Search

Park City was the original name of Kenosha, Wisconsin and the Park City Grays were the local militia. The group was mustered into the Wisconsin 1st infantry at Milwaukee and sent, wearing their gray coats, to guard Washington, D.C. at the outbreak of the Civil War. Before the Civil War, the color of the 1st Wisconsin Militia (as well as many other states) was gray. However, gray was the color of the Confederate Army as well, and at the beginning of the Civil War, the Union quickly changed their color to blue. This coat was worn by Sergeant Warren Graham in 1861. Graham, a Milwaukee native, was the first casualty of the Civil War to be buried in Wisconsin.

This collection was obtained from the Ndyuka of Suriname, a small Caribbean country on the northeast coast of South America. The Ndyuka are one of the six major Maroon groups living in either Suriname or nearby French Guiana. Maroon is a term used to denote the descendants of African runaway slaves from Dutch plantations during the late-17th and early-18th centuries. The culture is thus strongly rooted in West and Central African cultural traditions with some Amerindian influences. The collection of over 50 items, the majority donated by Peter French in 1945, relates to everyday activities, such as kitchen utensils, a laundry beater (as pictured here), and hammocks. Few museums in the United States have collections from the Ndyuka. See Ndyuka items exhibited on the Museum's Third Floor where the African and Latin American Halls converge.

The Chilkat is a Tlingit band that lives in southeastern Alaska. Their blankets, woven from mountain goat wool and cedar bark, are five-sided, heavily fringed, and display stylized animal figure designs. During important ceremonies, the blankets are worn as capes. The Chilkat blanket weaving tradition originated with the Tsimshian people who live south of the Chilkat, but the tradition spread to them through trade and marriage. The Chilkat refined this blanket weaving style to its highest level in the late 19th century but largely died out about 100 years ago; the traditional form is continued by only a few weavers. Dr. H. M. Brown of Milwaukee received this blanket as payment by an American Indian father for treating his daughter. It was donated to the Museum in 1929 by Dr. Brown's wife.