A Victory Garden in a Milwaukee neighborhood, 1918Broccoli maybe? Whatever it is, it looks like a healthy crop. via: Historic Photo Collection, Milwaukee Public Library Erika Janik, writer, historian, and the producer and editor of Wisconsin Life on Wisconsin Public Radio, is our guest curator throughout the month of May. This week, Erika examined the history of Victory Gardens and other food conservation efforts during World War I. Next week, she’ll highlight milk, cheese, ice cream and other Wisconsin dairy delights.
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A Victory Garden in a Milwaukee neighborhood, 1918
Broccoli maybe? Whatever it is, it looks like a healthy crop.

via: Historic Photo Collection, Milwaukee Public Library

Erika Janik, writer, historian, and the producer and editor of Wisconsin Life on Wisconsin Public Radio, is our guest curator throughout the month of May. This week, Erika examined the history of Victory Gardens and other food conservation efforts during World War I. Next week, she’ll highlight milk, cheese, ice cream and other Wisconsin dairy delights.

Source: content.mpl.org

Poster for food conservation class presented by Gladys Stillman, 1918Food conservation classes were offered all over Wisconsin to help citizens deal with recommended food rationing. This poster advertises a class geared specifically at women, the main food providers and preparers, to teach them how to bake and can without sugar and wheat. via: School of Human Ecology: A Centennial Celebration, UW-Madison Archives by way of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
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Poster for food conservation class presented by Gladys Stillman, 1918
Food conservation classes were offered all over Wisconsin to help citizens deal with recommended food rationing. This poster advertises a class geared specifically at women, the main food providers and preparers, to teach them how to bake and can without sugar and wheat.

via: School of Human Ecology: A Centennial Celebration, UW-Madison Archives by way of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections

Source: digital.library.wisc.edu

Women Students’ War Work Council, “War Time Recipes,” 1917Wisconsin citizens pioneered many food conservation programs that became national models during World War I, including the introduction of meatless and wheatless days. Wheat, beef, pork, dairy products, and sugar were rationed in order to provide highly nutritive food to the military fighting overseas. Americans were urged to eat more vegetables and fruits because they did not transport well. To help Americans adjust to the changes, the Women Students’ War Work Council, together with the University of Wisconsin’s Home Economics Department, produced this booklet of recipes using alternative ingredients to show how everyone could do their part to support the troops. Some sound a little… questionable. Steamed barley pudding anyone? How about salmon box? via: Turning Points in Wisconsin History, Wisconsin Historical Society
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Women Students’ War Work Council, “War Time Recipes,” 1917
Wisconsin citizens pioneered many food conservation programs that became national models during World War I, including the introduction of meatless and wheatless days. Wheat, beef, pork, dairy products, and sugar were rationed in order to provide highly nutritive food to the military fighting overseas. Americans were urged to eat more vegetables and fruits because they did not transport well.

To help Americans adjust to the changes, the Women Students’ War Work Council, together with the University of Wisconsin’s Home Economics Department, produced this booklet of recipes using alternative ingredients to show how everyone could do their part to support the troops. Some sound a little… questionable. Steamed barley pudding anyone? How about salmon box?

via: Turning Points in Wisconsin History, Wisconsin Historical Society

Source: content.wisconsinhistory.org

Before Dear Abby Was Dear Nellie Nellie Kedzie Jones was a nationally recognized pioneer in home economics who brought down-to-earth and good-humored advice to rural farm women through her columns in The Country Gentleman from 1912 to 1918. Jones knew of what she spoke - she and her husband ran a farm in Marathon County, Wisconsin. Jones wrote a particularly vivid series of advice columns in the form of letters to an imaginary young niece named Janet from her “Aunt Nellie.” Young Janet, with her husband Ben, had supposedly just moved to an old farmhouse from the city and desperately needed advice on how to handle the overwhelming work burden. Jones’s basic message was that a farm wife must be efficient and spare herself in any small ways she could so that she did not change into an overworked piece of farm equipment. via: Nellie Kedzie Jones, “Advice to Farm Women,” Turning Points in Wisconsin History, Wisconsin Historical Society
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Before Dear Abby Was Dear Nellie
Nellie Kedzie Jones was a nationally recognized pioneer in home economics who brought down-to-earth and good-humored advice to rural farm women through her columns in The Country Gentleman from 1912 to 1918. Jones knew of what she spoke - she and her husband ran a farm in Marathon County, Wisconsin.

