Back in the ’70s, Michael Lesy’s book Wisconsin Death Trip exploded nostalgic impressions of the state’s past by unearthing a record of strangeness, death and depravity in 19th-century Black River Falls. Shepherd Express history blogger Matthew J. Prigge works a similar vein of overlooked history in his latest book. The title is self-explanatory: Milwaukee Mayhem: Murder and Mystery in the Cream City’s First Century culls newspaper archives for crimes of passion, theater fires in the age of kerosene, hotel conflagrations in buildings lacking alarms and working hoses, and that quaint 19th-century custom of celebrating Independence Day by firing guns (July 4, 1875 was an especially bloody day as the result of gun-owning patriots). “As the little village by the lake expanded,” Prigge writes, “the chances for large-scale disaster multiplied, answering to the sometimes terrible arithmetic of progress.”
In the chapter on vice, Prigge focuses on “the Badlands,” a Downtown district bordered by the Milwaukee River and Sixth Street, Wisconsin Avenue and State Street. Brothels flourished within those confines, alongside gambling and opium dens and “dive bars” where prostitution occurred in stalls along the walls. Politicians frequented many of those disorderly houses and the police were sometimes lax.
“These stories may be the orphans of history but they are closer to us than we think,” Prigge writes, adding, “no true history of Milwaukee is complete without them.” With wry humor and tolerance for human foibles, Prigge takes readers to the dark side of the Cream City.
Prigge will present his book at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 20 at the Milwaukee Central Library’s Centennial Hall, 733 N. Eighth St.
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Book Happening:
Richard Hovannisian
3 p.m., Oct. 18
Ray and Kay Eckstein Hall, Marquette University Law School
1215 W. Michigan St.
During World War I the government of Ottoman Turkey initiated a campaign of extermination against ethnic minorities resulting in the death of 1.5 million Armenians. Diplomats from Turkey’s wartime ally, Germany, as well as the U.S., witnessed the events surrounding the Armenian Genocide. However, successive Turkish governments have continued to deny that the massacres occurred. One of the foremost experts on the Armenian Genocide, UCLA history professor Richard Hovannisian, will speak about the genocide and its significance at Marquette Law School’s Eckstein Hall. Hovannisian is the author of numerous books on the subject, including Looking Backward, Moving Forward: Confronting the Armenian Genocide, and has received many honors, including the I Witness Award from Jewish World Watch.
