Current Issue of the Wisconsin Magazine of History
Summer 2024, Volume 107, Number 4
International Harvester promotional image, 1949
Featured Story
Femineered!
Creating a Market for the Modern Kitchen
By Rima D. Apple
In this gallery essay, Rima D. Apple focuses on the gendered role of International Harvester’s home economists in the development of domestic industries, an often-overlooked force that shaped the modern world. When IH launched its line of refrigeration products in 1947, the buying market for home freezers did not exist. Homemakers—primarily women—were used to canning, storing, and preserving food to ensure it would last through winter and wartime. To persuade women to invest in its home freezers and refrigerators, International Harvester created Irma Harding, a fictional home cook whose face appeared in advertisements and on cookbooks. A cadre of university-trained home economists, dubbed “Irma Harding’s girls,” taught women the benefits of freezing and chilling food in the modern way, ushering in a rapidly-changing world of new domestic technologies and advising IH engineers on their design.
The official program of the 1924 Republican National Convention.
Throw ’Em Out!
By John Nichols
Author John Nichols delves into the rich history behind Wisconsin’s political dissidence at the 1924 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Although Calvin Coolidge had already secured the votes needed to become the party’s presidential nominee, all but one of Wisconsin’s delegates stood united in support of Wisconsin’s progressive native son, Robert M. “Fighting Bob” La Follette. Twenty-eight delegates faced down the political majority and backed La Follette, the face of the progressive movement that had moved considerably to the left after the defeat of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Although their stance did not change the outcome of the election, La Follette’s followers helped mount the first third-party progressive bid for the presidency, with significant and long-lasting impacts on Wisconsin politics.
Black Nite collage art. Illustration by Brock Kaplan
Black Nite, Part One
Discovering the True Story behind Wisconsin’s First LGBTQ Uprising
By Michail Takach
In this mix of first-person narrative and investigative reporting, author Michail Takach introduces us to Josie Carter, “the Mother of Gay Milwaukee.” Josie was a beloved figure among Milwaukee’s trans elders. She mentored newcomers to Milwaukee’s drag scene, opened a bar in her own home, and was widely known for her colorful storytelling. In part one of this story, Takach shares his attempts to interview Josie after a chance meeting in 2010, during his first years of involvement with the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project. Over the course of many interviews and several years of following rabbit trails, he tracked down the long-buried truth behind Josie’s most dramatic story, about the events that took place at Milwaukee’s Black Nite bar on August 5, 1961, almost eight years before San Fransisco’s Stonewall uprising. The conclusion to this story will appear in the Fall 2024 issue.
Book Excerpt
We Had Fun and Nobody Died: Adventures of a Milwaukee Music Promoter
By Amy T. Waldman with Peter Jest
This spirited biography tells the story of Peter Jest, the stubbornly independent promoter and owner of Shank Hall, a music venue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Detailing Peter’s lasting friendships with John Prine, Arlo Guthrie, and Milwaukee’s own Violent Femmes, this nostalgia-inducing book offers a backstage pass to the seldom-seen world of music promotion, including his successful attempt to book Iggy Pop, shared in this short excerpt.
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