Category Archives: Wisconsin History

Burns’ Electric Shop, Lancaster, WI, 1923

1923Feb21If you lived in a small town or out in the country a hundred years ago, you probably heard of radio. And if you were lucky, you probably got a chance to hear one. But it would have seemed risky to buy one. Would you be able to pick anything up, or would it wind up being a waste of money.

Burns’ Electric Shop in Lancaster, Wisconsin, took away the risk, as shown in this ad in the Grant County Herald, February 21, 1923. They would put a set in your house for five days at their expense, and then the radio would sell itself. It probably wasn’t a big risk. The town was in southwest Wisconsin, and eastern Iowa was a hotbed of radio activity at the time. At night, those stations would come in loud and clear, as well as stations in Chicago and more distant places.



1922 Watercycle

1922JunPMA hundred years ago this month, the June 1922 issue of Popular Mechanics showed this watercycle, invented by Edward Bellman of Evansville, Wisconsin.

According to the magazine, the craft was made of aluminum tubing, and could be quickly taken out of storage and assembled with thumbscrews. Buoyancy came from two inflated tubes which slipped into the frame. A propeller was driven by bicycle pedals, and the rudder was controlled by a handlebar.

The entire craft weighed only 20 pounds and could be packed in an ordinary suitcase. The inventor envisioned the craft for use as a pleasure craft or for lifesaving purposes.



Willetta Huggins, 1922

1922JanPMA hundred years ago this month, the January 1922 issue of Popular Mechanics carried the curious tale of sixteen-year-old Willetta Huggins. She had been both deaf and blind for three years, but she was able to “hear” by placing her finger on the diaphragm of a telephone receiver. “With this discovery she soon learned that she could conduct a telephone conversation almost as well as any normal child of her age.”

The magazine recounted a demonstration in which she successfully received a message by wireless telephone, witnessed by a number of dignitaries including Wisconsin Governor John J. Blaine. For whatever it was worth, the magazine noted that the message had been sent on 800 meters (375 kHz), and received with an audion detector and 50 foot antenna.

She also reportedly had the ability to discern colors by smell. In one experiment recounted by the magazine, she was able to identify the colors of six samples of yarn, simply by smell. She was also able to identify the color of the Governor’s suit by smelling it.

But this isn’t the end of the story. According to the New York Times, she was pronounced cured in 1924, and regained her vision and hearing. She ascribed her cure to her Christian Science beliefs, and attested that she had been “completely and permanently healed.” Reportedly, as of 1970, she had changed her name and was working as a Christian Science healer in a midwestern city.



Tagart Radio Service, Milwaukee, 1941

1941JanRadioServiceDealerShown here as it appeared 80 years ago is the service shop of  Sam Tagart, who had recently moved his shop to this fine modern store at 37th & W. North Avenue, Milwaukee.

The move to a prime location was made possible by direct mail advertising. The January 1941 issue of Radio Service Dealer reported that Tagart started out by mailing 250 direct mail ads four times per year to radio set owners, along with occasional mailings to radio dealers. At first, he got a return of about 10%, which worked its way up to 20%. He had recently increased his mailings to 1200 each time.

Part of his success was the spic-and-span shop shown here. He worked on sets in view of his customers, and many regular customers came from those who watched him work. Above his workbench is a mirror, which allows him to easily keep an eye on the front of the store.

The building that housed Tagart’s shop is no longer standing, but the building next door is.  There’s now a Citgo gas station where that shop once stood:

1941JanRadioServiceDealer31941JanRadioServiceDealer2



1944 Grocery Prices

1944Nov9MilJourHere’s another snapshot of wartime grocery prices from 1944, from the November 9, 1944, issue of the Milwaukee Journal. None, or very few, of the items shown here required ration coupons, as would be the case for sugar, meat, and some other items.

As with pre-1964 prices, one way to convert to today’s money is to remember that one dollar meant one silver dollar, four silver quarter, or ten silver dimes, or about an ounce of silver, which would be worth about $18.

Flour was $1.17 for a 25 pound bag. A pound of coffee would set you back 21 cents, and a 12 ounce box of Grapenuts was 13 cents. And a package of “Kool-Aid Ice Cream Mix” was only a nickel.



1949 Milwaukee Television

1949Oct23TMJ1949Oct23TMJrcaFor Milwaukee residents lucky enough to own a television, here were the programs they could watch 70 years ago this week, as shown in the Milwaukee Journal, October 23, 1949. (From most browsers, click twice on the image for an enlarged version.)  The only station on the air yet was WTMJ-TV (owned by the newspaper), and here were some of the program highlights:

The “Televison Playhouse” program for the week, 8:00 PM Sunday was an adaptation of the novel “Because of The Lockwoods” by Dorothy Whipple. Before that, the station signed on at 2:45 PM with a special discussion of the United Nations. Panelists were Robert Hansen, Mrs. Martha Klein, and Bruno Bitker, with Dr. J. Martin Klotsche serving as moderator.

At 9:00 PM was the 25th chapter of “Crusade in Europe.” This week’s discussion was Eisenhower’s postwar visit to Russia and his meeting with Stalin. The special guest for the program was former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen, then president of the University of Pennsylvania.

On Wednesday, the “Salute to Industry” program was a tribute to the Milwaukee police1949Oct23TMHallicrafters department.

Sports was a part of the programming. On Saturday, October 29, the Marquette-Colorado State football game was aired (Marquette won 68-13), and that evening the station carried the Milwaukee vs. Toledo hockey game.