Jones wrote a particularly vivid series of advice columns in the form of letters to an imaginary young niece named Janet from her “Aunt Nellie.” Young Janet, with her husband Ben, had supposedly just moved to an old farmhouse from the city and desperately needed advice on how to handle the overwhelming work burden. Jones’s basic message was that a farm wife must be efficient and spare herself in any small ways she could so that she did not change into an overworked piece of farm equipment.

via: Nellie Kedzie Jones, “Advice to Farm Women,” Turning Points in Wisconsin History, Wisconsin Historical Society

Professional Opportunities in Home EconomicsImages of women in the kitchen are a familiar scene in home economics, but what these images don’t show is the important role that home economics played in getting women into higher education. From its inception, collegiate home economics was multidisciplinary and integrative with an emphasis on science applied to the real world of the home, family, and community. It was an academic science designed by women for women. In the first half of the 20th century, these programs prepared women for teaching but also for careers in extension services, state and federal government, industry, restaurants, hotels, and hospitals. The University of Wisconsin got its own Department of Home Economics in 1903. This image shows students working in one of the department kitchens in the 1910s. via: UW-Madison Archives by way of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
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Professional Opportunities in Home Economics
Images of women in the kitchen are a familiar scene in home economics, but what these images don’t show is the important role that home economics played in getting women into higher education. From its inception, collegiate home economics was multidisciplinary and integrative with an emphasis on science applied to the real world of the home, family, and community. It was an academic science designed by women for women. In the first half of the 20th century, these programs prepared women for teaching but also for careers in extension services, state and federal government, industry, restaurants, hotels, and hospitals.

The University of Wisconsin got its own Department of Home Economics in 1903. This image shows students working in one of the department kitchens in the 1910s.

via: UW-Madison Archives by way of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections

Major Charles M. Winter and Ed Winter in northeast China, 1919. Charles Winter of Stone Lake, Wisconsin (at left) and his son Ed (at right) served in the 339th Infantry in northern Russia over the winter of 1918-1919. The 339th, nicknamed the “Polar Bears” and “Detroit’s Own” (due to the large number of Michiganders serving in the division), were ostensibly in Russia to help prevent a German advance. However,  they remained there for several months after the official end of World War I, fighting Bolshevik revolutionaries in what author John Evangelist Walsh calls “one of the most fumbling foreign policy actions in our history.” The Winters traveled through China after what came to be known as the Polar Bear Expedition. Glass negatives from the Stone Lake Area Historical Society show father and son posing in front of landmarks in Beijing and in rural northeastern China. After returning to Wisconsin, Charles Winter developed a fishing camp on Big Sissabagama Lake in Sawyer County. via: Stone Lake Area Historical Society read more: John Evangelist Walsh, “The strange, sad death of Sergeant Kenney: a personal history of heroism and loss during America’s Russian intervention of 1918-19,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 85:2 (2001-2001); Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
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Major Charles M. Winter and Ed Winter in northeast China, 1919.

Charles Winter of Stone Lake, Wisconsin (at left) and his son Ed (at right) served in the 339th Infantry in northern Russia over the winter of 1918-1919. The 339th, nicknamed the “Polar Bears” and “Detroit’s Own” (due to the large number of Michiganders serving in the division), were ostensibly in Russia to help prevent a German advance. However,  they remained there for several months after the official end of World War I, fighting Bolshevik revolutionaries in what author John Evangelist Walsh calls “one of the most fumbling foreign policy actions in our history.”

The Winters traveled through China after what came to be known as the Polar Bear Expedition. Glass negatives from the Stone Lake Area Historical Society show father and son posing in front of landmarks in Beijing and in rural northeastern China. After returning to Wisconsin, Charles Winter developed a fishing camp on Big Sissabagama Lake in Sawyer County.

via: Stone Lake Area Historical Society

read more: John Evangelist Walsh, “The strange, sad death of Sergeant Kenney: a personal history of heroism and loss during America’s Russian intervention of 1918-19,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 85:2 (2001-2001); Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

Senior portraits in The Bay Mist, Oconto High School yearbook, 1910. Old high school and college yearbooks are a boon to genealogists and offer an excellent look at trends in young people’s clothing and hairstyles across the decades. This high school yearbook from Oconto, Wisconsin lists graduating seniors’ nicknames (check out “Skinny” and “Pickles”) as well as their extracurricular activities and a favorite quote. via: Farnsworth Public Library by way of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
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Senior portraits in The Bay Mist, Oconto High School yearbook, 1910.


