Summer 2008 Issue
Volume 91, Number 4
Featured Story
Paul Bunyan and Babe walk through cleared land, Babe toting several people on his back.
WHi Image ID 55609. On the Trail of Paul Bunyan
by Michael Edmonds
The heroic logger Paul Bunyan is the best-known character in American folklore, and oral versions of Paul Bunyan tales began circulating the Great Lakes logging camps between the mid-1800s and 1900. Despite the fact that the "typical old time woodsmen" were actually the Hell's Angels of their day—with axes—most of the credit for preserving the original tales belongs to a young woman, Miss Bernice Stewart of the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Her father had been a timber cruiser in Northern Wisconsin and Michigan and as a young girl she had spent several winters in camp where she became interested in the yarns. Along with her professor, Homer A. Watt, Stewart was able to preserve the tales as they had been improvised aloud in conversations among illiterate loggers in isolated forest bunkhouses.
Table of Contents
On the Trail of Paul Bunyan by Michael Edmonds
The heroic logger Paul Bunyan is the best-known character in American folklore, and Wisconsin sits at the center of his legend. Most of the credit for preserving the original tales belongs to a young woman, Miss Bernice Stewart of the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Along with her professor, Homer A. Watt, Stewart was able to preserve the tales as they had been improvised aloud in conversations among illiterate loggers in isolated forest bunkhouses.
The Wisconsin Idea in Action by Christine Pawley
In the late 1940s, a quarter of Wisconsin’s population lacked free access to libraries, and rural literacy rates were low. Building onto the concept of the Wisconsin Idea that the university’s influence should be felt throughout the state, the Wisconsin Free Library Commission called for the involvement of all Wisconsin citizens as partners in democracy. To reach citizens of rural areas a bookmobile served both Door and Kewaunee counties and over 90 percent of grade-school children in the rural schools made use of the service.
Observations on the Log Book of Preston Reynolds One of the 4 River Rovers on a Trip Down the Wisconsin, Mississippi, and up the Rock and Yahara Rivers by Marguerite Helmers
Housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society, the log book of Preston "Pick" Reynolds is a small leather-bound volume filled with reminiscences of the adventures Reynolds undertook with three friends as they traveled in two canoes down the Wisconsin River to the Mississippi in 1903. Distinguished by numerous detailed drawings and the droll wit of its author, the diary provides a vivid glimpse of a changing way of life in America at the turn of the twentieth century.
The Photography of Dr. Edward A. Bass by Jim Slattery
Dr. Edward Bass was a talented amateur photographer whose work provided a rare look at family, social, and political events in Wisconsin between 1892 and 1911. His photographs are preserved on 134 glass negatives donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society by his son in 1957. (Image Essay)
Book Excerpt: Finding Josie by Wendy Bilen
Years after her grandmother Josie Broadhead’s death, Bilen embarks on a journey to unearth Josie’s story—and quickly realizes the search is also about self-discovery.
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