VOLUME 41 NUMBER 3 SPRING, 1958 These are the hands of drudgery. They guide no brush, they wield no pen. ON THE COVER They are their own annals, their own record of survival. These are the hands of the historyless. These are the hands of history. The WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published by the State Historical Society of Wis­ consin, 816 State Street, Madison 6, Wisconsin. Distributed to members as part of their dues (Annual Membership, $5.00; Contributing, $10; Business and Professional, S25; Life, $100; Sustaining, $100 or more annually; Patron, $1,000 or more annually). Yearly subscription, $5.00; single numbers. $1.25. As of July 1, 1955, introductory offer for NEW members: annual dues $1.00; such new members may subscribe to the Magazine for an additional $4.00. Com­ munications should be addressed to the editor. The Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. Entered as second-class matter at the post office at Madison, Wisconsin, under the act of August 24, 1912. Copyright 1958 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Paid for in part by the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund. PERMISSION: Wisconsin newspapers may reprint any article appearing in the Wisconsin Magazine of History provided the story carries the following credit line: Reprinted from the State Historical Society's Wisconsin Magazine of History for [insert the season and year which appear on the Magazine}. COVER PICTURE: Photograph by Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration, supplied by the Museum of Modern Art. VOLUME 41 NUMBER 3 PUBLISHED BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN • SPRING, 1958 Editor: WILLIAM CONVERSE HAYCOOD CONTENTS Photography: Witness and Recorder of Humanity. .. .EDWARD STEICHEN 159 Two Noteworthy Wisconsin Women: Mrs. Ben Hooper and Ada James LAWRENCE L. GRAVES 174 Civil Disobedience on the Mining Frontier ANN M. KEPPEL 185 A "Down-Easter" in Wisconsin: Sears Letters, 1849, 1854 KENNETH DUCKETT 204 Pioneering the Electrical Age G. W. VAN DERZEE 210 FEATURES Meet the Authors 158 The Collector .196 Smoke Rings 168 Sincerely Yours .... .208 Circuit Rider 181 Readers' Choice .... .215 Accessions 234 meet the authors EDWARD STEICHEN was an infant in arms Steichen burned the bulk of his canvasses when his parents emigrated from their and abandoned a distinguished career as an native Luxembourg to settle in Michigan artist in order to devote himself exclusively and later in Wisconsin. As a young art to photography, becoming one of the coun­ student in Milwaukee he helped found try's best known, most respected, and most the Art Students League which, he recalls, imitated photographers. In the second World held its first meeting on an autumn night War he was a Captain in the Navy, respon­ in 1896 when the great bell of the city sible for the creation of a pictorial record of hall tolled for the first time. A boyhood warfare that will probably never be sur­ interest in photography persisted during passed. In 1947 he was appointed director of his early years as a painter and set the photography for the Museum of Modern pattern for a lifelong struggle to secure for Art, a post from which, as in the case of his the new medium its deserved recognition world-famous Family of Man exhibition, he as an art. Following World War I, in continues to demonstrate the validity of his which he served as an Army Captain, Mr. conviction that photography is an art. LAWRENCE LESTER GRAVES was born in of his doctoral dissertation was the woman Perry, in western New York, and is a suffrage movement in Wisconsin. He has graduate of the University of Missouri. taught at the Woman's College of the Uni­ During World War 11 he served as an artil­ versity of North Carolina and at Texas lery officer in the 96th Infantry Division, Technological College, Lubbock, where he and following the war received his master's is now associate professor of history. His degree from the University of Rochester fields of interests include the social and in 1947 and his doctor's degree in 1954 from cultural history of the United States. the University of Wisconsin. The subject ANN M. KEPPEL is a native of Mindoro, a from her master's thesis which dealt with b&** graduate of Wisconsin State College at La the federal government's abortive attempts Crosse, and has taught in the high school to enforce its unpopular lead land policy at Edgerton and in the Manitowoc-Sheboy­ during the period 1785 to 1846. Currently gan Centers of the University Extension Miss Keppel is a history and education fel­ Division. In 1954 she received her master's low at the University, working toward her degree in history at the University of Wis­ doctorate in the field of rural attitudes