If you haven't been inside the Milwaukee County Historical Society building, 910 N. Old World 3rd St., recently, you're in for a surprise.
Currently in the final phase of a years-long renovation (which got a bit of a boost from Hollywood, which filmed part of the movie "Public Enemies" in MCHS), the Historical Society is celebrating not only a real and tangible rebirth, but also its 75th anniversary.
In honor of that milestone, MCHS has been focusing on some of the great artifacts in its collection and by year's end, 75 such pieces will have been revealed via the museum's Web site in a virtual exhibition called, "Unlocking the Vaults: 75 Years, 75 Stories."
Fifty of the artifacts come from the museum vaults and another 25 are from the MCHS library collection.
"We wanted to showcase 75 of the most quirky, unique, interesting artifacts from the Historical Society's collections," says Mike Reuter, curator of collections at MCHS.
"We wanted to give the general public an idea of what we have at the society, especially from the museum division, because the research library is always open to the public. Their archival and genealogical resources are a lot better known around the community. Our artifacts, in the Society's history, have been used for exhibits exclusively, so people don't know a lot about those aspects as much as the research library's."
An online-only show is a major step for the institution, which a few years ago had permanent exhibitions that felt dated and a bare bones Web site with almost no information on the collections on it.
"It's a leap that we want to take forward," admits Reuter, who says his staff was influenced by a similar online exhibit created by Milwaukee Public Museum for its 125th anniversary last year.
"Initially, we wanted to make it a tangible exhibit once the renovation here in the Historical Society was completed in August. Unfortunately, with budgetary issues and the timetable for construction, that wasn't going to be able to happen.
"So, what we've done is reformatted it to be exclusively on our Web site. I then go out and offer lectures talking about our 75th anniversary and of the 'Unlocking the Vaults' exhibit. I talk roughly for about an hour about 50 or so of the artifacts; the ones that I find most interesting from a curatorial standpoint."
About half the objects have been revealed so far and a few more appear on the site each month. We asked Reuter to pick some of his favorites from the collection and these are what he chose:
Fragment of a typewriter key from Christopher Latham Sholes' first typewriter prototype. "He was known as the inventor of the typewriter and he did that in Milwaukee. This was donated by one of the founders of the Historical Society, County Supervisor Frederick Keefe, way back in the early years of the Historical Society. According to the informational sheet that came with the key, this fragment was broken off and the rest of the machine was given to the Milwaukee Public Museum."
Ceremonial key. "This key was given to Mayor Daniel Hoan, one of the more prominent Socialist mayors in Milwaukee, at the opening of the Schlitz Brown Bottle Restaurant in 1936, which was a long-standing restaurant, that is now Libiamo restaurant."
Civil War amputation kit. "(This) was the personal kit of Dr. Francis Huebschmann, who was the first surgeon in Milwaukee. He volunteered for the Wisconsin volunteers for the Civil War and he saw action in Gettysburg, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. This is his actual amputation kit that he used on wounded soldiers in the field. This was on display a few years ago in our Civil War exhibit."
Milwaukee Sentinel Cup automobile trophy. "The first endurance run that was sponsored by the Milwaukee Sentinel was held in 1912 and was won by Emil Hokanson who was an automobile nut. He raced several cars and actually won this trophy three times, donating this one to the society in the mid 1970s."
Wood fragment from the Lady Elgin. "The Lady Elgin was a steamer which was considered to be the Titanic of the Great Lakes. She sank in 1860 with many of Milwaukee's Irish intellectual and leadership community.
Many of the older artifacts in the society were donated by the Settlers Club, which was a group of very early Milwaukee pioneers, mainly white, male pioneers who formed a club to preserve not only the artifacts of early Milwaukee County and Milwaukee, but to get together as a social event to talk about the reminiscences and things of that nature.
When they disbanded in the early 20th century, they donated the bulk of their collection to the Historical Society; not just artifacts, but also archives and photographs and things of that nature. A lot of the Lady Elgin pieces were donated from this club. We have a door from the pilot house of the Lady Elgin and we have a shutter from the state rooms. We also have a really nice watercolor of an artist's rendering of the disaster when the Lady Elgin was sinking."
Susan Frackelton punch bowl. "This is the jewel of our Susan Frackelton arts collection. This is her famous punchbowl that was on display with many other items in the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Susan Frackelton was a prominent decorative arts leader not only in America, but also internationally.
She won a lot of awards not only at the 1893 World's Fair but also in London, Paris and Mexico for her art pottery and also her decorative china. She owned her own decorative china painting studio and sold decorative china to ladies during the Victorian era. It was a very popular hobby for middle to high class young ladies to do decorative china painting. She was a famous book illuminator as well. Along with the Wisconsin Historical Society, we have one of the largest art pottery collections of hers. "
Abraham Lincoln print. "This is one of the most popular of the 75 items, at least according to the number of hits we've had on the Web site. It is a very large, life-sized print of Abraham Lincoln. The printing plate was engraved by Henry Gugler, who was president and founder of the Gugler Lithographic Company, which produced a lot of the brewing labels for a lot of the prominent breweries at the turn of the century -- Pabst Brewing Company, Schlitz Brewing Company ... also did a lot of posters.
You've probably seen his famous lithograph of the bird's eye view of Milwaukee on the cover of John Gurda's 'Cream City Chronicles' -- it's that narrow view of Milwaukee from City Hall that then pans out. Gugler did this engraving of Abraham Lincoln to commemorate and immortalize the president after his assassination in 1865. He started work on it in 1866 and completed it in 1869. He created a number of prints from the original engraving and then sold them.
Over the years, Gugler sold the engraving to a private collector, and then in the 1930s, it was re-bought by the Gugler Company and donated to the Historical Society in 1966. We're thinking of generating prints to sell to generate revenue for the Historical Society."
Reuter says he hopes focusing on these and the other featured objects will encourage more people to join the Historical Society's "Adopt an Artifact" program which helps raise funds to preserve and protect the treasures in the collections at MCHS.
"The purpose of the program is to generate revenue that specifically goes back to the care of the collections, whether it's conservation care or to purchase archival products for storage or cabinetry," he says.
"We have everything from sports memorabilia to ethnologic items to decorative arts like sculpture, paintings ... we even have a time capsule that was donated from the WPA, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. There are different levels of adoption. The common donors versus the high end donors -- they can all participate in the program, and then there are benefits of membership related to that. This is a program that we want to last perpetually."
The MCHS building renovation is on schedule and due to be completed in August. There will be a gala event in autumn to celebrate the grand reopening. On Thursday, July 29 there will be an old fashioned picnic at the Historical Society, from 5 until 8 p.m. Admission is $7.50 and anyone who has ever had any connection whatsoever with MCHS or the building and its renovation is invited (that's arguably pretty much anyone).
After that, Reuter says, the museum -- which will also promote itself as a rental venue for weddings and other events -- will focus its efforts on new exhibitions. Next year they'll open a show on Milwaukee's brewing history and other exhibition ideas taking shape for the future include shows on socialism in Milwaukee, architecture here and a military-themed exhibit, too.
"The mission of the society moving forward," says Reuter, "is the delicate balance between being a rental venue and a museum and historical society. In the 21st century with us competing with the Milwaukee Public Museum and the Milwaukee Art Museum -- (and) all sorts of types of other entertainment we have to compete with -- the building has to take on multiple uses. That's the challenge and we're willing to face it and move forward."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
