Social Life
Wisconsin Citizen Petition Exhibit
In Wisconsin's early years, most of the wealth generated through trade, manufacturing, and land sales was directed toward construction projects and land investment, leaving few resources to develop social and intellectual institutions. Despite the more practical and functional economic objectives of Wisconsin's early white settlers, many quickly expressed an underlying concern for cultural and social improvement.
School the Deaf
Exterior view of the main building of the School for the Deaf View the original source document: WHI 25749
Petitions surrounding the foundation of discussion groups, libraries, agricultural societies, and most importantly, schools rapidly gained popularity. Many of the New Englanders among Wisconsin's white settlers were shocked at the condition of Wisconsin's schools and ardently supported the creation of a public education system. Towns petitioned for the building of school houses and the land to build them on using community funds. Communitites passed taxes to construct schoolhouses, petitions for land grants for universities, and founded academic institutions for the education of the blind and the institution which became the School for the Deaf.
Carroll College
View of a building at Carroll College, 1850 View the original source document: WHI 37213
By 1848, the Wisconsin legislature had incorporated four private colleges: Carroll College, Beloit College, Lawrence Institute (now Lawrence University), and Sinsinawa Mound College.
Religion was a large part of social life in early white settlements. Petitions on moral questions such as temperance, abolition, abortion, and divorce regularly cited the protection of Christian ideals. Many citizens petitioned against laws that could allow the state to interfere with parochial schools and violate the separation of church and state, while others petitioned to remove tax exemptions from religious organizations. The German Evangelical Lutheran Trinity community of the city of Sheboygan petitioned to remain tax exempt.
Citizens constructed hospitals, shelters for indigent residents, and mental health institutions preceding the Mendota Mental Health Center, Winnebago Mental Health Center. Communities also aggressively petitioned for laws regulating medical care and treatment of prisoners. Wisconsin elimited the death pentaly in 1853 following legislative action by Christopher Latham Sholes of Kenosha and Marvin H. Bovee, as well as citizen petitions on the topic.
Urban communities also took steps to legislate marital conduct and formalize family law legal processes. Husbands and wives did not hesitate to petition the legislature for divorces over all manners of improper conduct, including spousal abandonment, intemperance, adultery, and abuse. The legislature also responded to requests for name changes, legal adoptions, and inheritance rights.