WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The State Historical Society of Wisconsin • Vol. 57, No. 3 • Spring, 1974 »% Hif 0J^: "XJBN 'tl ,V A. arw, ^fxfflijpftsBia V \- V f A.^ ill 1 • f^^J i ^ILI h ^^^ iFv^flMB^^h ^^^^^^^k ^^H^B IM^^Sfl^^^^^ B THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN JAMES MORTON SMITH, Director Officers HOWARD W. MEAD, President GEORGE BANTA, JR., Honorary Vice-President JOHN C. GEILFUSS, First Vice-President F. HARWOOD ORBISON, Treasurer ROGER E. AXTELL, Second Vice-President JAMES MORTON SMITH, Secretary Board of Curators Ex Officio PATRICK J. LUCEY, Governor of the State JOHN C. WEAVER, President of the University ROBERT C. ZIMMERMAN, Secretary of State MRS. DAVID S. FRANK, President of the CHARLES P. SMITH, State Treasurer Women's Auxiliary Term Expires, 1974 ROGER E. AXTELL PAUL E. HASSETT ROBERT B. L. MURPHY MILO K. SWANTON Janesville Madison Madison Madison HORACE M. BENSTEAD WILUAM HUFFMAN MRS. WM. H. L. SMYTHE CEDRIC A. VIG Racine Wisconsin Rapids Milwaukee Rhinelander REED COLEMAN WARREN P. KNOWLES WILUAM F. STARK CLARK WILKINSON Madison Milwaukee Nashotah Baraboo Term Expires, 197S E. DAVID CRONON JOHN C. GEILFUSS LLOYD HORNBOSTEL, JR. FRANCIS PAUL PRUCHA, S.J. Madison Milwaukee Beloit Milwaukee SCOTT M. CUTUP BEN GUTHRIE ROBERT H. IRRMANN J. WARD RECTOR Madison Lac du Flambeau Beloit Milwaukee ROBERT A. GEHRKE MRS. R. L. HARTZELL JOHN R. PIKE CLIFFORD D. SWANSON Ripon Grantsburg Madison Stevens Point Term Expires, 1976 THOMAS H. BARLAND MRS. EDWARD C. JONES HOWARD W. MEAD DONALD C. SLICHTER Eau Claire Fort Atkinson Madison Milwaukee NATHAN S. HEFFERNAN MRS. RAYMOND J. KOLTES FREDERICK I. OLSON DR. LOUIS C. SMITH Madison Madison Wauwatosa Lancaster E. E. HOMSTAD CHARLES R. MCCALLUM F. HARWOOD ORBISON ROBERT S. ZIGMAN Black River Falls Hubertus Appleton Milwaukee Fellows VERNON CARSTENSEN MERLE CURTI ALICE E. SMITH The Women's Auxiliary MRS. DAVID S. FRANK, Madison, President MRS. L. PRENTICE EAGER, JR., Evansville, Treasurer MRS. CHARLES E. PAIN, JR., Milwaukee, Vice-President MRS. GORDON R. WALKER, Racine, Ex Officio MRS. WADE H. MOSBY, Milwaukee, Secretary On the Cover: A World War 1 Red Cross unit passing the Siegesallee as it leaves Berlin for active duty. Taken by Ed. Frankl of Berlin, an official war photographer, it is one of 1,702 scenes of life inside wartime Germany donated to the Society in 1965 by World War II war correspondent Sigrid Schultz. In the 1920's Frankl gave the collection to Miss Schultz's father Herman, a Norwegian-born portrait painter who settled in Chicago in the 1890's. Volume 57, Number 3 / Spring, 1974 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Published quarterly by the State Historical Society of Industrial Opportunity on the Urban Frontier: Wisconsin, 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. "Rags to Riches" and Milwaukee Clothing Distributed to members as part Manufacturers, 1840-1880 175 of their dues. (Annual member­ ship, $7.50, or 15 for those Margaret Walsh over 65 or members of affiliated societies; family membership, $10, or $7 for those over 65 or Paternalism and Racism: Senator John C. Spooner members of affiliated societies; and American Minorities, 1897-1907 195 contributing, $25; business and professional, $50; sustaining, James R. Parker $100 or more annually; patron, $500 or more annually.) Single numbers $1.75. Microfilmed The General and the Presidency: Douglas MacArthur copies available through and the Election of 1948 201 University Microfilms, 313 North First Street, Ann Arbor, Howard B. Schonberger Michigan; reprint volumes available from Kraus Reprint Corporation, 16 East 46th Street, The Progressive as Conservative: George Creel's New York, New York 10017. Quarrel with New Deal Liberalism 220 Communications should be addressed to the editor. The Frank Annunziata Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. Second- class postage paid at Madison Book Reviews 234 and Stevens Point, Wis. Copyright © 1974 by the State Book Review Index 246 Historical Society of Wisconsin. Paid for in part by the Maria Wisconsin History Checklist 247 L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund and by the George B. Accessions 249 Burrows Fund. Contributors 252 WILLIAM CONVERSE HAYGOOD EDITOR WILLIAM C. MARTEN ASSOCIATE EDITOR JOHN O. HOLZHUETER EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Courtesy Mrs. Robert E. Friend Victorian elegance characterizes this three-generation portrait of Elias Friend (seated), his son Jacob Elias (standing), and his grandson, Robert Elias, perched upon a photographer's ornate studio pedestal. 