On Tuesday, the Rolling Stones – perhaps the biggest (easily the most expensive) act Summerfest has ever booked – will kick off this year’s event at the Marcus Amphitheatre. While Summerfest is now synonymous with food, beer, cup-stacking, and music, the very first Summerfest was quite a bit different. Milwaukee had been trying to establish itself as a host for a nationally-known festival since the 1930s, when the Midsummer Festival, a program of dancing and drinking that was promoted as a rival to Mardi Gras in New Orleans and the Festival of Roses in Pasadena , filled nine days every summer on the lakefront.
The festival was canceled in the war years, but the desire for a festival lingered until 1960 when Henry Maier was elected mayor. In 1962, Maier travel to Europe and was enamored with city festivals he had seen there. The next year, Maier commissioned a panel to explore the possibility of creating a major summertime festival in Milwaukee . The panel recommended the city move forward with an annual event that would feature a folk fair, jazz concerts, and an “ideas conference” featuring “the finest minds of the day.”
The “world festival” idea went nowhere until the riots of 1967 left Milwaukee looking to repair its image. Maier reignited the festival idea as a way to “show that Milwaukee is not the city of the clenched fist, but rather the city of the outstretched hand of friendship.” The proposed name for the event, scheduled for July 1968, was “Juli Spass” – German for “July Fun.” The named was criticized as being too Eurocentric. The replacement name, Summerfest, stuck.
On July 20, 1968, a morning of clear skies and a cool lake breeze, the first of Summerfest’s eight days officially opened as a group of 200 sang along to a polka band playing “Roll out the Barrel” in front of the County Courthouse . Music would be but one part of the inaugural event. The “headlining” musical act of the event – if there was one – was probably the tacky-sweet vocal group Up With People, a troupe of over 160 young people who played three shows during the festival – two at County Stadium and one at Washington Park. The biggest event was probably the “largest polka party Milwaukee ever had,” made up of ten polka bands and held at the Milwaukee Auditorium (now the Milwaukee Theatre).
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The variety of activities at the first Summerfest was fairly stunning. There was a stock car race at State Fair Park , a clay court tennis tournament in Fox Point, and a four-hour, 160-mile power boat race from Milwaukee to Chicago and back. The Blue Angels performed a show over General Mitchell Airfield. A downtown midway featured twenty different rides. “Youthfest” at the lakefront boasted its own midway, rock bands, and numerous sponsored booths that promoted products aimed at youth markets.
Sandra Jean Berg, winner of the 1968 Miss Milwaukee pageant and “official host” of Summerfest ’68
Summerfest ’68 also featured a number of more cultural events. Twice nightly, shows of “Syncopated Waters,” a combination of water jets, colored lights, and organ music was held in a special pool near the War Memorial. Cardinal Strich College hosted a presentation on the works of Walt Whitman, including a “poetic mono-drama.” The Palace Theatre held an international film festival. Mount Mary College hosted a seminar on Women’s Progress, featuring four women representatives of the United Nations. Treating womanhood in a somewhat different light, the “official host” of Summerfest ’68 was the winner of the 1968 Miss Milwaukee pageant, held the night before the opening of the festival, sponsored by the Robert John Powers Charm and Finishing School. The winner was 19-year-old Sandra Jean Berg, a UW-Madison student majoring in speech. The Milwaukee Sentinel printed her photo on the front page the morning after her win in the pageant. They also printed her height, weight, and measurements. It went unmentioned if this was brought up during the women’s progress conference.
With the first Summerfest coming just days short of the anniversary of the Milwaukee riots, and the event being promoted as a means of healing the city’s racial divides, a good deal of the programming was reserved for African-American culture. Nightly programs of black music and theatre were held downtown, with jazz shows, African dance, and blues music. A special “salute to the Afro-American” was also held at Lincoln Park on the night of the 26th, with music, dancers, and other cultural performances.
By the end of the festival, promoters claimed that over 1.2 million people had participated in the various events, and everyone seemed certain that Summerfest ’69 would be a sure hit. Maier called the festival a “smashing success” and said that Summerfest “could very easily become our greatest single economic undertaking.” For the future, he envisioned a thirty-day “World Festival” for which Milwaukee would become internationally known.
Almost fifty years later, it’s pretty assured that Summerfest will never live up to Henry Maier’s greatest hopes. It got George Carlin arrested, made Katy Perry sick, and will – in a few days – give Milwaukee one last look at the Rolling Stones before they turn to dust. But a world festival it ain’t. It’s a ten-day beer bash with a wide net of acts designed to please as many people as it upsets. And for Milwaukee , that’ll do just fine.
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