Results by title
453 books match the query 'Wisconsin' and 28 start with s
Sage Dreams, Eagle Visions
Danielle M. Hornett
Michigan State University Press, 2004
Amanda Aaron, a woman of mixed Ojibwe and white heritage, spent twenty years living in Milwaukee, away from her home and family. After the deaths of her parents, a short-lived marriage to an abusive non-Indian, and finally a tragic accident in which her friends were killed, she is pushed into a state of depression. Acting on her doctor’s orders, she returns to her grandparents’ cabin on her home reservation in northern Wisconsin, seeking the solitude she needs to recover.
Migizi, the Eagle, the Grandfather’s messenger, gifts Amanda with a feather, then visits her one night in her bedroom. Wanting to believe it was a dream, but knowing it was not, Amanda seeks the advice and counsel of Elders on the reservation who, in turn, introduce Amanda to Noah, a spiritual man who can guide and advise her as her life becomes complicated with unwanted responsibilities. Eventually, Amanda is forced to admit that the void she has been experiencing can only be filled by a return to the reservation—a life that has always enriched her and provided her with the needed strength to achieve her goals.
Sand and Fire
Exploring a Rare Pine Barrens LandscapeDave Peters
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2023
While many people are familiar with the federally protected St. Croix and Namekagon Rivers of northwestern Wisconsin, few know about the Namekagon Barrens, a rare pine barrens landscape within a few miles of their confluence. A tiny remnant of the millions of barrens acres that once covered the region, the Namekagon Barrens Wildlife Area lies in the heart of the state’s Northwest Sands, a band of pine and oak stretching from Bayfield on Lake Superior to St. Croix Falls on the Wisconsin–Minnesota border. Unfathomable amounts of glacial sand and repeated fires over thousands of years shaped a land of scrub oak and jack pine, blueberries and sweet fern, creating an ideal habitat for wolves and sharp-tailed grouse.
Just as compelling is the land’s rich human history, from Paleo-Indian hunters to Ojibwe berry pickers, loggers to early road builders, and immigrants whose farming efforts failed to the wildlife habitat specialists who manage it today. The book, told in memoir style and featuring color photographs by the author, sets the land’s unusual natural history as the backdrop for a multilayered story about the impact of people on this vulnerable landscape.
Silver winner of the 2023 Midwest Book Award for History
"Peters invites his readers on a journey across time and space, to the glacial formation of the Namekagon Barrens into the present. . . . The book is replete with beautiful photographs, useful maps, and a number of other images that seem to appear on nearly every other page. This book should appeal to a wide public readership while at the same time being a useful primer for academics and researchers."
—Hayden L. Nelson, Environmental History
Saving Our Sturgeon
Protecting Wisconsin's Ancient FishRebecca Hogue Wojahn
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2025
The story of a fascinating fish and the forward-thinking people who saved them in Wisconsin
For millennia, sturgeon swam the waterways of Wisconsin. Before the 1800s, an estimated eleven million sturgeon lived in Lake Michigan alone. Menominee and Ojibwe people depended on the fish for food and harvested them sustainably. But in the early 1900s, the lake sturgeon was near extinction. Saving Our Sturgeon tells the remarkable story of lake sturgeon in Wisconsin, the conservation efforts to save the species, and what is being done to keep the population healthy and thriving today.
Readers will learn about the natural history of the lake sturgeon—its anatomy, behavior, and habitat—and the factors that threatened its survival, from overharvesting to the building of dams that prevented sturgeon from reaching spawning areas. The book, written for young readers aged eleven and up, explains how government agencies, conservationists, and citizen groups worked together to save the sturgeon population in Wisconsin.
Saving Our Sturgeon includes a chapter about the Menominee Nation’s work to revitalize cultural traditions focused on the sturgeon and restore access to the fish on their reservation. The book also highlights how young people can get involved with sturgeon conservation efforts.