re­ consin. Her article in this issue is adapted garding general education. WALTER S. DUNN, JR. was born in Detroit, jobs as a scheduler of parts production in attended the public schools of that city, and the Timken Axle Company and as a clerk after military service with the 38th Infantry in the Detroit Bureau of Surveys. In 1953 spent a year at Wayne University before he joined the staff of the Detroit Historical going on to Durham University in England Museum as Curator of Industrial History where he received his undergraduate degree and Education, and in 1956 was appointed in 1951. Back home again, he combined Chief Curator of the Museum of the State work on his master's degree at Wayne with Historical Society of Wisconsin. KENNETH W. DUCKETT was born and grew staff, first as assistant manuscripts librarian, up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and then as curator of the Museum's educational graduated from its high school directly into services. He is the author of Frontiersman the Army where he spent three years in of Fortune; Moses M. Strong of Mineral field artillery observation. After the war he Point (State Historical Society Wisconsin, attended the University of Denver and later 1955.) In 1956 he was appointed librarian the University of Wisconsin, receiving his of the Oregon Historical Society in Portland master's degree from the latter in 1951. For where he lives with his wife and two chil­ five years Mr. Duckett was on the Society's dren. GOULD W. VAN DERZEE, born in Albany, panics in 1945, and was elected chairman New York, is senior officer of Wisconsin of the board for Wisconsin Power and each Electric Power Company and its subsidi­ of its subsidiaries in 1956. Long active in aries—Wisconsin Michigan Power Company civic affairs, Mr. Van Derzee was director and Wisconsin Natural Gas Company—and of the Milwaukee War Chest during World as such heads a utility system serving an War II and is now a director of the Mil­ area of about 12,500 square miles in two waukee County Welfare Council. He is a states. A graduate of the University of Wis­ past president of the Wisconsin Utilities consin, he began his utility career in 1913, Association and of the Association of Edison became president of the associated com- Illuminating Companies. 158 Those who attended the Society's annual meeting at Green Lake in June of 1957 enjoyed a unique opportunity—that of hearing the man considered by many as Photography: Witness the world's leading authority on creative photography discuss his art, its relation to history, and the personal philosophy and Recorder of Humanity behind his universally acclaimed Family of Man Exhibit. Here, together with an abridgement of Mr. Steichen's ad­ by Edward Steichen dress, we are privileged to reproduce some of the photographs from the exhi­ bition that has stirred the imagination of the world and with which Edward Steichen's name will be forever linked. something that comes out of his pictures and remains with us; something that helps us to know and understand each other. When the camera is used by an artist, while retaining its mechanical objectivity, it becomes an addi­ Man's first knowledge of the world we live in tional tool for penetrating beneath the surface and how it was fifty million years ago is based appearance of things. It is the artist with the on images that are in fossil form preserved in camera who by his knowledge, sensitivity, and rock. Man's first images, first means of com­ experience sees the significance of appearances. munication, go back to the Stone and Ice Ages These influence him in the selection of what he when images were painted on the walls of photographs, in how he photographs it; and caves. Man's first non-oral means of communi­ the result assumes an added meaning. In the cation was calligraphy—images. photographing of human relations it is the Today we have this extraordinary new proc­ artist who gives us our real and enduring ess for making images and a great world of material. photographers that is making them. Today, As a result of a survey that was made there whether a piece of film is exposed in a cyclo­ are said to be forty million homes in the tron wherein neutrons and protons make self- United States that have at least one camera. In portraits, or whether it is in the recording of that light, consider the potentialities and possi­ the drama that took place in Budapest, photog­ bilities of this medium. That means there are raphy is—in the historian's role peculiar to at least forty million photographers, forty mil­ it—producing historical documents. Photog­ lion potential historians. And there lies a re­ raphy is many things, but this is one of its sponsibility: What to do about this? How to important phases.