, the clear lakes full offish, the plentiful woods and the Menominee to be relocated west of the Mississippi.10 hazel groves. The chiefs saw only that they were being asked Despite the deficiencies of their current location, Father to move into the firing line between two warring nations. They Bonduel sympathized with the Menominees' reluctance to returned home in an ominous silence, and immediately asked leave Wisconsin, fn October 1849, he wrote to Indian Commis to be allowed to visit Washington, DC, to put their case to the sioner Orlando Brown, enclosing a petition signed by six president himself12 Catholic chiefs, expressing their desire to remain in Wisconsin. There had been a change in administrations in Wash When William H. Bruce, Ellis's successor as subagent, heard ington earlier that year. The death of Zachary Taylor in July AUTUMN 2016 47 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY •ai*-™-. . «5x. J&tA. A4J &*AJX. &4JL*^.- <4LZ& \fA Oshkosh likely made this speech during the negotiations at Lake Poygan in 1848. In this transcription by Henry Baird, Oshkosh states,"We know we are ignorant and poor, but we never forget a promise made to us—We have often been promised things which we have not received: we have been wronged about our payments and treaties: we now again repeat our complaint, and hope it will not again happen: we hope the sky will be clear hereafter, and that our just complaints will now be attended to." 1850 brought Millard Fillmore into the presidency. Taylor, is not clear) to offer him one-third of any money he could get whose forty-year military career included service in the Black for them in a dispute they had with the government over the Hawk War and the Second Seminole War, was a strong land they had ceded in 1848. Nine days later, the Menominee advocate of the removal policy. Fillmore was said to be more delegation met with a representative of the Commissioner of sympathetic to the Indians' concerns. The delegation to Wash Indian Affairs, and Thompson read a memorial from them, ington consisted of fifteen men: the chiefs Oshkosh, Shawano, asserting that the amount of Wisconsin land they had ceded in Keshena, LaMotte, Carron, and four others, alone with 1848 was much greater than the government had claimed, and 5 5 5 5 O Bruce, William Powell, Charles Grignon, Archibald Caldwell, asking for an adjustment in the amount of money they were to and Father Bonduel. The party arrived in the capital on receive for it. It also asked that they be given a more suitable reservation than the one specified in the 1848 treaty and that September 4, and were told that the president could not see 15 them immediately13 their removal from Wisconsin be delayed. ft is at this point that Rchard W. Thompson enters the The Menominee were finally received at the White House story. An attorney and former congressman from Indiana, on September 18. The delegation presented its memorial to Thompson had remained in Washington after failing to win the president, and Oshkosh made an impassioned plea on his reelection in 1849. One of his legal clients was the firm of people's behalf. The Crow Wing country, he said, was not W. G. and G. W. Ewing, which played a leading role in the what Commissioner Medill had described to them in 1848, nation's Indian trade. Thompson lobbied on the Ewing and what was more, the Indians who lived there were continu brothers' behalf with the national Office of Indian Affairs to ally at war with one another. He preferred a home somewhere protect their access to annuity money from the Miami and in Wisconsin, for "the poorest region in Wisconsin was better Shawnee tribes—whom the Ewings had dealt with in Ohio, than that on the Crow Wing. . . . That country [in Minne Kansas, and Missouri—that the Ewings claimed in payment sota]," he added, "is good for the white man, who is numerous for overpriced goods provided to the Indians on credit. and can protect himself from those warlike tribes, but my own 16 fn 1848, Thompson had partnered with the Ewings in a tribe is small, and f wish them to live in peace." scheme to move a group of Potawatomi from Dodge County The president promised to look into the situation, and Wisconsin, to Kansas. He was also angling for appointment assured them that they need not move for another year. Pleased to the commission being set up to treat with the Dakota in with the way things had gone, the chiefs left for home, making Minnesota in 1851.14 a tour of several major eastern cities en route (including a week On September 9, 1850, the Menominee hired Thompson in New York, where they admired P. T. Barnum's museum but 17 to advocate for them with the president and Congress. were unimpressed with the singing of Jenny Lind). According to Charles Grignon, who served as an interpreter fn January 1851, Thompson wrote to Bruce, asking for a to the party, Thompson was at first reluctant to take on the written power of attorney from the chiefs, authorizing him to Menominee as clients, until they were persuaded (by whom deal with the president on the Menominees' behalf. The docu- 48 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY 6** a fl**A i .—b T • > . •30 -••^Vu \ V* •( < ^/ Z ? u>>*vv w o-o., rr5.