A great resource for classroom use, Saving Our Sturgeon contains maps, photos, and diagrams, plus a glossary of terms, a timeline of events, a Who’s Who list of individuals and groups featured in the book, and a bibliography that highlights kid-friendly sources to learn more. Young readers will learn basic facts about sturgeon biology, what it means for a species to be threatened or endangered, and how scientists use data to support repopulation. This inspiring book shares a conservation success story about one remarkable (and plenty peculiar) species of fish and shows young readers how they, too, can help protect these incredible creatures.
Ages 11 - 14; Grade level 6 - 9; Lexile® measure 1060L
Seeds in Soil
Planting a Garden and Finding Your RootsSusan Apps-Bodilly
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2022
natural curiosity about nature. Seeds in Soil includes all the details to start planting and growing, whether working with a whole yard, a community or school garden, or just a balcony.
Chapters feature advice for selecting the seeds and tools to get started; ideas for planning and being creative in the garden; and tips for harvesting, storing, and cooking with fresh produce. Written by a second-grade teacher, the book includes engaging lessons about the science of climate, soil, and pollinators; and connections to history through the stories of First Nations and immigrant gardeners. Told through the author’s family stories and experience, Seeds in Soil will get kids having fun in the garden while digging, planting, growing, and finding their roots.
Settlin’
Stories of Madison’s Early African American FamiliesMuriel Simms
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018
Seventh Generation Earth Ethics
Native Voices of WisconsinPatty Loew
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2025
Indigenous perspectives on sustainability, culture, and community
In this collection of twelve biographies, one from each of the Native nations in Wisconsin, author Patty Loew (Bad River Ojibwe) introduces readers to prominent figures in Native sustainability—people whose life’s work reflects the traditional ecological knowledge and cultural values of their people.
Born out of Loew’s thirty years as a journalist and historian, Seventh Generation Earth Ethics highlights individuals who helped to sustain and nurture their nations.
Walter Bresette, Red Cliff Ojibwe, community activist
Hilary Waukau, Menominee, environmental warrior
Frances Van Zile, Mole Lake (Sokaogon) Ojibwe, keeper of the water
James Schlender, Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe, treaty rights guardian
Jose Rose, Bad River Ojibwe, elder, environmentalist, and scholar
Dorothy Davids, Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians, educator
William Gollnick, Oneida, culture keeper
Thomas St. Germaine, Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe, attorney
Truman Lowe, Ho-Chunk, organic sculpture artist
Jenny and Mary Thunder, Forest County Potawatomi, medicine women
Wanda McFaggen, St. Croix Ojibwe, Tribal Historic Preservationist
Caroline Andler, Brothertown Indian Nation, genealogist
The indigenous people whose lives are depicted in Seventh Generation Earth Ethics understood the cultural gravity that kept their people rooted to their ancestral lands and acted in ways that ensured the growth and success of future generations.
Shelter and Storm
At Home in the Driftlessdean
University of Minnesota Press, 2025
Living mindfully with nature during a time of uncertainty
In the midst of the environmental crises of the early twenty-first century, Tamara Dean sought a way to live lightly on the planet. Her quest drew her to a landscape unlike any other: the Driftless area of Wisconsin, a region untouched by glaciers, marked by steep hills and deeply carved valleys, capped with forests and laced with cold, spring-fed streams. There, she confronted, in ways large and small, the challenges of meeting basic needs while facing the ravages of climate change—an experience at once soul-stirring and practical that she recounts in Shelter and Storm.
Dean’s boundless curiosity and gift for storytelling imbue these essays with urgency and a sense of adventure. She invites readers to share in her discoveries while hunting for water, learning that a persistent weed could be food, or burning a hayfield to recreate a prairie. Contending with the fallout of fires, floods, and tornadoes, she offers responses to natural disasters that reflect the importance of community, now and for generations to come. Whether tracking down a rare, blue-glowing firefly, engineering a beaver-friendly waterway to appease a dying neighbor, or building a house of earthen blocks, Dean unites personal experience with science and history, presenting a perspective as informative as it is compelling.