Old high school and college yearbooks are a boon to genealogists and offer an excellent look at trends in young people’s clothing and hairstyles across the decades. This high school yearbook from Oconto, Wisconsin lists graduating seniors’ nicknames (check out “Skinny” and “Pickles”) as well as their extracurricular activities and a favorite quote.

via: Farnsworth Public Library by way of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections

Harry Aitken (above) and Roy Aitken (below), of Brookfield, Wisconsin in their Hollywood offices, ca. 1910. Born in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, brothers Harry Aitken (1878-1956) and Roy Aitken (1882-1978) became two of the silent film era’s most prolific producers and distributors. The Aitken brothers’ papers, including scripts and scenarios for more than 150 films, are housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives. via: Waukesha County Historical Society by way of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections read more: Andrea Comiskey, “Innovating Silent Cinema: The Papers of Harry and Roy Aitken,” Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
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Harry Aitken (above) and Roy Aitken (below), of Brookfield, Wisconsin in their Hollywood offices, ca. 1910.

Born in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, brothers Harry Aitken (1878-1956) and Roy Aitken (1882-1978) became two of the silent film era’s most prolific producers and distributors. The Aitken brothers’ papers, including scripts and scenarios for more than 150 films, are housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives.

Roy Aitken.

via: Waukesha County Historical Society by way of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections

read more: Andrea Comiskey, “Innovating Silent Cinema: The Papers of Harry and Roy Aitken,” Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research

Hoop net fishing on Lake Pepin, ca. 1910. At one time winter fishing made up a quarter of Wisconsin’s annual catch. These hoop nets, which could be 6 feet wide and over 500 feet long, would have made a big contribution. Norwegian-born Ole Hem (1866-?) is on the left, showing fish to commercial buyers on Lake Pepin in about 1910. Buyers came to Wisconsin from Chicago and other major cities to arrange large rail shipments, favoring catches of sheephead, catfish, and buffalo fish. By the 1970s Lake Pepin had become so contaminated with PCBs flowing in from the Mississippi that commercial fishing was closed down. via: Pepin Public Library, Indianhead Federated Library System by way of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
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Hoop net fishing on Lake Pepin, ca. 1910.

At one time winter fishing made up a quarter of Wisconsin’s annual catch. These hoop nets, which could be 6 feet wide and over 500 feet long, would have made a big contribution. Norwegian-born Ole Hem (1866-?) is on the left, showing fish to commercial buyers on Lake Pepin in about 1910. Buyers came to Wisconsin from Chicago and other major cities to arrange large rail shipments, favoring catches of sheephead, catfish, and buffalo fish. By the 1970s Lake Pepin had become so contaminated with PCBs flowing in from the Mississippi that commercial fishing was closed down.

via: Pepin Public Library, Indianhead Federated Library System by way of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections

Tall-tale Postcard: Winter Scene at Little Rib, Rib Lake, Wisconsin. Big fish jokes: timeless! This postcard from Rib Lake in north central Wisconsin dates from before 1911. It’s no joke that axes are part of ice fishing tradition, though. Until recently only hard-core fishermen owned augers for drilling holes. Most people used axes or long-handled chisels called ‘spuds’ to chop through the ice: a slushy, wet proposition, as you can imagine. via: Wisconsin Historical Images WHi-44532, Wisconsin Historical Society
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Tall-tale Postcard: Winter Scene at Little Rib, Rib Lake, Wisconsin.

Big fish jokes: timeless! This postcard from Rib Lake in north central Wisconsin dates from before 1911. It’s no joke that axes are part of ice fishing tradition, though. Until recently only hard-core fishermen owned augers for drilling holes. Most people used axes or long-handled chisels called ‘spuds’ to chop through the ice: a slushy, wet proposition, as you can imagine.

via: Wisconsin Historical Images WHi-44532, Wisconsin Historical Society

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