„ K. V4 ¥' 2? W''A.Vj Si ? Is T S *** '--•Q---Q \ . s \ %n (I /£ This map, sketched by Increase Lapham in 1840, shows the area then called the Menominee Reserve. This land was ceded to the US government in 1848 in exchange for land on the Crow Wing River in Minnesota that the Menominee subsequently found unacceptable. ment was duly signed on February 15, with Father Bonduel of fndian Affairs in Washington, oversight of the Wisconsin acting as one of the witnesses, ft was sent to Thompson, along fndians was moved out of the Northern Superintendency in with a letter from Bruce certifying that he had met with the Saint Paul and given an independent superintendent. Elias chiefs and that they understood what they were signing. Murray of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, a friend of the Ewings, Thompson made a point of declining to set a fee for his was appointed to this post. William Ewing claimed that services, but someone—possibly Bruce, who was paid $5,000 his brother and Thompson had played "an active part" in by Ewing to assist Thompson, with a further $5,000 promised securing the post for Murray19 if Thompson were successful in his claim—provided a figure. Over the next few months, a number of petitions circu fn this document, the chiefs agreed to give Thompson one- lated, asking that the Menominee be allowed to stay in third of any money he could get Congress to give the Indians.18 Wisconsin, perhaps on land near Lake Superior. Most of the Bruce was fired as subagent in March 1831, after a petitions seem to have been organized by members of the shortage of $11,514.17 was found in the agency's funds, and trading fraternity centered in Green Bay, whose livelihood he was replaced by George Lawe, the mixed-blood son of depended to some extent on maintaining contact with the John Lawe, a prominent fur trader in Green Bay. (Bruce Menominee. Although there was undoubtedly a degree of self- appears to have blamed Bonduel for his dismissal, and the interest involved, the petitioners were more sympathetic to the ill feeling between the two men only ended with Bruce's Menominees' welfare than the average Wisconsin citizen, who untimely death in 1855.) fn a reorganization of the Office would have preferred to see them removed.20 AUTUMN 2016 49 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY had many of his personal effects damaged by the river. But by the end of the winter, the tribe had established a village near the Wolf River falls, which they named Keshena after one of their chiefs.23 Murray, whose son Harvey had been hired by the Ewings to facilitate the move, claimed that everything had gone smoothly, "fn obedience to your instructions," he wrote to Commissioner Lea in Washington, "f have diligently superin tended the removal, and am happy to certify that it has been effected in a peaceful, comfortable, and satisfactory manner." On November 3, the chiefs sent the president a letter (signed in the presence of Murray, George Lawe, Bonduel, and others) thanking him for allowing them to stay in the state and expressing their happiness.24 But there remained one small problem. While the federal government had approved the new reservation and delin eated its area, the adjoining Wisconsin counties had not been Richard W.Thompson, ca. 1850. A lawyer and former consulted and were threatening to make a formal objection congressman from Indiana,Thompson was hired by in Madison. Bonduel, who had barely managed to throw the Menominee in 1852 to help them persuade the US together a small frame house for himself at Keshena, departed Senate to allow them to remain in Wisconsin and receive full payment for the lands they had ceded in 1848. on November 15 for Madison. He fell ill when he reached Milwaukee, but at last—six weeks later—he arrived in the The stress of not knowing where they would be allowed state capital to ask the state legislature to "allow my Indians to live preyed on the Menominee. At one point, a drunken to remain on the tract of land set apart by President Fillmore Oshkosh is said to have entered Father Bonduel's house and for their home."25 harangued him at length, fn his annual report to Commis On February 1, 1853, a joint resolution to that effect passed sioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea in 1851, Father Bonduel both houses of the state legislature, and Bonduel headed back to wrote, "Our school has survived the storm that threatened its Keshena. ft had been an expensive expedition—he had had to destruction, ft has increased and prospered in the midst of the sell a piece of his own land at a loss, and while he was away his most trying difficulties."21 prized horse had been killed—but he was pleased by the result.26 fn October 1851, Murray took several chiefs on a trip up The new reservation was much smaller than the land the the Wolf Rver to look at land north of Lake Shawano. This Menominee had been offered in Minnesota, 276,480 acres time, the chiefs were pleased with what they saw, and Murray instead of nearly 600,000. The Office of f ndian Affairs recom told them that the president had agreed to let them live there, mended that the Menominee be paid the value of the land they until Congress made permanent plans for them. By the end would be losing due to the switch. An adjustment was also made of the following summer, the site had