If you didn’t have a TV yet, you had many options. You could get an RCA Victor console starting at $269. Or if you were really in a hurry, you could call Samson’s, and they would dispatch a special service car to your house within an hour, where they would install a new Hallicrafters set on approval, with no obligation. Hallicrafters prices started at $189.95, with no money down.



Golda Meir Visits Milwaukee: 1969

1969October4MJFifty years ago today, October 3, 1959, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir paid a visit to her old hometown of Milwaukee, her first since becoming Israel’s leader. According to the next day’s issue of the Milwaukee Journal, she was welcomed with open arms and not without honor in her hometown. She is shown above wearing a paper corsage given to her by students at the Fourth Street School where she spoke.  She had attended the school from 1906 to 1912, and the school is now named in her memory.

Mrs. Meir explained that she had come to Milwaukee as a child, fleeing czarist Russia. It was the privileges and equality she enjoyed in America that caused her to believe that her people, like no other peoples, needed a place of their own. She left for Palestine in 1920 to lay the groundwork for Israel.

“I have come back,” she said, “to tell Milwaukee I represent a free and sovereign people who are still struggling for peace–and having absolute faith that, too, will come.”

Security was tight for the visit, with deputies armed with rifles with telescopic sights on the roofs of buildings as her ElAl jet set down in Milwaukee. More police armed with rifles were on the roofs of downtown buildings, and a police boat cruised the Milwaukee river. Seas of admiring fans waved flags, while pro-Arab protesters carried signs reading, “no shalom with napalm.”



Escape of Walter Minx, 1944

1944Sep29MilJourIt’s not every day that the newspaper carries the story of an escape from prison by a criminal involved in a “blast, airplane, and submarine scheme,” but that’s what happened 75 years ago today. The September 29, 1944, issue of the Milwaukee Journal carried the story of the escape of Walter Minx from a minimum security prison in northern Wisconsin.

Minx’s crime had been elaborate, but he nearly got away with it, but for a few blunders. His plan was to extort $100,000 from the manager of the Milwaukee Sears stores. In 1940, he delivered the extortion note, but to the wrong address, as the executive had recently sold the house to a judge, who promptly reported the crime to police.

The note threatened to explode two bombs. The first, a relatively harmless one, went off as scheduled. To prevent a second blast, the executive was to pay $100,000. The money was to be dropped at a certain point in Lake Michigan.

Minx had constructed a submarine which initially tested well in the waters of Whitefish Bay, where it seemed to work well. But when he took it out into the open waters of Lake Michigan, he was unable to submerge due to the waves. Undaunted, he came up with an alternate plan involving motorcycles.

But before the money could be exchanged, the police examined the first bomb, and noticed that some of the parts appeared to come from ornamental ironwork. A Sears employee remembered that Minx had worked on a cashier’s cage at the store, and police went to his shop to investigate. There, they saw other incriminating parts, and Minx soon confessed.

Minx was released from prison in 1946, so his escape was apparently of short duration.  Minx died in Florida in 2009 at the age of 92.  You can read more at Milwaukee magazine.

 



Canned Bacon: 1919 and 2019

1919Sept25MilJourFullAd1919Sept25MilJourWith World War 1 soldiers on their way home or already there, the U.S. Army had some surplus commodities to get rid of a hundred years ago, and that included bacon. This ad appeared in the Milwaukee Journal a hundred years ago today, September 25, 1919, for the Boston Store in Milwaukee.

The store offered mostly dry goods, ranging from from toilet paper (6 rolls for 19 cents) up to a player piano ($395).  They also had a limited selection of food items, apparent “loss leaders” to get traffic into the store, shown at left.  And, of course, what stands out is the twelve pound can of army bacon for $3.66.  That, of course, is before a century of inflation, but a good way to put old prices in context is to remember that the money was made out of silver, so that the $3.66 really meant about 3.66 ounces of silver.  Today, that would be about $60.

That’s still a reasonable price, however.  The current WalMart price for 12 pounds of bacon is about $53.  That bacon, of course, isn’t really suitable for long-term storage, whereas the 1919 product was canned.  Interestingly enough, though, canned bacon is still readily available, and can be purchased at Amazon.  As you can see below, it’s rather expensive, especially considering that this price is for a nine ounce can:

On the other hand, for your emergency food storage needs, it might fill a niche.  According to the reviews, the product is excellent, and the 9 ounce can contains about 50 slices of bacon.  So having a can or two in the pantry might not be out of the question.

Since the modern product has 50 slices in the 9 ounce can, this means that the 12 pound can from 1919 contained several hundred slices.  So it probably was worth racing down to the store to get a couple cans.

If you’re looking for more ideas for protein for your home food storage, the most economical is probably dry beans or perhaps peanut butter.  If you crave real meat, one of the cheapest is probably tuna.  Other good options are potted meat, canned chicken, or, of course, the venerable Spam.  But if you want to get a can or two of canned bacon, I can’t blame you.

For more information about emergency food storage, see my food storage page.



Polio Quarantine: 1944

1944Aug30MilJour1944Aug30MilJour2On this day 75 years ago, the United States was at war, but the City of Milwaukee was at war against Polio. Because of an outbreak, all children under 12 years old were confined to their homes.

That didn’t stop these girls from socializing with their friends two doors down. Shown here are Rosemary O’Brien, 12, Peggy O’Brien, 9, and Florence Ann O’Brien, 12, of 5321 N. Diversey Blvd., Milwaukee. They have rigged up a pulley system to send notes to their friends at 5335 Diversey, Betty Ann Dundon, 12, Sherman Dundon, 9, and Monica Dundon, 11.

Meanwhile, Schuster’s Department Store offers to help with these toys, books, and records for kids who are quarantined.

Both images appeared in the Milwaukee Journal, August 30, 1944.