Milwaukee’s past is often seen through the lens of industry and big factories, but “Growing Place: A Visual Study of Urban Farming,” now at MSOE’s Grohmann Museum, shows there were more ways to grow a city. Milwaukee was a frontrunner in gardening dating back to the late 1800s, laying the groundwork for the urban farm visionaries of today.
Guest curators Michael Carriere, assistant professor at MSOE’s Humanities, Social Science and Communications Department, and David Schalliol, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at St. Olaf College, gathered a collection of photographs, documents, signs, posters and farm tools to tell Milwaukee’s agricultural story. Items were acquired from UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee Public Library, the Milwaukee County Historical Society and individuals.
“Growing Place” was born out of a broader project Carriere had been involved with, which studied placemaking (a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces) following the Great Recession, and how cities try to bounce back from severe financial crisis.
“One of the things we kept coming back to was that, city after city, urban agriculture was dominant,” Carriere says. “I had already had some awareness that Milwaukee was seen as a hub for this type of activity, predominantly because Will Allen is here. I’m a historian, so I became curious—how did Milwaukee position itself as this leading actor?”
Those answers unfold throughout the exhibition: We learn how, in the late 1800s, Polish immigrants received much-needed work on Henry Griswold Comstock’s urban celery farm. Or how Charles Whitnall had created a plan in 1911 that called for Downtown fruit orchards as a way to provide a healthy food product, give unemployed men jobs and make use of the space.
Visitors see glimpses as to how vegetable gardening helped feed poverty-stricken families during the Great Depression. During his research, Carriere had learned that Milwaukee was one of the leading cities of victory gardens during World War I and World War II. “However you measured it—in numbers, per capita or production—Milwaukee was the number one city to be able to do this on a really large scale,” Carriere says.
Photos document farmers markets of the past, such as Center Street Market, the predecessor to the Fondy Farmers Market, and Commission Row, a one-time bustling marketplace of fruit and vegetable wholesalers in the Third Ward.
There is a section dedicated to how gardening hit a lull during mid-century postwar affluence and to efforts to revive urban farming after disinvestment of the ’70s. The exhibition includes materials from UW-Extension’s historic Shoots ’n Roots Urban Garden Program. Declining funding led to the demise of Shoots ’n Roots, which left a void that Will Allen would fill with Growing Power. Schalliol’s striking aerial photographs show visitors Milwaukee’s present urban farms.
While some people may see urban gardening as a passing fad or a hobby, “Growing Place” shows how urban gardening is actually a strategy for urban renewal and development. “I think this history suggests that urban farming can be so much more than what a lot of folks think it can be,” Carriere concludes. “Some of the aerial photographs make a point that urban farming helps remake a neighborhood, and they become sites where people feel safe. It’s also suggesting just how multifaceted and rich this history is and form the way people think about it moving forward.”
Growing Place: A Visual Study of Urban Farming runs through April 28 at the Grohmann Museum, 1000 N. Broadway. For more information, visit grohmannmuseum.org.