Keenly attentive to the stakes for our planet’s future—and the implications of extreme weather, shifting agricultural practices, and political divides—Shelter and Storm illuminates a thoughtful way forward for anyone concerned about climate change and its far-reaching consequences or for anyone searching, as Dean has, for a more sustainable way to live.
Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly.
Sign Here If You Exist and Other Essays
Jill Sisson Quinn
The Ohio State University Press, 2020
Sign Here If You Exist explores states of being and states of mind, from the existence of God to sense of place to adoptive motherhood. In it, Jill Sisson Quinn examines how these states both disorient and anchor us as she treks through forests, along shorelines and into lakes and rivers as well as through memories and into scientific literature.Each essay hinges on an unlikely pairing—parasitic wasps and the afterlife, or salamanders and parenthood—in which each element casts the other in unexpectedly rich light. Quinn joins the tradition of writers such as Annie Dillard, Scott Russell Sanders, and Eula Biss to deliver essays that radiate from the junction of science and imagination, observation and introspection, and research and reflection.
Silver Screens
A Pictorial History of Milwaukee's Movie TheatersLarry Widen
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2007
Silver Screens traces the rich history of Milwaukee's movie theaters, from 1890s nickelodeons to the grand palaces of the Roaring Twenties to the shopping mall outlets of today. And the story doesn't end there: in the past two decades, the revival of interest in preservation and restoration of theaters has confirmed that there's still life in these beloved old structures. With the publication of Silver Screens, authors Larry Widen and Judi Anderson help ensure that our old theaters, those being restored and those long since vanished, will remain forever embedded in our collective memory.
In this revised edition of their book Milwaukee Movie Palaces, the authors present new findings on film innovations, drive-in theaters, projection booths, movie promotions, noted theater personalities, recent restoration efforts, and much more. Illuminated with more than a hundred photographs, including many never before published, Silver Screens is a stunning tribute to the legacy of the movie theater.
Simple Things
Lessons from the Family FarmJerry Apps
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018
Sister
An African American Life in Search of JusticeSylvia Bell White and Jody LePage
University of Wisconsin Press, 2013
Winner, Wisconsin Historical Society Book Award of Merit
Six Generations Here
A Farm Family RemembersMarjorie McLellan
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1997
Six Generations Here: A Farm Family Remembers
by Marjorie L. McLellan, with an essay by Kathleen Neils Conzen and a foreword by Dan Freas
Discover the story of the Krueger family, as images of farm, family, and landscape reveal the struggles of rural immigrant life in Wisconsin. Drawing on snapshots, memorabilia, and interviews, Six Generations Here brings together the voices of the past and the present to create a distinctive portrait of Wisconsin farm life.
Leaving their German home in 1851, the Kruegers came to America for economic opportunity. But like other immigrant families, they struggled to make ends meet. Only with the whole family helping out did they manage to get their Watertown farm up and running. By the turn of the century, they had achieved a life of middle-class comfort in the midst of the rigors of dairy farming. Over the generations, the Kruegers incorporated their past traditions with the needs of the present, adapting to the challenges of rural American life and, when necessary, breaking from the past. Despite these changes, their commitment to hard work and family persisted, shaped their identity, and ensured their success.
Through photographs, documents, and family stories, the Kruegers left a deep history of who they were and how they sought to be remembered. Follow their family through six generations as they compile a rich and varied record of Wisconsin life.
Skunk Hill
A Native Ceremonial Community in WisconsinRobert A. Birmingham
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2015
In Skunk Hill, archeologist Robert A. Birmingham traces the largely unknown story of this community, detailing the role it played in preserving Native culture through a harsh period of US Indian policy from the 1880s to 1930s. The story’s central focus is the Drum Dance, also known as the Dream Dance or Big Drum, a pan-tribal cultural revitalization movement that swept the Upper Midwest during the Great Suppression, emphasizing Native values and rejecting the vices of the white world. Though the community disbanded by the 1930s, the site, now on the National Register of Historic
Places with two dance circles still visible on the grounds, stands as testimony to the efforts of its members to resist cultural assimilation.
