Milwaukee
MILWAUKEE
MILWAUKEE is the largest city in Wisconsin and the nineteenth largest in the United States. Known as the Cream City (for the cream-colored bricks produced there), Brew City (for its many breweries), and the German Athens (for its once-dominant German population), Milwaukee was still known at the end of the twentieth century for its bratwurst, ethnic festivals, and innovative city government. Milwaukee's history has been marked by the long terms of its mayors. The nonpartisan format of local elections (a socialist reform) produced remarkable stability
in the mayoralty, as only three men held the job between 1948 and 2000.
The area now known as Milwaukee (opinions differ as to the exact Native American meaning of the name, but the most likely is "gathering place") was the home to various settlements after at least a.d. 400. The first permanent white settlements began in the early 1830s, following the lead of the French Canadian fur trader Solomon Juneau. Other early noteworthies included Byron Kilbourn and George Walker, whose names persisted in street and neighborhood names. In its early years, Milwaukee vied with Chicago as a Great Lakes port, but the coming of the railroad cemented Chicago's place as the predominant metropolis of the Middle West.
The late nineteenth century saw the arrival of a large Polish population to rival the Germans, Irish, and British who had arrived earlier; this new group left its mark on the landscape of the city's South Side, although relatively few Poles remained at the end of the twentieth century. Additions to Milwaukee's ethnic mix during that century included large Hispanic and African American populations, as well as other small groups.
Economically, the 1970s and 1980s saw the steady erosion of the industrial base that had once powered Milwaukee's economy. Established firms such as Allis-Chalmers, Allen-Bradley, Briggs and Stratton, Harley-Davidson, Milwaukee Power Tools, Pabst Brewing Company, and Schlitz Brewing Company either slashed workforces or were bought out, resulting in a painful period of adjustment. The election of John Norquist as mayor in 1988 signaled a new direction and the 1990s were a decade of rejuvenation for the appearance, if not the population, of Milwaukee. (The population declined 5 percent from 1990 to 596, 974 in 2000.) At the end of the decade, the economy was anchored by some old names (Miller Brewing, Harley-Davidson, Northwestern Mutual) and some new ones (M and I Data Services, Firstar Bank, Manpower Professional), and the metropolitan area had entered a period of slow but stable growth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alderman, Ralph M. From Trading Post to Metropolis: Milwaukee County's First 150 Years. Milwaukee, Wisc.: Milwaukee County Historical Society, 1987.
Gurda, John. The Making of Milwaukee. Milwaukee, Wisc.: Milwaukee County Historical Society, 1999.
Still, Bayrd. Milwaukee: The History of a City. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1948.
ChristopherMiller