Great Depression
The Politics of Joseph Friebert's 'Life in Art'
The Museum of Wisconsin Art’s current retrospective of Joseph Friebert, “A Life in Art” (through Oct. 7), displays his early paintings—works that began a career ever-informed by leftist politics and a deep connection to Milwaukee’s working class. more
Photo credit: Milwaukee Public Library
Democratic Socialists Aren't Demons; They're Just Energized Democrats
It’s as American as apple pie to elect a bright, new generation of self-proclaimed democratic socialists. They’re fighting to preserve the American ideal of sharing the economic benefits of democracy with everyone, not just the wealthy. more
Home Movies/Out on Digital 12.22
Filmed before Hollywood imposed a self-censorship code on its productions, Bad Girl is an emotionally, socially, sexually frank glimpse of working-class life and gender mores at the dawn of the Great Depression. more
Hoover: A Life (New American Library), by Glen Jeansonne
Few presidents were as reviled as Herbert Hoover, unfairly blamed for the Great Depression and stuck with a reputation as cold, stodgy and out of touch. In Hoover: A Life, UW-Milwaukee history professor Glen Jeansonne sets out to rescue Hoo... more
Writing About Milwaukee’s Past
During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt established a program that paid writers to write. Much of their work was devoted to guide books for each state and a projected series of guides to big cities. The state books were completed... more
The Missing ‘Muralist’
The Muralist, a new novel by award-winning author B.A. Shapiro, tells the riveting story of a WPA artist whose mysterious disappearance on the eve of World War II remains unsolved decades later. more
FDR’s Fight Continues
Sixty-nine years after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, he remains one of America’s most influential and respected presidents. While leading the country through the Great Depression, the New Deal and World War II, Roosevelt remained a st... more
Suicides at City Hall
On Tuesday, Feb. 19, 1929, 36-year-old Frances Schurmeir climbed to the top of the brass railing of the fifth floor of Milwaukee’s City Hall overlooking the building’s open-air atrium. Just four days prior, Schurmeir’s husband had taken a c... more
Chicago Chronicle
In The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream, Chicago native Thomas Dyja transports readers to a time in the Windy City’s recent past when artists and innovators flourished. Focusing on the years between more
On the Ropes (W.W. Norton), by James Vance and Dan E. Burr
With their 1988 collaboration, Kings in Disguise, writer James Vance (The Crow) and Milwaukee illustrator Dan E. Burr were among the pathfinders of a genre that became well-established within a few years, the graphic novel more
Final Victory (Da Capo), Stanley Weintraub
Historian Stanley Weintraub's Final Victory, about the 1944 presidential campaign between the popular but aged three-time incumbent, Franklin Roosevelt, and Republican challenger Thomas Dewey, arrives appropriately enough during another ele... more
ASA Candidate Annie Woodward Files Finance Forms
ASA candidate Annie Woodward may want to proofread her campaign finance forms, because it appears that some information is missing. The latest form, dated March 29 and signed by Feisal J. Salahadyn, shows that she took in $3,140 during th.. more
Completely Cracker
Robbie Coltrane never became a big star except in the most literal sense. But this hulking elephant of a man should at least have become a major character actor up there with Phillip Seymour Hoffman. His role in the British television series “Cra.. more
When America Came Together
Recently the New York Times cautiously advanced the word “depression” into articles on the current downturn. It’s a scary term, but maybe staring it down might not be a bad idea. Examining the last depression could be helpful if the correct concl.. more
Interview: Waldek Dynerman
After graduating from the Warsaw Fine Arts Academy in 1974, Walder Dynerman eventually left his homeland of Poland to arrive in 1983 America with the offer of a two-year guest fellowship at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. The fellowship.. more
Legends of Local Art
Regionalism was all the rage among Midwest artists, especially in the years b The Last of the ,Art more
The Greendale Blueprint
The leafy suburb of Greendale is one of the most distinctive communities in the Milwaukee Write: editor@shepex.com or comment on this story online at www.expressmilwaukee.com. ,News Features more
Left in the Dark
InMarch, the fledgling Spiral Theatrehosted one of the theater season&rsquo ButterfliesAre Free. ,Theater more
New Deal for the Arts
Theeconomic validity of culture-led regeneration has been at the heart of apolemi Furious Improvisation ,Books more
Dreams Become Legends
Summertime road trips of 700-some miles into South Dakota,the Badlands and the Black Hills seem like a rite of passage. This isthe most classic of vacations, especially for families, who followtypically flat and easy-to-drive I-90 for a glimpse o... more