174 Industrial Opportunity on the Urban Frontier: ''Rags to Riches" and Milwaukee Clothing Manufacturers, 1840-1880 By Margaret Walsh 'ROM its inception the American However, the classically successful individ­ P Dream has been that, somehow, ual, either of the fictional Horatio Alger through a combination of luck, pluck, and variety or the historical John D. Rockefeller perseverance, one's lot could be bettered, one's type, rarely progressed from rags to riches. social and economic status could be improved, The Alger heroes were usually either poor and, in short, "upward mobility" could be uneducated waifs who gained a modest com­ achieved. The success story, closely connected petence, or better-endowed middle-class boys to the many opportunities, presented by the who attained their proper station despite sev­ frontier, economic abundance, and an open eral catastrophes.2 The industrialists them­ society, has long been a favorite theme of selves often came from northeastern upper- American historians. Self-improvement, par­ or middle-class socioeconomic backgrounds ticularly that of the spectacular kind in which which provided moderate if not ample advan­ leading industrialists have emerged from the tages in terms of schooling, training, and anonymous ranks, has historically appeared finance. Very few renowned business leaders to exemplify both the virtues and the poten­ in the United States in the late nineteenth tial of the new nation. Not even the appear­ century were ever day laborers or unskilled ance in recent years of a respectable body of literature critical of this view has had any appreciable effect on this article of the na­ of Vertical Mobility," in Historical Methods News­ tional faith.1 letter, 1: 1^13 (1968); Clyde Griffin, "Occupational Mobility in Nineteenth Century America: Problems and Possibilities," in the Journal of Social History, 5: 310-330 (1972); Stephen Thernstrom, "Notes on the AUTHOR'S NOTE: The author ivishes to acknowledge Historical Study of Social Mobility," in D. K. Rowney the financial assistance provided by a joint grant from and J. Q. Graham (eds.), (hiantitative History (Home- the British Social Science Research Council and the wood, Illinois, 1969); Stephen Thernstrom and Richard University of Birmingham Field Expedition Fund Sennett (eds.). Nineteenth Century Cities: Essays in which made possible the completion of the research for the New Urban History (New Haven, 1969); Peter R. this article, and the helpful comments of Kathleen N. Knights, The Plain People of Boston, 1830-1860: A Conzen, Wellcsley College. Study in City Growth (New York, 1971); Howard P. ^ For some general observations on the "success cult," Chudacoff, Mobile Americans: Residential and Social see Irvin G. Wyllie, The Self-Made Man in America: Mobility in Omaha, 1880-1920 (New York, 1972); and The Myth of Rags to Riches (New Brunswick, New- Kathleen N. Conzen, "The German Athens: Milwau­ Jersey, 1954); John G. Cawclti, Apostles of the Self- kee and the .\ccommodation of Its Immigrants, 1830- Made Man (Chicago, 1965); and Richard M. Huber, 1860" (Ph.D. dissertation. University of Wisconsin, The American Idea of Success (New York, 1971). For 1972). some examples of the recent approaches to the study = Cawclti, Apostles of the Self-Made Man, 101-123; of mobility see Stuart Blumin, "The Historical Study Huber, The American Idea of Success, 42-61. 175 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1974 workers.^ Success, thus, had moderate dimen­ ahead either in the processing branches, such sions even for nationally known figures; and as flour milling, leather tanning, or meat it was even more modest for those local in­ packing, or in the heavy-goods branches, pro­ dividuals whose names were rarely included ducing iron and machinery, or in the house­ in the Dictionary of American Biography or hold-craft consumer branches making cloth­ the National Cyclopaedia of American Biog­ ing, footwear, or furniture. The problems to raphy. Opportunity for material improve­ be overcome in each type of industry varied ment existed, to be sure, but the more typical slightly, but they all offered occupational entrepreneur was satisfied if he climbed only mobility to those individuals who could com­ several rungs of the ladder to wealth rather bine the traditional virtues of hard work, than the whole way.* perseverance, sobriety, and integrity, with an The new industrial cities of the middle ability to command capital or credit, a previ­ nineteenth century, particularly those in the ous experience in business, and a flexible West like Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland, temperament able to cope with change.^ St. Louis, Chicago, and Milwaukee, presented numerous examples of the more limited range ^ If the western states are defined as Ohio, Indiana, of vertical mobility which was possible in the Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Ken­ United States.^ Here on the urban frontier tucky, and Minnesota, then western cities did rank where conditions were still unsettled and among the leading American cities as of 1880: fluid, and in a period—from 1830 to 1880— when the economy was still in the process of City Population Rank; ing industrializing, budding entrepreneurs could Western United States find various avenues of advancement. As Chicago, 111. 503,185 1 4 would-be manufacturers they could push St. Louis, Mo. 350,518 2 6 Cincinnati, 0. 255,139 3 8 Cleveland, O. 160,146 4 11 'William Miller, "American Historians and the Louisville, Ky. 123,758 5 16 Business Elite," in the Journal of Economic History, 9: 184-208 (1949); C.