Showing 161-180 of 683 Entries
Author: Mary Hallick
Eastern Orthodox Christians from Eastern and Southern Europe endured centuries of wars in an attempt to gain freedom from powerful, conquering countries. In these regions there was a great deal of political oppression that led to unstable governments. The outcomes of these wars not only changed national boundaries, but changed the nationality of citizens. There…
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Author: Anthony Orum
The Early Years In many ways Milwaukee is a metropolitan area typical of the industrial Midwest. The arc of its development and growth mirrors the arc of other cities in the region, including Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. Milwaukee had its beginnings in the 1830s when a few settlers established residence on the western banks of…
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Author: James K. Nelsen
The Milwaukee metropolitan area is often classified as the most racially segregated metropolitan area in the United States. This segregated residence pattern resulted in racially segregated schools in the Milwaukee area. African Americans began to settle in Milwaukee increasingly after 1900. Most rented homes in a nine-square block area north of downtown. They were employed…
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Author: Robert A. Birmingham
Milwaukee was Native American land until the 1830s. The Potawatomi lived in the area in the early 19th century but lost their lands as a result of coerced treaties that forced them to cede the territory to the United States for American settlers. Most of these people were removed west to a reservation in Kansas,…
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Author: Michael A. Gordon
An eight-hour day movement flourished for several decades after the Civil War and united thousands of Milwaukee and other American workers who otherwise differed by skill, occupation, race, gender, and ethnicity. Often working ten or twelve hours a day, workers said they needed more time for rest and to be with their families, and insisted…
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Author: Matthew J. Prigge
Eldon Murray (1930-2007) was a nationally-recognized figure in the gay rights movement. Murray was born and raised in Vincennes, Indiana. He relocated to Chicago at age 18 and later served in the Korean War. He settled in Milwaukee in 1955, where he began a career as a stockbroker. Murray’s local activism began in 1969, after…
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Author: Peter Borg
With over 3,200 members and more than 5,500 people attending any one of four weekend services, non-denominational Elmbrook Church in suburban Brookfield is the largest unaffiliated religious congregation in the state of Wisconsin. What began in 1956 with five families gathering for prayer in hopes of starting “a gospel-preaching church,” initially operated as the First…
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Author: Bethany Harding
The first socialist to govern a major American city, Emil Seidel (1864-1947) served as mayor of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912. “Earnest, upright, and plain-spoken,” the former pattern-maker and alderman was a pragmatic politician who appealed to working-class voters. Seidel’s administration focused on efficiency and economy. Working closely with organized labor, the mayor and his…
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Author: Robert Balmer
Energy has many different forms. Over the years, businesses and homes in the Milwaukee region have relied on a broad variety of energy types to fuel daily activities, from illuminating, heating and cooling homes, for travel and transport, and for manufacturing and commercial activities. Energy has the remarkable quality that it can be neither created…
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Author: John N. Vogel
The Episcopal Church traces its establishment in Wisconsin to the early 1820s, when the Oneida Indians of New York were relocated to a reservation at Duck Creek, Wisconsin—very near Green Bay. Accompanying the Indians was Eleazer Williams, who in 1826 was ordained a deacon in the church and who ministered to the Duck Creek community.…
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Author: Catherine Jones
The Eschweiler & Eschweiler architectural firm was one of the most prolific in Milwaukee’s history, designing everything from community spaces, private homes, and places of worship, to industrial factories and commercial buildings. Some of their most notable buildings include the MILWAUKEE GAS LIGHT BUILDING, the MILWAUKEE ARENA, the Wisconsin Telephone Co. Building, the Milwaukee County…
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Author: Michael Pulido
In 1909, the synod of the Evangelical Church, a predecessor of the United Church of Christ, founded a Deaconess Society in the German tradition that called on Christian Sisters to offer hospital care to Milwaukee’s sick and needy. The fifteen-bed unit established by the Society in 1910 on what is now West Wisconsin Avenue grew…
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Author: Karalee Surface
Situated in the heart of the Menomonee Valley, the Falk Corporation has been a fixture of Milwaukee’s industrial landscape for over 120 years. Family-owned until the late 1960s, the company developed a reputation as both “a good name in industry” and a good place to work. Focusing on the production of gears, Falk helped modernize…
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Author: Margo Anderson
The “family” is a core institution of all known human societies. There are a variety of definitions, reflecting the complexity of the concept. At its simplest, the family is “a group of persons united by the ties of marriage, blood, or adoption,” who usually, but not necessarily, live together in a “household.” More expansive definitions…
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Author: Michael Pulido
Festa Italiana, held annually since 1978, represented the first of Milwaukee’s modern ethnic festivals and an effort to recapture the spirit of a vanishing community. In the 1960s, Milwaukee’s urban renewal plans led to the demolition of Our Blessed Virgin of Pompeii Church in Milwaukee’s Third Ward. By the time the little pink church had…
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Author: Matthew J. Prigge
Festivals have long been a major part of the cultural, social, and economic fabric of Milwaukee. Early festivals were often celebrations of a shared ethnic heritage. As the turn of the century approached, city leaders recognized the potential of these events to draw visitors from across the nation, and Milwaukee began to emerge as a…
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Author: William I. Tchakirides
The arrival of Filipinos in the Milwaukee metropolitan area took place after World War II. The Philippines were a United States colonial possession from the end of the Spanish American War in 1898 until the South Pacific nation gained its independence in 1946. Although the U.S. government denied naturalization rights to Filipino migrants during these…
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Author: Bill Reck
Finns started to arrive in Wisconsin and Milwaukee in the final decade of the nineteenth century and the first two in the twentieth, though Milwaukee’s Finnish immigration increased most rapidly between 1910 and 1930. The Finnish ancestry population was small. In 1930, about 1,400 people in the Milwaukee metro area reported their father’s birthplace was…
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Author: Justin Smith
First Stage Children’s Theater was founded in 1987 when the Milwaukee Performing Arts Center formed a group to provide arts education to the children of Milwaukee and southern Wisconsin. According to its website, from a class of 350 in 1987, First Stage has grown into one of the largest youth theater groups in the nation…
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Author: Cody Schreck
Opened in 2018, the Fiserv Forum is the home of the Milwaukee Bucks, Marquette University Men’s Basketball, and an array of other sports and entertainment events. It is located at 1111 Vel R. Phillips Avenue, directly north of the site of the BMO Harris Bradley Center, which it replaced as Milwaukee’s primary sports and entertainment…
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