WISCONSIN MAGAZINE 0/HISTORY Published Quarterly by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN December 1945 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE of HISTORY EDWARD P. ALEXANDER, Editor LILLIAN KRUEGER, Associate Editor CONTENTS Chats with the Editor Edward P. Alexander 129 Wisconsin's Carroll College Dorothy Ganfield Fowler 137 Motherhood on the Wisconsin Frontier (I) Lillian Krueger 157 Sacred Heart College of Prairie du Chien, 1880-1888 W. B. Faherty 184 A Pioneer Beet Sugar Ripnery W. A. Titus 191 The Red Mill at Moriches Lincoln Whelan 195 DOCUMENTS: The Journey of an Immigrant Family from The Netherlands to Milwaukee in 1854 Henry S. Lucas 201 BOOK NOTES 224 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE 239 The WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published quarterly by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN, 816 State Street, Madison, 6. Distributed to members as part of their dues (Annual membership, $3.00; Life, $30). Yearly subscription, $3.00; single number, 75 cents. Communications 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, Wis- consin, under the act of August 24, 1912. Copyright 1945 by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN. Paid for by the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund. THE COVER CARROLL COLLEGE LIBRARY AT WAUKESHA. Known as the Carrier Memorial Building, this library was designed by Van Der Gracht and Kilham of New York and completed in 1941. It is a recent achievement in the century of growth of the College described in this issue by Mrs. Dorothy Ganfield Fowler. Photograph by courtesy of Carroll College. WISCONSIN MAGAZINE of HISTORY #^» Volume 29 December 1945 Number 2 Chats with the Editor ADGERS are already looking forward with much interest to 1948, the centennial year of Wisconsin statehood. Yes, B May 29, 1848, was an important day, marking as it did the entrance of Wisconsin into the Union as the thirtieth state, and Wisconsin will take pride in having completed its first hun- dred years. The 1945 session of the Legislature decided to concentrate the „, . , official state centennial observance at State Fair Planning the ^ , . ^ . „. ^ . , , ^ . , Park in West Allis. The centennia l rplanning Centennial r r t JQ/O committee or twenty consists or two state senators (John C. McBride of Milwaukee and Robert P. Robinson of Beloit); three assemblymen (Orin W. Angwall of Marinette, Arthur L. Padrutt of Chippewa Falls, and Ora R. Rice of Delavan); one representative from each congressional district (Mason Dobson of Beloit, J. Scott Earll of Prairie du Chien, M. J. Eberlein of Shawano, Marshall Graff of Appleton, Fred L. Holmes of Madison, Julius A. Laack of Plymouth, Albert Pawlak of Milwaukee, Milton R. Polland of Milwaukee, Howard Under- hill of Superior, and Walker D. Wyman of River Falls); and five special representatives (E. B. Fred for the university, George A. Haberman for labor, Joseph F. Heil for industry, Milo Swanton for agriculture, and Ernest Swift for conservation). The committee met on October 5 to elect Assemblyman Rice chairman, Mr. Holmes vice-chairman, and Senator Robinson secre- 129 130 CHATS WITH THE EDITOR [December tary. Mr. Ralph Ammon, manager of the State Fair, has been named director of the centennial observance to be held at the fair- grounds near Milwaukee, August 1-September 6, 1948. Everyone on the committee is agreed that the centennial observ- ance must be state wide. Not all the people can get to the Milwaukee fair; thus certain centennial features must travel out to the grass roots. Wisconsin organizations in. all fields of activity and in all localities shall be encouraged to take part in the centennial and to set up their own celebrations. The University of Wisconsin has a centennial committee headed by Professor William H. Kiek- hofer which is making rather elaborate plans for a varied series of observances and activities covering the entire academic year 1948-49, and no doubt other groups are doing or will do similar planning. The STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY is very anxious to see that the state centennial means much to the people of Wisconsin. The Society's very tentative plans call for (1) providing a central historical theme exhibit in a build- ing at the 1948 State Fair; (2) organizing a folk play on Wisconsin history and a his- torical exhibit which will travel about the state together for two or three months in the summer of 1948, ap- pearing in school auditoriums or at county fairs; (3.) establishing a historical pageant bureau which will furnish scripts and directors for communities which wish to stage pageants; (4) intensifying the campaign to put up historical markers along the highways of the state; (5) sponsoring a series of radio plays dealing with Wisconsin history and recording them so that they may be broad- cast throughout the state; (6) publishing and widely distributing a popularly written history of the state entitled Tell Me About Wisconsin; (7) issuing the first of its new series of Wisconsin biographies, nine of which are now in preparation. 