Some Like It Cold
Surfing the Malibu of the MidwestWilliam Povletich
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2016
Some Like It Cold
chronicles the true story of twin brothers Lee and Larry Williams, whose love of surfing evolved in the most unlikely of geographies: off the shores of Lake Michigan. From their boyhood home in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the brothers trekked to the local beach with their longboards and their dreams to master the waves at spots like the Elbow and the Cove. The next six decades proved that their zeal for catching grinders and barrels was much more than a hobby.
Surfing in the cold had its challenges, and Lee and Larry recall stories of freak storms, ice-encrusted beaches, and near drownings, along with the usual hypothermia, helped but not cured by their customized cold-water wetsuits. Despite living nearly 2,000 miles from either coast, Lee and Larry have made a lifestyle out of freshwater surfing, recreating their hometown as "The Malibu of the Midwest" and gaining international fame as hosts of the Dairyland Surf Classic.
With humor and wit, author William Povletich brings their tale of revolutionizing surf culture to the page.
Something for Everyone
Memories of Lauerman Brothers Department StoreMichael Leanah
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2013
This book traces the history of the Lauerman enterprise and its importance to the community of Marinette and dozens of counties in northern Wisconsin and the UP. The author takes readers on a tour of the store’s most memorable and delightful features, from the plethora of merchandise offered to the record-listening booths to the famous frosted malt cones. Along the way we hear the recollections of dozens of former customers and employees whose memories form a unique tapestry of family, business, and community story. As it brings to life the people who worked and shopped at Lauermans, Something for Everyone will have readers fondly recalling their own favorite shopping destinations during the golden age of department stores.
Somos Latinas
Voices of Wisconsin Latina ActivistsAndrea-Teresa Arenas
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018
Celebrated Latina civil rights activist Dolores Huerta once said, “Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.” These are the stories of some of the Latina activists from Wisconsin who have lived Huerta’s words. Somos Latinas shares the powerful narratives of 25 activists—from outspoken demonstrators to collaborative community-builders to determined individuals working for change behind the scenes—providing proof of the long-standing legacy of Latina activism throughout Wisconsin.
Somos Latinas draws on activist interviews conducted as part of the Somos Latinas Digital History Project, housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society, and looks deep into the life and passion of each woman. Though Latinas have a rich history of community activism in the state and throughout the country, their stories often go uncelebrated. Somos Latinas is essential reading for scholars, historians, activists, and anyone curious about how everyday citizens can effect change in their communities.
Spirits of Earth
The Effigy Mound Landscape of Madison and the Four LakesRobert A. Birmingham
University of Wisconsin Press, 2010
Spring Flora of Wisconsin
A Manual of Plants Growing without Cultivation and Flowering Before June 15Norman C. Fassett; Revised and enlarged by Olive S. Thomson
University of Wisconsin Press, 1976
Star Lake Saloon and Housekeeping Cottages
A NovelSara Rath
University of Wisconsin Press, 2006
When Hannah unexpectedly inherits her uncle's rundown resort, she must head to the northwoods to close up and sell the business. But the only interested buyer is Ingold, an international mining company, and Hannah finds herself reluctantly operating the resort while trapped in the midst of a treacherous dispute between Ingold and Uncle Hal's activist friends.
From safeguarding the wilderness to pursuing elusive new love interests, Hannah has plenty to engage her imagination at Star Lake. A new aspect of her personality emerges, one that is surprisingly courageous and compassionate. Throughout this humorous, elegantly plotted adventure with its appealing characters and lyrical depictions of nature, Hannah encounters the inevitability of change—in herself and in the nostalgic landscape of the deep North.
Steam & Cinders
The Advent of Railroads in WisconsinAxel Lorenzsonn
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2009
Stories from the Round Barn
Jacqueline Dougan Jackson
Northwestern University Press, 2000
Strangers No Longer
Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century WisconsinSergio M. González
University of Illinois Press, 2024
Hospitality practices grounded in religious belief have long exercised a profound influence on Wisconsin’s Latino communities. Sergio M. González examines the power relations at work behind the types of hospitality--welcoming and otherwise--practiced on newcomers in both Milwaukee and rural areas of the Badger State. González’s analysis addresses central issues like the foundational role played by religion and sacred spaces in shaping experiences and facilitating collaboration among disparate Latino groups and across ethnic lines; the connections between sacred spaces and the moral justification for social justice movements; and the ways sacred spaces evolved into places for mitigating prejudice and social alienation, providing sanctuary from nativism and repression, and fostering local and transnational community building.
