Betty Quadracci


Click the image to learn more. Betty Quadracci signs a signature plaque at the Milwaukee Press Club's Hall of Fame dinner in 2012.

Betty Ewens Quadracci was born the fourth of six children in 1938.[1] Raised in Shorewood and Milwaukee’s Upper East Side, she overcame polio as a young girl in the 1940s.[2] In 1961, she graduated from Washington, D.C.’s Trinity College.[3] Trained as a Montessori teacher, she helped establish the Montessori School of Waukesha in 1964. She also helped found Waukesha’s Head Start program in 1968.[4] In 1971, she and her husband, Harry V. Quadracci, launched the Sussex-based Quad/Graphics, one of the world’s leading printing companies.[5] She served as president and publisher of one of Quad’s signature imprints, Milwaukee Magazine; she ran the award-winning glossy-print monthly for three decades (1983-2013).[6] As philanthropists, the Quadraccis donated millions to the Milwaukee Art Museum.[7] Betty Quadracci served on that institution’s board of trustees for twenty-six years, leading its marketing committee from 1983 to 1989 and encouraging the selection of architect Santiago Calatrava to design the building’s postmodern addition, the Quadracci Pavilion (completed in 2001).[8] She died in 2013, survived by her four children and ten grandchildren.[9]

Footnotes [+]

  1. ^ Jan Uebelherr and Jesse Garza, “Milwaukee Magazine’s Betty Quadracci Dies at 75,” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 9, 2013, accessed March 10, 2014.
  2. ^ Bruce Murphy, “The Legacy of Betty Quadracci,” Urban Milwaukee, December 10, 2013, accessed March 10, 2014.
  3. ^ Uebelherr and Garza, “Milwaukee Magazine’s Betty Quadracci Dies at 75.”
  4. ^ “Betty Ewens Quadracci,” JS Online Notices, accessed March 10, 2014; “Paid Notice: Deaths, Quadracci, Betty Ewens,” The New York Times, December 13, 2013, accessed March 10, 2013.
  5. ^ “Our History, Celebrating Quad/Graphics’ Milestones,” Quad/Graphics website, accessed March 10, 2014.
  6. ^ Murphy, “The Legacy of Betty Quadracci”; Uebelherr and Garza, “Milwaukee Magazine’s Betty Quadracci Dies at 75.”
  7. ^ James Auer, “Philanthropist Elected to Art Museum Board,” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 20, 2003, 10B; Uebelherr and Garza, “Milwaukee Magazine’s Betty Quadracci Dies at 75.”
  8. ^ James Auer, “Quadracci Will Long Live as Patron of Art,” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 31, 2002, 10B; Daniel Keegan, “Statement from Director Daniel Keegan on the Passing of Betty Quadracci,” Milwaukee Art Museum website, accessed March 10, 2014.
  9. ^ “Paid Notice: Deaths, Quadracci, Betty Ewens.”

For Further Reading

Fennell, John. Ready, Fire, Aim: With a Belief That Ordinary People Can Accomplish Extraordinary Things, Harry V. Quadracci Built a Legendary Printing Company and Changed an Industry. [Wisconsin]: Quadgraphics, 2006.

See Also

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