been approved, and on in the amount of money paid to them for the land they had September 24, 1852, Murray received instructions from the ceded in 1848, as the government acknowledged that an error Indian Office to transfer the Menominee to the new reserva had been made in estimating the amount of land. This amount tion. They were to be moved out immediately. On October was set at $242,686, to be paid out in fifteen annual installments 1, Murray sent word to George Lawe at Green Bay to start beginning in 1867. A new treaty, signed by the Menominee on things moving. A $24,900 contract to facilitate the move was May 2, 1854, acknowledged these terms.27 granted to the Ewings' trading company, but Congress had Rchard Thompson contacted the Menominee leaders not yet approved the funds, ft was another two weeks before when the treaty was signed, reminding them that they had Thompson could get the money released by the US Treasury22 promised him one-third of the money they were to receive under At last the move began. On October 19, the entire tribe, the new treaty for the adjustment of the 1848 land cession. His some 2,002 in all, embarked in canoes to travel the hundred share came to $80,895.33.28 miles up the Wolf Rver. ft was late in the fall, and the temper Thompson had also drawn up a document listing debts ature began dropping sharply, fee formed on the river's accrued since 1849 by the traders who dealt with the tribe, edge. Navigation on the river closed in mid-November, and totaling $87,436.34, which the chiefs had agreed to pay in the by mid-December it was frozen solid, preventing the prom document they signed in February 1851. Among the names on ised supplies from reaching them. Cold, hunger, and illness this list was Father Florimond Bonduel, who asked for $2900 in stalked the tribe. Father Bonduel, who accompanied them. reimbursement for the damages caused to his belongings during 50 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY the move and the expenses incurred 1L.T- hL^S4>-/&& Manypenny added that the Office during his trip to Madison lobbying of fndian Affairs policy stated that on the tribe's behalf. (He would later Indians did not need attorneys or 4t OUVENIS DUNE MISSION INDIESNE claim he had actually spent $4,000 5 ^ agents to intercede with the govern of his own money during this time. NAKAM ment on their behalf (because of He also seems to have asked the their "dependent condition"), and tribe to build him a chapel, perhaps that the claims presented by the under Article 4 of the treaties of SON FILS NIGABIANONG traders had been amply covered by 1848 and 1854, which allowed for the fund set up for that purpose in the construction of a school and L'EiNFAXT PERDU the 1848 treaty32 "other necessary improvements.")29 Huebschman's statements un Once again, there had been a in B. P. FL.-J . BONDUEL, XISSIOMIAIU settled the Menominee. At a change of administration in Wash meeting on April 15, 1855, the ington, as Franklin Pierce replaced tribe's leaders claimed that they had Millard Fillmore in 1853. Luke AVEC J.K PORTKA1T DE E^AUI'liUR. not truly understood the nature of Lea had been replaced as commis the paper they had signed agreeing sioner of Indian Affairs by George to Thompson's terms. (Primarily Manypenny, whose ideas on fndian concerned with getting permission policy were quite different from to remain in Wisconsin, the chiefs those of his predecessors. Recog may not have expected Thompson nizing that the Mississippi no longer to be able to wrest additional presented a barrier to white settle TOUBNAI funds from the government.) Of TyPOGRAPIIIE DE J. GASTERM AS ET FILS ment, Manypenny argued that the LIBRAlRES-EOiTKUHS the twenty-three leading men who fndian tribes should be settled in attended the 1851 meeting when reservations near their current loca the papers were signed, only eleven tions, with allowance for individual (including Oshkosh) signed them.33 allotments, and treated not as sover Bonduel published L'Enfant Perdu (The Lost Child) in Father Bonduel and the traders eign nations but as wards of the 1855 after his return to Wisconsin. The book concerns a were outraged by Huebschman's state.30 dispute over the identity of a boy alleged to have been and Manypenny's objections to kidnapped by the Menominee. Bonduel supported the Superintendent Elias Murray honoring the deal with Thompson. claim of the Menominee family that he was their true had also been replaced. His The Menominee had made the son, but the white settler family took him away and successor, Francis Huebschman, raised him as their own. deal in good faith, Bonduel insisted, was a German-born physician and he urged Oshkosh to honor it. from Milwaukee, an active Democrat, and an advocate of Oshkosh refrained from signing the 1854 treaty, arranging to civil rights for the foreign-born. He extended this advocacy to be away from Keshena when it was presented, but the majority Native Americans. When Huebschman arrived at Keshena in of the tribe's leading men (twenty-one of them) accepted Hueb May 1854 with the new treaty that guaranteed the Menominee schman's verdict, which he said would save the tribe some the right to stay in Wisconsin, he was shocked to hear of the $201,000 ($80,895.33 for Thompson and $87,436.34 for the