Perceptive and original, Strangers No Longer reframes the history of Latinos in Wisconsin by revealing religion’s central role in the settlement experience of immigrants, migrants, and refugees.
Striding Lines
The Unique Story Quilts of Rumi O'BrienBobbie Malone
University of Wisconsin Press, 2019
Bobbie Malone reaches beyond the quilts to tell O'Brien's own story, from her initial foray into the quilting world to her developed dedication to the craft. Contributions from leaders in the art, textile and quilting community, including Melanie Herzog and Marin Hanson, contextualize O'Brien's work in the greater community of quiltmakers and artists. This book celebrates the life and ingenuity of a Japanese-born American immigrant whose oeuvre is equally Japanese and Wisconsinite—and entirely distinctive.
Studying Wisconsin
The Life of Increase Lapham, early chronicler of plants, rocks, rivers, mounds and all things WisconsinMartha Bergland
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2014
With masterful storytelling, Bergland and Hayes demonstrate how Lapham blended his ravenous curiosity with an equable temperament and a passion for detail to create a legacy that is still relevant today.
—John Gurda
In this long overdue tribute to Wisconsin’s first scientist, authors Martha Bergland and Paul G. Hayes explore the remarkable life and achievements of Increase Lapham (1811–1875). Lapham’s ability to observe, understand, and meticulously catalog the natural world marked all of his work, from his days as a teenage surveyor on the Erie Canal to his last great contribution as state geologist.
Self-taught, Lapham mastered botany, geology, archaeology, limnology, mineralogy, engineering, meteorology, and cartography. A prolific writer, his 1844 guide to the territory was the first book published in Wisconsin. Asked late in life which field of science was his specialty, he replied simply, “I am studying Wisconsin.”
Lapham identified and preserved thousands of botanical specimens. He surveyed and mapped Wisconsin’s effigy mounds. He was a force behind the creation of the National Weather Service, lobbying for a storm warning system to protect Great Lakes sailors. Told in compelling detail through Lapham’s letters, journals, books, and articles, Studying Wisconsin chronicles the life and times of Wisconsin’s pioneer citizen-scientist.
Such Anxious Hours
Wisconsin Women's Voices from the Civil WarJo Ann Daly Carr
University of Wisconsin Press, 2020
In Such Anxious Hours, Jo Ann Daly Carr places this material in historical context, detailing what was happening simultaneously in the nation, state, and local communities. Civil War history enthusiasts will appreciate these enlightening perspectives that demonstrate the variety of experiences in the Midwest during the bloody conflict.
Sunday Rides on Two Wheels
Motorcycling in Southern WisconsinBarbara Barber
University of Wisconsin Press, 2009
Swedes in Wisconsin
Frederick Hale
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2002
Hale describes the mass emigration from Sweden to the Midwest that began during the late 1860s and fundamentally changed both Sweden and the Midwest. During this time more than a million Swedes left their homeland for North America, motivated at least in part by a huge population surge that overtaxed Sweden’s relatively small amount of arable land (agriculture served until the twentieth century as the Swedish economy’s mainstay).
Updates for the new edition include new photos and excerpts from letters Swedish novelist and feminist Fredrika Bremer wrote to her sister while touring the Wisconsin frontier in the autumn of 1850.
Swiss in Wisconsin
Frederick Hale
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2007
In this concise introduction to the state’s Swiss settlers, Frederick Hale traces the catalysts for Swiss emigration, their difficult journeys, and their adjustments to life on Wisconsin soil. Updates for this expanded edition include additional historic photographs and the selected writings of John Luchsinger, who settled at the Swiss colony at New Glarus, in 1856.