Lazar Brkich
John Mickowski was born a century ago in Cheboygan, Michigan, into a family of Polish immigrants. As a young boy he moved to Milwaukee and settled in the heart of its Polish community.
The turning point for Mickowski's creative life was his retirement in 1956 from his position as chief operating engineer. He now had the leisure to pursue his various interests, and tried his hand at photography, painting and woodcarving.
Gini Rogowski and Juene Nowak Wussow, History Volunteers
LORE
The Milwaukee W.P.A. Handicraft Project came into being in 1935 to help meet the desperate needs of Milwaukeeans facing the anguish of unemployment in the truly bad times of the Great Depression. Created under the auspices of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.), the project sought to instill confidence and pride by providing temporary jobs which taught marketable skills especially to people who had little or no job training.
(1996)
Janean Mollet
The collection of miniature paintings is truly one of the hidden gems of the Museum. Several are on display in both the European Village and the Streets of Old Milwaukee. Visitors do not generally notice them, but they lend detail and authenticity to the life scene exhibits for which the Milwaukee Public Museum is best known.
John B. Lundstrom and Herbert F. Smith
LORE
Before the turn of the century, the business districts of American cities were graced by the presence of numerous cast-iron "street" or " post" clocks placed on sidewalks in front of buildings. Smaller cousins to the "tower clocks" installed in turrets and steeples, the elegant street clocks, often 15 or more feet high, served primarily as the trademarks of fine jewelry stores. Downtown Milwaukee was no exception.
(1989)
Albert A. Muchka
LORE
Imagine that cold clear February morning when Sully Watson, a fifty-five year old Virginia slave, breathlessly approached his master's son, Henry Wood Moncure, in his Richmond mercantile and set the wheels of freedom in motion. What intentions permeated Sully's thoughts as Moncure signed the receipt?
(1996)
John B. Lundstrom, History Curator and Bernard R. Weber, History Volunteer
LORE
It is doubtful that Rowland Hill fully realized the consequences of an idea he first suggested in 1837 to Her Majesty's Government. He thought that postal rates were too high and the whole system far too cumbersome. In those days a letter was still just a sheet of paper folded over, addressed and sealed.
(1996)
Albert A. Muchka
The Waterfowl & Shorebird Decoy Collection was begun in 1966 by Museum artist William Schultz. The core of the early collection was made up of decoys that were manufactured by WPA artist/carvers at MPM from patterns drawn by Museum taxidermist Warren Dettmann. These decoys were made for the Museum Zoology Department and were used to hunt for waterfowl specimens in the 1930s and 40s.
John B. Lundstrom
Submerged within the 20th Century's mass armies and enmeshed in its relentless mechanized wars, American fighting men have jealously preserved at least a measure of their individuality and independence. A definite indication of this spirit is the widespread practice of naming and personally decorating the machines taken into battle: vehicles, artillery pieces, and especially aircraft.