arrangement the chiefs had made with Thompson. Thompson, other claimants).34 he felt, had deceived the tribe. Huebschman summarily fired agent John V. Suydam (who "Mr. Thompson claimed to have carried the late treaty and had replaced George Lawe in May 1853) for not reporting the amendment to it through the Senate," Huebschman wrote Thompson's scheme and putting an end to it. Bonduel's own Commissioner Manypenny. "I told the chiefs that it would be claims, which were part of the $87,436.34 request, were also news to members of the legislature of 1852 that Mr. Thompson, challenged, which may be why the tribe—reportedly at the by his influence, obtained passage of the resolution assenting to suggestion of the new agent, Benjamin Hunkins—refused to their remaining in the state, and that the US Senators would be donate land for a church and rectory for the mission, as Bonduel astonished to learn that they had ratified the late treaty at the seems to have expected them to do.35 instance of Mr. Thompson, while if he had any influence, it was The younger men of the tribe were more ready to believe used in attempting to defeat the ratification of it."31 He assured Huebschman's arguments than their elders, who had—after the chiefs that their agreement with Thompson was "null and all—agreed to all the actions taken by Thompson and the void," and they did not need to pay him or the traders one government officials involved. Their differences were exacer penny, fn his report to the House of Representatives in 1854, bated by the longstanding friction between the Christian and AUTUMN 2016 51 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Despite Huebschman's complaints, Rchard Thompson was able to persuade the Senate that he had earned his fee. After all, he had a legal power of attorney from the tribe, and he had lobbied on their behalf in Washington—as it was in his interests to do. Although he did not get his hoped-for nomination to the commission to treat with the Dakota, he went on to a satisfac tory career in government service, fn 1860, he joined the new Republican Party and played an active role in Indiana state and national politics, serving as Rutherford B. Hayes' secretary of the navy from 1877 to 1880.39 On his return from Rome in June 1856, Bonduel came back to Wisconsin. He was appointed pastor of St. John's in Green Bay in 1858, and served there until his death on December 13, 1861. Quite popular in his final posting, he was buried with great ceremony in Green Bay's Allouez Cemetery. The town of Bonduel, on the road between Green Bay and Shawano, is named for him.40 The entire episode, Manypenny said, was an example of the need for the government to supervise more closely all money paid to fndian tribes.41 For Father Bonduel, it was a Rosalie Dousman, widow of American fur trader John Dousman, was a teacher at the Menominee schools painful lesson about the risks involved in navigating the morass from 1846 to 1869. of nineteenth-century white/fndian relationships. Angry as he was when he chopped down the cross, he was more upset with non-Christian factions of the tribe. Squabbles broke out among the government, which he felt did not appreciate his labors the various parties, and a series of scurrilous rumors began to on the Indians' behalf, than with the Menominee, fn a letter circulate about Bonduel and Rosalie Dousman—rumors that to an unidentified friend in March 1857, he spoke of how he Bonduel attributed to Harvey Murray, whom he had rebuked had saved the Menominee from certain death on the Crow for drunkenness.36 Wing Rver, only to be badly treated by the government as All of this upheaval seems to have induced Bonduel to a result. He still, he said, felt himself to be the "bosom friend resign his posts as teacher and missionary in March 1854. ft's and father" of the Indians whom he had served. But while he not clear whether or not he actually chopped down the mission visited the reservation twice after his departure—in 1854 and cross before leaving (the story appears among several pieces of 1857—and was treated as an honored guest, he never resumed gossip passed on to the archbishop of Milwaukee in 1924), but it his mission work among the Indians. The "Missionary Apos would seem to be in keeping with what is known of his character. tolic to the Menomini Indians" had had enough.42 IMI He seems to have had little patience with those who opposed or criticized his actions.37 After eight months in Milwaukee, Notes where he filled in as pastor at Saint Gall parish, Bonduel set sail 1. Rev. H.J. Fister to Archbishop S. G. Messmer, November 24, 1924, in James A. Mehan, "The Dousman Women" (Saint Francis, Wl: Saint Francis Seminary, 1939, Master's Thesis), 50. for Europe in November 1854. He paid a visit to his family in 2. For more on the history of bribery and corruption in the Office of Indian Affairs, see Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor (1881; facsimile edition, Norman: University Belgium and made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he hoped to get of Oklahoma Press, 1995), and Lawrence Kelly, Federal Indian Policy (Philadelphia: Chelsea the Holy See to support him in a dispute over title to some land House Publishers, 1990). 