A 'Deutsches Haus' in Milwaukee? Couldn't be built: the German 'community' was too divided.

Could a "German Haus" ever be built in Milwaukee? An old question dating back to the 1930s. 

You'd think that Goethe House Wisconsin's 30 years of residency at the Milwaukee Public Library was a logical answer to this question. But that residency never produced a single project or event, not a pamphlet, not a poster, celebrating Milwaukee's huge, diverse, German immigrant working-class community.

Nothing was EVER done in conjunction with the Milwaukee Public Library, nor with the Milwaukee County Genealogical Society also in residence there, nor with any of the then-fading German cultural groups of Milwaukee.

That was the state of any specifically "German" research assistance I found at the turn of the 21st Century. That was when I made the attempt to delve deeply into local collections for my 100% German-American ancestry in Milwaukee and nearby communities!