"Honey, call the children into the room, Matthew J. Prigge is on WMSE talking about women of ill-repute!"
We’ve got a wholenew batch of What Made Milwaukee Famousradio programs, written and recorded by myself and produced by 91.7 WMSE, upfor your listening pleasure at matthewjprigge.com.I’ve put together links to the new shows and some other fun links andinteresting items around the net that I’ve never had a good enough reason topost. Think of his post as WMMF hobo dinner… random bits of historical meatsand starches with lots of seasoning that goes great with cheap whiskey.
The Radio Shows
“Idzy”
For one week in1935, a young malcontent named Idzy Rutkowski terrorized the city with a seriesof dynamite bombings. This is the story of Milwaukee’s “mad bomber.”
Milwaukee Legend Dick Bacon (right, obviously)
“DickBacon” (pictured left)
Milwaukee’sself-proclaimed “nude dude,” Dick Bacon was a fixture at Bradford Beachfor thirty years. Get to know the man who did it his way, public nudity statutes be damned.
“Summerfirst”
Speed boat races?Foreign Films? Up With People? Yep, that was the first Summerfest.
“Fireat City Hall”
A story from mynew book Milwaukee Mayhem, this episode recounts the night that fire took hold of the famed City Hallclocktower and threatened to destroy Milwaukee’smore treasured landmark.
“Kill the Kiss!” (pictured right)
Oddly enough, some doctors wanted to make the opposite of this true.
A ban on kissingin Wisconsin?That’s what one group of activist physicians wanted back in 1912. Local loverswanted none of it and told the doctors to kiss off.
“TheMilwaukee Packers?”
Milwaukee CountyStadium was christened by the Braves, but was built with the possibility of theNFL in Milwaukeein mind. Hear how close the Green and Gold came to relocating permanently tothe Cream City.
“TheMilwaukee Badgers”
The Packers wouldnot have been the first NFL team to call Milwaukeehome. This episode explores the short and turbulent existence of the MilwaukeeBadgers.
The future Mr. and Mrs. Ralphero Kerwineo, in 1900 as Cora Anderson and Mamie White.
“The“Man-Girl” of Milwaukee”
Cora Andersonlived for 8 years in Milwaukeeas Mr. Ralph Kerwineo – a popular sport, brawler, and gentlemen about town whowas keen enough with the ladies to win the hearts of two wives. When one wifefound out about the other, she outted Ralph and kicked off one of the mostsensational stories in Milwaukee’shistory.
“DirtyHelen”
She had thedirtiest mouth in Milwaukee,so went the legend. Hear all about the foul and fabulous times of one of thecity’s most legendary hostesses.
MORE FUN
A Still from 1930’s Party Girl, a film too hot for Milwaukee.
Movie Censorship in Milwaukee:Last week, I brought you the story of Howard Hughes’s battles with the MilwaukeeMotion Picture Commission. Recently, I came across this in the MotionPicture Producers and Distributors of America digital archive: an actual letter from the commissionto the Tiffany Productions detailing the eliminations the commission requiredof their film, PartyGirl, before it would be allowed to play in Milwaukee. The film was one a number oflow-grade titillation picture pretending to be an “expose” of forcedprostitution rackets. You can watch the film online here andfollow along with the list of deletions the commission demanded, including ashortening of the “massaging sequence;” the removal of the line, “You go to thecountry and raise children, I’ll stay in the city and raise whoopee;” and “allshots where Di uses [the] reducing belt.” Sounds downright filthy!
GLBT History in Milwaukee:
The Wisconsin GLBT HistoryProject has built an incredible online archive of histories and artifactsfrom the Milwaukeearea. Biographies, organizations, and an amazing database of Milwaukee gay bars, clubs,bathhouses, and restaurants. This is an essential part of any urban history andone that has been overlooked all too often in city histories, as have prettyall topics related to that dirty little s-e-x word.
The GLBT Gay Bar database contains hundreds of rare images like this one, a print ad for the old River Queen bar. The River Queen was in the old Juneau Hotel building, where it is claimed that President Abraham Lincoln once took a bath. Today, the site is home to Milwaukee Public Market.
Free Milwaukee History Books via Google
Thousands of books which have fallen into the public domain (presently anythingpublished prior to 1919) are available complete and free in Google Books,including dozens of books and publications relating to Milwaukee. These books are often hard-to-findand many of them are not available for check-out at local libraries.
Some of the highlights:
Milwaukee:A Half Century of Progress (1896). This souvenir of the Milwaukee’s 50th anniversaryincludes dozens of images, industrial and political profiles. It also includes thishandy instructional on methods of fastening one’s suspenders.
AnIllustrated Description of Milwaukee (1890) Hundred of images andadvertisements make browsing this book a real time-suck. Just check out this four-storycasket factory! Or this Beer-wagonbuilder! Or this tobaccoprocessor, who boasted of producing 3,000,000 pounds annually!
Historyof Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1881) A history for true wonks, over 800 pages areavailable online, although the print edition runs two volumes and over 1500pages. This is the granddaddy of city histories, with hundreds of citizenprofiles, organizational histories, and dozens of weird and gossipy itemscovering topics of crime, disaster, and sickness.
ThePort of Milwaukee: Historical, Descriptive, Prospective (1922) An excellentshort history of the commercial lives of the harbors and rivers, thiscity-published book is essential for understanding how the city grew up fromthe waterways. It also contains a number of stats and charts. For example, in1914, over 6,200 lake freighter departed from the port of Milwaukee.Even allowing for a ten month shipping season, that is more than 20 freightersleaving every day, with nearly as many arriving in port every day. Twentyarrivals and departures today would be a good month for the port.
So that’s all Ihave this week. It’s a jumbled and loopy post, I’ll admit, but I probablywouldn’t be able to cover all this stuff any other way. Next week, I’ll be backto telling stories, I promise. And in the meantime, please check out my newBrewers history blog, BrewCrew Confidential, right here on shepherdexpress.com. I’ll have some realgood stuff there soon, too.