3. Malcolm Rosholt and John Britten Gehl, Florimond J. Bonduel, Missionary to Wisconsin in Green Bay. While there, he petitioned the Pope for the title Territory (Rosholt, Wl: Rosholt House, 1982). of "Missionary Apostolic to the Menomini Indians." He was not 4. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford Hstory of the American People (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 445-452, especially map on 428-429. Robert A. Trennert, "The granted the title until May 1857, long after he had ceased any Business of Indian Removal: Deporting the Potawatomi from Wisconsin," Wisconsin Maga mission work among the Menominee.38 zine of History 63, no. 1 (Autumn 1979): 36—50, gives a good illustration of the tactics used in these removals. After Bonduel's departure, the government school continued 5. Treaty with the Menominee, February 8, 1831, proclaimed July 9, 1832, in Charles J. under Rosalie Dousman, her daughter Jane, and a succession Kappler, ed., Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, vol. 2 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904), 322. of male teachers, although it was no longer closely connected 6. "Narrative by Louis B. Porlier," Wisconsin Hstorical Collections, vol. 15 (Madison, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1900), 446-448. with the Catholic mission. The Catholic Church continued to 7. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1851 (Washington: Government send priests to Keshena, where the mission flourished. Today Printing Office, 1851), 35; Treaty with the Menominee, October 18, 1848, ratified January 23, 1849, in Kappler, ed., Indian Affairs, vol. 2, 322. there are three Catholic churches on the Menominee reserva 8. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1846—1847 (Washington: Govern tion: Saint Joseph by the Lake, Saint Michael's in Keshena, and ment Printing Office, 1846), 107-108; War Department Records, Book 493, November 30, 1846, in Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate, 29th Congress, vol. 1, no. 1 Saint Anthony in Neopit. ^Washington: Government Printing Office, 1847), 317. 52 wisconsinhistory.org WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The village of Bonduel, located about fifteen miles from Keshena, Wisconsin, was named for the priest to the Menominee. 9. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1848 (Washington: Wendell and 26. Ibid., 149-153. Van Benthuysen, 1848), 567; Peter Leo Johnson, Crosier on the Frontier (Madison: Wisconsin 27. Treaty with the Menominee, May 12, 1854, proclaimed August 2, 1854, in Kappler, ed., State Historical Society, 1959), 145. Indian Affairs, vol. 2, 626-627. 10. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1848, 397, 570; Annual Report of 28. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, 21. See also the 1854 treaty, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, 41; "A Mission to the Menominee: Alfred Cope's referenced above in note 29 for the full amount, of which this is one-third. Green Bay Diary," Wisconsin Magazine of History 50, no. 1 (Autumn 1966): 22, and 49, no. 29. Document from Menominee Chiefs to Congress, September 1, 1852, in Annual Report 4 (Summer 1966): 322. Population statistics appear in the annual reports in 1841 to 1846, of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, 21, 324, and appendix M, 330, 332; Rosholt and 1855, and 1856. Gehl, 113. 11. F.J. Bonduel to Orlando Brown, October 15, 1849; W H. Bruce to Orlando Brown, 30. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, 17, 21. February 11, 1850, both cited in Johnson, Crosier on the Frontier, 146; see also Rosholt and 31. F. Huebschman to George Manypenny, November 1, 1854, Annual Report of the Gehl, 99, which quotes from Bruce's letter to Henni, dated February 18, 1850. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, appendix K, 319-320. 12. William Powell, "William Powell's Recollections," Proceedings of the State Historical 32. Ibid. Society of Wisconsin at Its 60th Annual Meeting Held October 24, 1912 (Madison: State 33. Executive Documents of the House of Representatives, 34th Congress, 1854 (Washington: Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1913), 174, 175, 291; Annual Report of Commissioner of Government Printing Office, 1854), 541; Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Indian Affairs, 1850, 44; W. H. Bruce to Luke Lea, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, June Affairs, 1855, 221. 27, 1850, in List of Papers Connected with the Case of R. W Thompson, Senate Executive 34. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, 21; Treaty with the Menom Documents, 34th Congress, 1st Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1856), 19. inee, 1854. 13. William Powell, "William Powell's Recollections," 174; William Converse Haygood, "Red 35. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, 21; Rev. H.J. Fister, "Letter Child, White Child: The Strange Disappearance of Caspar Partridge," Wisconsin Magazine & Manuscript to Archbishop Messmer," in Mehan, "The Dousman Women," 50—52: of History 58, no. 4 (Summer 1975): 292. Johnson, Crosier on the Frontier, 147. 