Socialisticher Maennerchor celebrated 50 years in 1926!

When Milwaukee's Socialists weren't busy cleaning up the corruption of previous decades (after the 1910 Mayoral election), they were celebrating their history ... dating back to 1876?
The article includes their full concert program and names additional choral and orchestral groups from near and far that participated in the event.

More politically enlightening history can be found by clicking here:

Milwaukee's history of Socialist Mayors

English or German language clippings? it's your choice.

Mrs. Catherine Dorothy Zach's death notice found in the Milwaukee Journal has been digitized into illegibility, but legible on library microfilm. The notice provides information about the arrangements, but only makes limited mention of the family: her daughters are identified by their husbands' names.

The German language death notice is not only more comprehensive but it's progressive too. It sets the scene for us: during her long illness she was provided with the Last Rights; includes Mrs. Zach's maiden name (Golner); provides her daughter's given names separately from their husband's names; names her daughter-in-law; and even references Mrs. Zach's siblings. It's a research and German-American cultural gem!

This is the family's paid death notice for Mrs. Zach; there was no separate obituary article written by the newspaper.

This difference between competing papers isn't always the case - it may even be found reversed in later years - but that bears understanding by family researchers or anyone else doing research for Milwaukee relatives. These differences may also be found in a comparison between the English language papers and Milwaukee's Polish language newspapers.

Deutsches Haus Milwaukee?

 

An old question dating back to the 1930s. 

For many years the "German" community used the Freie Gemeinde Hall - safely christened "Jefferson Hall". Built in 1928 on Fond du Lac Ave., north of North Ave., it's use probably appeased the orthodox WASPs among the community: obviously it was not Catholic, or the Lutherans wouldn't go near it, definitely not Jewish, so it was just right!

Presumably, Goethe Haus' 30 years of residency at the Milwaukee Public Library - Central Branch was a much later, logical answer. But that residency never produced a single project related to Milwaukee's historic German immigrant community; not with the Milwaukee Public Library, nor with the Milwaukee County Genealogical Society - another group in residence at the downtown library.

Passover in Milwaukee - matzos, matzos, matzos!

Jewish baker Julius Kohn (1724 Walnut St.) tells his valued customers that his matzos are available again this year and can be purchased at Klingbeil's on State St., Gottschalk's on Chestnut St., P. Welch's on Van Buren St., and at Ph. Weis' butcher shop on Jackson St. Weis was another advertiser of Kosher products in the Milwaukee Herold (the mainstream paper published by W. W. Coleman

Die Verlobung von Fräulein Nettie Lederer ...

Engagements and wedding announcements are just a small part of what's found in the German-American press.

Although spread between Milwaukee's multiple German language newspapers, the reportage is not as representative of the diverse German immigrant community as in smaller towns.

Milwaukeean Nettie Lederer (daughter of Abraham and Dorett Lederer from Forchheim, Bavaria) was engaged in 1893 to artist A. Stirling Calder while at art school in Philadelphia. The couple married in 1895 in New York.
Family or friends may have called in this news (accounting for misspellings).

I don't know if the art work of any one of these now famous Calders, A. Stirling, Nettie (Lederer) or their son Alexander Calder (b. 1898) is found in any Milwaukee area art collection; an artist with Jewish roots might be too much for Milwaukee's WASPish community to bear!

Mrs. A. Sweckle shares a postcard ... Das Brautpaar in Potsdam.

Mrs. A. Sweckle, 1216 24 St. shared her postcard of German royal newlyweds with the local newspaper. For that gesture, Louise, (Mrs. Albert Sweckle) gets an entry in the index of Milwaukee's German language newspapers.

The wedding of Prince Ernst August of Cumberland and Princess Victoria Luise, only daughter of the Kaiser, is remarkable as it "ended the decades-long rift between the Houses of Hohenzollern and Hanover. The wedding of Prince Ernest Augustus and Princess Victoria Louise was also the last great gathering of European sovereigns before the outbreak of the Great War.".

The complicated story of the long rift between the Houses of Hohenzollern and Hanover is told here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus,_Duke_of_Brunswick

Der neue israelische Tempel an der 5 Strasse ... Temple Beth Hazodol

Important new buildings and construction projects were featured in Milwaukee's German papers in the 19th century just as they are today in the digital news media. The new Temple Beth Hamedrosch Hazodol was located on the east side of N. 5th Street alongside the alley between W. Vliet and W. Cherry Streets.
There were at least 4 Jewish congregations in the downtown area in the 19th century.