The Making of Milwaukee is generally acknowledged as the standard history of Wisconsin’s largest city. Well-written, superbly organized, and lavishly illustrated, it tells the story of a Midwest metropolis that has been, at various times, the largest shipper of wheat on earth, America’s most “foreign” city, the nation’s beer capital, “The Machine Shop of the World,” and the epicenter of municipal Socialism. Renowned historian John Gurda chronicles the development of a human-scale metropolis, a community whose past has produced one of the most livable big cities in America and, at the same time, created some daunting social and economic problems. This fourth edition of the book features a thoroughly updated text and an all-new chapter that brings Milwaukee’s story up to the present day.

The Making of Milwaukee

Arts & Photography

Gurda, John

Photography & Video

Milwaukee County Historical Society

Originally published in a limited German language edition in 1911, this collection of over 500 letters has now been translated into English.

German-American Pioneers in Wisconsin & Michigan: The Frank-Kerler Letters 1849-1864

Frank, Louis F.

Sheldon B. Lubar is one of Wisconsin's leading entrepreneurs, most generous philanthropists, and most public-spirited citizens. This memoir, published in Mr. Lubar's 91st year, shares the secrets of his success and explains the deeply held principles behind it.

Climbing My Mountain: My Life, Words, and Values

Biographies & Memoirs

Lubar, Sheldon B.

Historical

An impressive history of one of Wisconsin's best known companies. This book features historical information, photographs, and first person accounts of the company known as Allis Chalmers. In the spring of 1846, an ambitious young New Yorker names Edward P. Allis arrived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to begin a long and distinguished business career. By the 1880's, he had built the Edward P. Allis Company into a leading manufacturer of steam engines, sawmills, and milling machines, the forerunner of today's Allis-Chalmers Corporation. This volume traces the development of Allis-Chalmers from the first products of the "Reliance Works" to the diversified international corporation of the 1970's. The personalities who led the business through industrial, economic, and political cycles -- Edward Allis, Edwin Reynolds, Otto Falk, David Scott, and others -- are included, as are the major technological advances and inventions which have kept the company in the forefront of world industrial development over the years.

An Industrial Heritage: Allis -Chalmers Corporation

Peterson, Walter F.

Business & Money

Bay View, Milwaukee's most identifiable and, in many ways, most distinctive neighborhood, is also the section of the city that has received the greatest attention from community historians.

The story of Bay View

History

Korn, Bernhard C.

Americas

A pictorial and entertaining commentary on the growth and development of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

Milwaukee at the Gathering of the Waters

Anderson, Harry H.

Olson, Frederick I.

Jones Island, originally a mile-long peninsula bordering on the Lake Michigan shoreline, is today the site of Milwaukee's sewerage treatment plant and a substantial part of the city's port facilities. The area has a long and fascinating history, including close ties to several important maritime industries and the rich and varied ethnic heritage of Milwaukee. In 1854 a shipbuilder named James Monroe Jones established a yard on the island and gave to it an identity that has lasted into modern times. Later in the 1870s, a sizeable colony of Kashubian fishermen, Polish immigrants from the Baltic Peninsula of Hel, began to settle on the island. Broadening the ethnic mix of the island colony were Germans from the Stettin area on the Baltic, and a sprinkling of Scandinavians and other nationalities. Officially, all the Jones Island residents were "squatters" on property they did not own. In 1892 the Illinois Steel Company, which claimed legal title to the land, began a long series of court actions to determine who really owned Jones Island. Based on research into traditional sources, court records, photo collections and personal interviews, this volume describes in fascinating detail the life and customs of the Fisherfolk.

The Fisherfolk of Jones Island

Kriehn, Ruth

With time on our side: A centennial history of Time Insurance Company

Raasch, Janet

Dear Jane: A soldier's letters from West Africa and the Middle East, 1942-45

The first full-length biography of one of Milwaukee's founding fathers, this carefully researched volume follows Byron Kilbourn from his boyhood home in Ohio to Wisconsin where he served as a surveyor. The book describes his competitive relations with Solomon Juneau and George Walker as he developed the land west of the Milwaukee River. Distributed for the MIlwaukee County Historical Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Byron Kilbourn and the Development of Milwaukee

Berquist, Goodwin

Bowers Jr., Paul C.

Arts & Literature

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Books by Milwaukee County Historical Society