14. W G. Ewing to W H. Bruce, March 29, 1851, in Annual Report of Commissioner of 36. Rosholt and Gehl, 158-160. Indian Affairs, 1854, appendix G, 316; Trennert, "The Business of Indian Removal," 40: 37. Mehan, The Dousman Women, 50. "Appointments," Sentinel (Fort Wayne), November 16, 1850; Robert A. Trennert, Indian 38. Johnson, Crosier on the Frontier, 148; Rosholt and Gehl, 161-164, 169-177, 184. Traders on the Middle Border: The House of Ewing, 1827—54 (Lincoln: University of 39. "Thompson, Richard Wigginton (1809-1900)," Biographical Directory of the United Nebraska Press, 1981), 142, 166-167; Charles Roll, Colonel Dick Thompson: The Persistent States Congress, accessed at wihist.org/lS6Vpns; Rosholt and Gehl, 155. Whig (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1948), 116-120. 40. Rosholt and Gehl, 189, 191, 194; "Death of Father Bonduel,"Janewi/fe Gazette, December 15. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1851, 33; Annual Report of the 24, 1861; Hstory of Northern Wisconsin (Chicago: Western Historical Co., 1881), 114. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1855, 222; Haygood, "Red Child, White Child," 292. 41. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, 19-20. 16. Ibid., 175. The quote from Oshkosh is one paraphrased by William Powell, the interpreter 42. F. Bonduel to unknown recipient, March 26, 1857, University of Notre Dame Archives, at the meeting. quoted in Rosholt and Gehl, 164, 182; Rosholt and Gehl, 161, 186. 17. Ibid.; Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1850, 6. 18. Annual Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, 1, 19-21, and 308-333, espe cially appendices D (the power of attorney signed on February 15, 1851) and H (agreements between W. G. & G. W. Ewing and W H. Bruce, April 24, 1851); Executive Documents of ABOUT THE AUTHOR the House of Representatives, 34th Congress, 1855—1856, vol. 1 (Washington: Government Anne Beiser Allen is an independent Printing Office, 1856), part 1, 539-541; Johnson, Crosier on the Frontier, 146-147; Trennert, Indian Traders, 165. writer whose work has appeared in 19. Rosholt and Gehl, 116-126; W G. Ewing to W. H. Bruce, March 29, 1851, in Annual many history publications over the past Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, appendix G. 20. Haygood, "Red Child, White Child," 292; see also Daily Free Democrat (Milwaukee), twenty-eight years. She has received April 22, 1851 (untitled note, p. 2, column 4). awards from the state historical societies 21. Johnson, Crosier on the Frontier, 147; Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 32nd Congress, 1851-1852 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1852), of Iowa and Nebraska for her articles, and part 3, 322. she is the author of seven books, includ 22. Rosholt and Gehl, 143; Haygood, "Red Child, White Child," 294; Trennert, "Deporting ing An independent Woman: The Life of the Potawatomi," 49;Janesville Gazette, December 25, 1852, (untitled note, p. 8, column 1). 23. Rosholt and Gehl, 145-147; "The Ordeal of Father Bonduel," Appleton Sunday Post Lou Henry Hoover. She currently resides Crescent, July 11, 1965. in Madison, Wisconsin. 24. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1852, 36; Rosholt and Gehl, 145. 25. Rosholt and Gehl, 149. AUTUMN 2016 53 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL Letters S O C i E T Y Thanks to Matt Blessing and the Wisconsin Magazine of Wisconsin Historical Society Thomas L. Shriner Jr., Milwaukee Board of Curators Robert Smith, Milwaukee History for the article in the Spring 2016 issue on young John John W.Thompson, Madison Muir's brilliant but brief career as an inventor. For me, the Officers Aharon Zorea, Richland Center President: Brian D. Rude, article raised the question of whether future naturalist Muir Coon Valley Governor's Appointees (1838-1914) encountered Wisconsin's first environmental President-Elect: Gregory B. Huber, David G. Anderson, Wausau advocate, the multifaceted Milwaukeean Increase Lapham Wausau George Jacobs, Madison Treasurer: Walter S. Rugland, R.William Van Sant, Bayfield (1811-1875), biologist, geologist, archeologist, meteorologist, Appleton Keene Winters, Wausau and writer. Secretary: Ellsworth H. Brown, Legislative Appointees While f found no mention of Muir in Lapham's correspon The Ruth and Hartley Barker Rep. Frederick P. Kessler, Milwaukee Director, Fitchburg dence and journals in the WHS archives, f did find evidence Sen. Mary Lazich, New Berlin Past President: Conrad G. Goodkind, that the two men were likely in the same room at the same Rep. Todd Novak, Dodgeville Milwaukee Sen. Fred A. Risser, Madison time during the Wisconsin State Fair in Madison in 1860. fn Term Members The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, Muir tells how, upon Curators Ex-Officio Angela B. Bartell, Middleton Michael Young man, President, entering the fairgrounds in Madison, he was directed to the Ramona Gonzalez, La Crosse Wisconsin Historical Foundation Fine Arts Hall as the place to display his "two clocks and a Norbert S. Hill Jr., Oneida Phillip Schauer, President, FRIENDS Joanne B. Huelsman, Waukesha thermometer." Patty Loew, Middleton of the Society Transactions of the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society Carol J. McChesney Johnson, Lane R. Earns, Provost & Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, UW-Oshkosh (1861) names Mr. and Mrs. f. A. Lapham