1945] CHATS WITH THE EDITOR 131 This seven-point program is not yet worked out in detail, and we shudder to think how much remains to be done during the next two years. We wish to point out to the local historical societies of the state their great opportunity to prepare active centennial programs. We can visualize these societies; making historical pil- grimages across the state to the Milwaukee celebration, setting up their own local centennial features, helping with the state travel- ing show, perhaps sponsoring a pageant, and taking charge of the radio plays in their localities. They will have a rare chance to make people in their communities more conscious of the local societies' worth. ANNOUNCEMENT that the University of Wisconsin may acquire a museum building as part of the new development proposed for the Lower Campus makes us especially happy. A large and im- ,_,, rT . portant university needs a museum where it The University r J . ,• ~ ,, can collect and display selected materials or and Our Museum . ... r . .. , p ,. the varied civilizations or the world, past and present. For years the museum situation at Wisconsin has been fuzzy and confused. As soon as the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY moved from the Capitol down State Street to its new building in 1900, various groups began to offer materials to its Museum. Those interested in classical civilizations brought in archeological and art materials. Those who had traveled abroad in Europe, Africa, South America, or the Orient gave the Society choice art objects and paintings including several Old Masters. In the field of early science and industry, much equipment and several curious con- traptions were placed with us, and more would have been forth- coming if we had had space. Students of the archeology and ethnology of primitive peoples gave us many valuable specimens. The Society also became the center of a general art movement; traveling shows were displayed in our galleries, and large numbers of Arundel Society prints and Piranesi etchings were acquired, as well as two special library funds which were used chiefly to pur- 132 CHATS WITH THE EDITOR [December chase books on Italian and medieval art. And of course, the Society's collections of Wisconsin materials grew by leaps and bounds. We do not mean to imply that this development was undesir- able in the twenty years following 1900. The university and capital community should have had the opportunity to see and study the materials we have described, and the Society is proud to have had a hand in starting worth-while movements now in charge of the Madison Art Association and the Memorial Union. But as the years went by, the Museum became more and more crowded. In 1911-14 the second stack wing was added to our building, and after that time no new museum facilities were acquired, though the collections easily doubled in size. Pictures were hung in rows and were crowded together along the tops of cases. More and more cases were built until it was difficult to walk about the rooms. More and more objects were crammed into cases. Not only was space an ever pressing problem, but the general accession policy became more incoherent. The Museum at no time had much money for purchasing collections, and materials were acquired chiefly by gift or on long-term, indefinite loan. Donors or lenders of influence and position often determined the make-up of the Museum's collections. The result was that it acquired a hodgepodge of objects, many of them almost entirely disparate. The relative abundance of Wisconsin paintings, archeological and ethnological objects, women's costumes, dolls, American china and glass, and certain other materials gave us some collections in depth, but any significance they might have had was smothered under the mass of unrelated materials and by congested display conditions. This story is, of course, not unique for Wisconsin. Nearly every other larger museum in the country has had a similar develop- ment. At a time when man's life was simpler and when the indus- trial revolution had not yet added such an appalling multitude of things to our civilization, a museum might aspire to have a general collection covering all fields of knowledge. But as our 1945] CHATS WITH THE EDITOR 133 civilization has grown more specialized, museums have been forced to do likewise. Even the largest ones have had to revise their original collection policies to restrict their collections to certain fields. The Society has within the last few years made a decision about its museum collection policies.