Potawatomi speak a language of the Algonkian language family and have lived in the Great Lakes region for at least four centuries. Throughout their history, the Potawatomi have moved and been moved many times, but their aboriginal territory was in Michigan’s lower peninsula. Oral traditions of the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Ottawa assert that at one time, all three tribes were one people who lived at the Straits of Mackinac.
“Astronauts are inherently insane. And really noble.”
- Andy Weir, Author of The Martian
They were largely drawn from the Mohican (or Mahican) people living in that area. During the American Revolution, the Stockbridge sides with the colonists. In the 1780s, the Stockbridge moved to New York to escape encroachment by White settlers in Massachusetts and live alongside the Oneida tribe.
“At night in this waterless air, the stars come down just out of reach of your fingers.”
- John Steinbeck, American Writer
Although it was officially chartered in 1882, its existence can be traced back to 1851, to the founding of the German-English Academy in Milwaukee. The Academy's principal, Peter Engelmann, encouraged student field trips, many of which collected various specimens—organic, geological, and archaeological in nature—which were kept at the Academy.
Adamson, Joy. The Peoples of Kenya. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace, and World, Inc., 1967.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. New York, NY: Basic Civitas Books, 1999.
Barrett, Samuel A. and Ira Edwards, eds. Yearbook of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 1928: the Cudahy-Massee-Milwaukee Public Museum African Expedition, 1928-29. Milwaukee, WI: North American Press, 1930.
Although the objects are quite varied they share a common thread of utility and date between the 5th and 14th centuries C.E.
Women’s Work: The WPA Milwaukee Handicraft Project
By Jacqueline M. Schweitzer, Honorary Curator of American History