as superintendents Black Earth Roy Ostenso, President, Wisconsin James Klauser, Pewaukee of the Hall of Fine Arts. Lapham must have been aware of Council for Local History Thomas Maxwell, Marinette Muir's beautiful instruments, which were singled out in the Susan McLeod, Eau Claire Honorary Curators report to the Agricultural Society by the committee chairman, Lowell F. Peterson, Appleton Thomas H. Barland, Eau Claire Jerald J. Phillips, Bayfield D. Worthington: "The clocks presented by J. Muir exhibited Michael P. Schmudlach, Brooklyn great ingenuity. The Committee regard him as a genius in the Samuel J. Scinta, Onalaska best sense, and think the State should feel a pride in encour aging him." While there is no direct proof that Muir and Lapham met, Wisconsin Historical it would have been out of character for the always conscien FOUNDATION tious Laphams not to be present at the event where the awards were given and certainly out of character for them as superin Wisconsin Historical Foundation tendents of the Fine Arts Hall not to have seen all the entries Officers Peter A. Ostlind, Madison Chair: Michael L. Youngman, Linda E. Prehn, Wausau and to be present to congratulate the winners. Milwaukee Richard A. Reinhart, Minocqua Paul G. Hayes, Cedarburg Vice Chair: Stephen F. Brenton, Jack L. Rhodes, Waupaca Verona David S. Ryder, Mequon Treasurer: Catherine C. Orton, William S. Schoyer, Elm Grove Mauston Derek L.Tyus, Milwaukee Secretary:Theresa H. Richards, Jane Villa, Madison Marshfield Rhona E. Vogel, Brookfield Gregory M. Wesley, Milwaukee WE WANT TO HEAR WHAT OUR READERS THINK! Board of Directors Cathi Wiebrecht-Searer, Madison Loren J. Anderson, Elkhorn Email us at: [email protected] Christopher S. Berry, Middleton Directors Ex-Officio Susan Crane, Burlington Brian D. Rude, Coon Valley, Wi Comment on our facebook page: Diane Dei Rossi, Rhinelander President, Wisconsin Historical www.facebook.com/Wisconsin.Magazine.of.History Robert C. Dohmen, Mequon Society Board of Curators *" Follow us on Twitter: @Wf_Mag_History Patrick P. Fee, Wauwatosa Gregory B. Huber, Wausau, Chris Her-Xiong, Milwaukee President-Elect, Wisconsin Historical Write to us at: Jennifer Hill-Kelley, Green Bay Society Board of Curators Wisconsin Magazine of History Wisconsin Historical Real Estate Foundation 816 State Street Board of Directors Treasurers Secretary: David T. Wilder, Madison, Wisconsin 53706 President: Bruce T. Block, Milwaukee Madison Vice President: David G. Stoeffel, Gary J. Gorman, Fitchburg Whitefish Bay Joseph D. Shumow, Madison 54 wisconsinhistory.org The Wisconsin Magazine of THANK YOU! History Turns 100! It is with deepest thanks that the Wisconsin Historical Society recog nizes individuals and organizations who contributed $5,000 or more fn September 1917, the first issue of a new quarterly from the between July 1,2015, and June 30,2016. Wisconsin Historical Society reached 700 members across $25,000+ David and Julia Uihlein the state. The brainchild of Milo M. Quaife, the Wisconsin Anonymous Wangard Partners, Inc. Magazine of History was created for Wisconsin's citizen- Ruth and Hartley Barker Advised Fund Wisconsin Humanities Council historians in hopes that it might be "as interesting as may be through Incourage Community Wisconsin Preservation Fund, Inc. Foundation JoAnn and Michael Youngman to the ordinary reader . . . without sacrificing in any way the The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation scholarly ideals of the Society." This is still our goal today. The Caxambas Foundation $5,ooo-$9,999 first article, written by Quaife, examined Increase Lapham, Robert C. Dohmen Ambassador Hotel someone we're still thinking about today as the letter to the Ray and Kay Eckstein CharitableTrust American Girl editor on the opposite page shows. Two thousand articles and Pleasant and Jerry Frautschi American Printing Greater Milwaukee Foundation's Black Anonymous 100 years later, we are still sharing Wisconsin's history. Point Historic Preserve Operation and Maintenance Fund Nancy Marshall Bauer Estate of Lorenz Heim Christopher and Mary Pat Berry Claire and Marjorie Johnson The Brico Fund Ruth DeYoung Kohler Briggs & Stratton Corporation Foundation, Inc. 3® I WISCONSIN Kohler Trust for Preservation Thomas E. Caestecker 1917 • 2017 Ralph and Virginia Kurtzman Ruth V Harper Trust magazine of history Navistar Blair DM I man Old World Wisconsin Foundation Over the next year, we will be celebrating our centennial Entercom Milwaukee - 99.1 WMYX Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation in ways both large and small. We share our anniversary year Pat and Anne Fee The George and Jane Shinners Charitable with both the Wisconsin state capitol and Wisconsin Public Fund Rockne and JoAnn Flowers Radio, whose milestones we will highlight in our pages. We Gregory C Van Wie Charitable Foundation John J. Frautschi Family Foundation Estate of Ruth M. Schoenfeld Walter A. and Dorothy Jones Frautschi will also recognize the 150th birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Charitable Unitru st State of Wisconsin a Wisconsin native, with a story on her extended family, and Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries Dawn and David Stucki the hundredth anniversary of the United States' entry into Conrad and Sandra Goodkind World War I. $10,000-$24,999 Gorman & Company, Inc. DickGrum In the summer of 2017, a special issue will showcase the Anonymous The Brookby Foundation Estate of Roy C. LaBudde very best of Wisconsin history. A reception, open to members, Cardinal Capital Management, Inc. Audrey Z. & Rowland J. 