Milwaukee at Mid-Century


Book Description

From the 1930s through the 1980s, a shy and somewhat reclusive amateur photographer named Lyle Oberwise devoted much of his spare time to documenting his adopted hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Over a period of nearly fifty years, Oberwise amassed a collection of 43,000 color slides depicting the city's architecture and its people, as well as their daily lives and celebrations. The Milwaukee County Historical Society created this selection of 150 carefully chosen images to bring his work to life.




Serious Play


Book Description

A lively exploration of eclecticism, playfulness, and whimsy in American postwar design, including architecture, graphic design, and product design This spirited volume shows how postwar designers embraced whimsy and eclecticism in their work, exploring playfulness as an essential construct of modernity. Following World War II, Americans began accumulating more and more goods, spurring a transformation in the field of interior decoration. Storage walls became ubiquitous, often serving as a home's centerpiece. Designers such as Alexander Girard encouraged homeowners to populate their new shelving units with folk art, as well as unconventional and modern objects, to produce innovative and unexpected juxtapositions within modern architectural settings. Playfulness can be seen in the colorful, child-sized furniture by Charles and Ray Eames, who also produced toys. And in the postwar corporate world, the concept of play is manifested in the influential advertising work of Paul Rand. Set against the backdrop of a society that was experiencing rapid change and high anxiety, Serious Play takes a revelatory look at how many of the country's leading designers connected with their audience through wit and imagination.







Fading Ads of Milwaukee


Book Description

"Across the city, fading advertisements and ghost signs tell the story of Milwaukee as it was in years gone by ... Join Milwaukee native and ghost sign hunter Adam Levin as he explores the national brands and local shops of the Cream City's past"--Back cover.




Milwaukee's Bronzeville:


Book Description

With the migration of African American sharecroppers to northern cities in the first half of the 20th century, the African American population of Milwaukee grew from fewer than 1,000 in 1900 to nearly 22,000 by 1950. Most settled around a 12-block area along Walnut Street that came to be known as Milwaukee's Bronzeville, a thriving residential, business, and entertainment community. Barbershops, restaurants, drugstores, and funeral homes were started with a little money saved from overtime pay at factory jobs or extra domestic work taken on by the women. Exotic nightclubs, taverns, and restaurants attracted a racially mixed clientele, and daytime social clubs sponsored "matinees" that were dress-up events featuring local bands catering to neighborhood residents. Bronzeville is remembered by African American elders as a good place to grow up--times were hard, but the community was tight.




Mid-Century Modern Design


Book Description

Essential reading for all collectors and design aficionados, this book is the ultimate survey of mid- century modern design and architecture now available in a sleek, compact form. A definitive survey of mid-century modern design and architecture in an accessible compact edition, this book offers a rich overview of one of the most popular, collectable, and dynamic periods of design. With rich and diverse examples of everything from furniture and lighting to ceramics and textiles to graphics and posters to interior design and architecture, this sleek compendium of mid-century style includes over 1,000 illustrations representing classic designs and little-seen rarities, as well as entries on nearly 100 major creators, such as Dieter Rams, Robin Day, Isamu Noguchi, Lucie Rie, Charles and Ray Eames, Alvar Aalto, and Oscar Niemeyer. An additional illustrated dictionary features hundreds more influential mid-century designers, manufacturers, organizations, schools, and movements. Organized into three parts—“Media and Masters,” with six sections on applied arts; “Houses and Interiors,” featuring twenty seminal homes and their furnishings; and an “A–Z of Designers and Makers”—and complete with thirteen specially commissioned essays by renowned experts, this illustrated book is a must-have for collectors, design aficionados, and anyone seeking inspiration for their home.




Milwaukee's Old South Side


Book Description

In the late 1800s, the area was developed by immigrant Poles, who became the dominant population for over 100 years. A survey nearly a half century later revealed that people of 110 national backgrounds now live on the Old South Side.




Entertainment in Early Milwaukee


Book Description

What did early Milwaukeeans do to have fun and relax? This book answers that question, covering pop culture from the mid-1800s up to 1950, from the earliest tavern stages hosting traditional German plays and musicals, to the large traveling circus acts that arrived via the railroad, to the beer gardens, nickelodeons, and old grand cinemas that dominated the city's landscape during the first half of the 20th century. In its heyday, Milwaukee had several classic amusement parks with roller coasters, fun houses, water rides, and more. The first movie was shown in Milwaukee in 1896, and by 1920, there were nearly 100 buildings dedicated to motion pictures. And it was two Milwaukee businessmen who discovered the great Charlie Chaplin and also produced the 1915 epic Birth of a Nation.




Milwaukee Mayhem


Book Description

From murder and matchstick men to all-consuming fires, painted women, and Great Lakes disasters--and the wide-eyed public who could not help but gawk at it all--"Milwaukee Mayhem" uncovers the little-remembered and rarely told history of the underbelly of a Midwestern metropolis. "Milwaukee Mayhem" offers a new perspective on Milwaukee's early years, forgoing the major historical signposts found in traditional histories and focusing instead on the strange and brutal tales of mystery, vice, murder, and disaster that were born of the city's transformation from lakeside settlement to American metropolis. Author Matthew J. Prigge presents these stories as they were recounted to the public in the newspapers of the era, using the vivid and often grim language of the times to create an engaging and occasionally chilling narrative of a forgotten Milwaukee. Through his thoughtful introduction, Prigge gives the work context, eschewing assumptions about "simpler times" and highlighting the mayhem that the growth and rise of a city can bring about. These stories are the orphans of Milwaukee's history, too unusual to register in broad historic narratives, too strange to qualify as nostalgia, but nevertheless essential to our understanding of this American city.




LGBT Milwaukee


Book Description

Over the past 75 years, gays and lesbians have experienced tremendous social change in America. Gay and lesbian culture, once considered a twilight world that could not be spoken of in daylight, has become today's rainbow families, marriage equality victories, and record-breaking pride celebrations. For a medium-size Rust Belt city with German Protestant roots, Milwaukee was an unlikely place for gay and lesbian culture to bloom before the Stonewall Riots. However, Milwaukee eventually had as many--if not more--known LGBT+ gathering places as Minneapolis or Chicago, ranging from the back rooms of the 1960s to the video bars of the 1980s to the guerrilla gay bars of today.