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Sohner-Leeds what's best about the Wisconsin Magazine of History: Smith Wilmeth Fund Sub-Zero Group, Inc. http://wihist.org/wmh 100th Sally Mead Hands Foundation Sunset Investors Carroll Heideman Olive Land Eunice J. Toussaint Foundation, Inc. The first 100 people to respond to the survey or purchase Herzfeld Foundation Highlights Media, LLC Gwen Tveter a gift membership for a friend or loved one (at wihist.org/ Mandel Group, Inc. Lynde B. Uihlein wmhgift2016) will receive a complimentary copy of the new Mrs. Sally S. Manegold Van Buren Management, Inc. book, Warriors, Saints, and Scoundrels: Brief Portraits of Ms. Elizabeth J. Meyer and Mr. Samuel Rhona E.Vogel/Vogel Consulting Real People Who Shaped Wisconsin by Michael Edmonds J. Hope WaterStoneBank Phoenix Investors, LLC and Samantha Snyder, coming out in April 2017 from the Wisconsin Redevelopment, LLC Patty Sch mitt Wisconsin Society of Mayflower Wisconsin Historical Society Press. Bert L. & Patricia S. Steigleder Charitable Descendants Trust Natalie Tinkham AUTUMN 2016 55 ** Curio "*• uring World War ff, hospital births in Wisconsin increased dramatically. Still, many expecting mothers in rural Wisconsin could not easily get to the hospital, while others Ddid not desire, or could not afford, a hospital birth. The Wisconsin Bureau of Maternal and Child Health provided invaluable instruction for mothers who, for whatever reason, planned to deliver in their own homes. This miniature home delivery kit, consisting of scaled-down furniture, bottles, pots, and pans, was one tool Bureau staff used to share scientific knowledge for better health care to the public beginning in the late 1930s. The kit allowed Bureau staff to show proper set up of the bed and supplies to aid in the delivery as well as how to create a sterile environment. Representa tive bottles of antiseptic, sterile cotton, and boiled water as well as bars of soap and clean linens stressed the role a sanitary setting played in preventing unnecessary deaths. The bed, 15 inches high and 29 inches long, could be easily disassembled and packed into the accompanying suit case as staff traveled around the state, fn addition to the kit, Bureau staff provided a prenatal letter service, information booths at fairs, and a traveling Little Blue Trailer that brought films, posters, and books to outlying Wisconsin counties. This miniature home delivery kit was discov ered in the 1970s by a custodian helping to clear the basement of the Wisconsin Bureau of Maternal and Child Health building in Madison. Coming this Fall from the Wisconsin Historical Society Press ROUGHNECK GRACE FARMER YOGA, CREEPING CODGERJSM. APPLE GOLF, and Other BRIEF ESSAYS from On and Off V*. the Back Forty Roshara Journal: Chronicling Four Seasons, Fifty Years, and 120 Acres by Jerry Apps Good Seeds: A Menominee Roughneck Grace Photographs by Steve Apps Indian Food Memoir by Michael Perry ISBN: 978-0-87020-763-1 by Thomas Pecore Weso ISBN: 978-0-87020-812-6 ISBN: 978-0-87020-771-6 Si THE NEWS FROM 0 3 LONE ROCK a Goitw for o wisQOUSL k a HOLD a Stories of a Our State a Jessie Garcia l-on^onl by Mark /•/. 1.,-frh. Hidden Thunder: Rock Art of the Going for Wisconsin Gold: The News from Lone Rock: Stories of Our State Olympians Observations and Witticisms Upper Midwest by Jessie Garcia of a Small-Town Newsman by Geri Schrab and Robert E Boszhardt ISBN: 978-0-87020-765-5 by Freeland Dexter ISBN: 978-0-87020-767-9 Edited by Deanna R. Haney ISBN: 978-0-87020-769-3 The Wisconsin Historical Museum Shop is located on the Capitol Square at 30 N. Carroll St., Madison, Wl 53703 TO ORDER Please call: (888) 999-1669 or (608) 264-6565 (in Madison) Wisconsin Historical Society Shop online: shop.wisconsinhistory.org PRESS Members of the Wisconsin Historical Society receive a 10% discount! A group portrait of teachers and students at the Menominee school at Keshena, ca. 1894. Established in 1853, the school was a continuation of a Catholic mission school located on the shores of Lake Poygan, where the tribe lived before moving to its present reservation. Father Florimond J. Bonduel, head of the mission from 1846 to 1855, and his assistant, Rosalie Dousman, accompanied the tribe on its removal to Keshena in 1852. Following Bonduel's departure, the connection between the mission and the school (operated by the US Office of fndian Affairs) was severed, although Dousman continued to teach there until 1869. fn "The Disillusionment of Father Bonduel," author Anne Beiser Allen tells the story of Father Bonduel's involvement in the tribe's successful campaign to persuade the federal government to allow them to remain in Wisconsin at a time when efforts were being made to move all American Indian tribes beyond the Mississippi River. His experiences illustrate the complex—and often damaging—politics behind nineteenth century Indian policy. CEN^4 WISCONSIN magazine of history WISCONSIN ;imi[o:ifiWl