February 7, 2020
To sell phonographic cabinets, a furniture business in Port Washington decided to start a record label. It became one of the leading producers of blues records in the 1920s and ...
December 27, 2019
Music is a cornerstone of Jewish culture, especially during holidays and festivals. Musician Lil Rev grew up in a musical family in Milwaukee, steeped in his family's Yiddish folk music ...
October 30, 2019
With Halloween this week, we thought it’d be the perfect time to revisit one of our favorite ghost stories on Wisconsin Life. “The Rusted Bell” was written by Darlene Rickert ...
November 8, 2018
If you go out to a frozen lake at this time of year, chances are good you’ll see a guy out there ice fishing. But ice fishing isn’t just for ...
August 8, 2018
Araceli Esparza’s grandmother picked vegetables for canning factories in Wisconsin. Among the vegetables she picked were beets, which stained her hands with both their color and smell. Araceli tells us ...
May 30, 2018
Yard games are always popular a chance to be outside and have fun with friends. You may have tossed horseshoes and bean bags but have you played kubb? Chris Malina ...
December 21, 2017
Food is a big part of the holiday season no matter what or how you celebrate. Many of us eat turkey on special occasions but is there a better fowl ...
June 28, 2017
Winnie Karanja first discovered coding in high school. But it didn't seem like a field for her. She's very social; she's female; and she's African American. "It's hard to enter a field ...
June 9, 2017
Bill Mattison fell in love with the circus as a kid in the 1930s, watching the circus train pass by his grandparents' home in La Crosse. "It was magic," Mattison recalls. ...
May 26, 2017
Carlos Rodriguez is a TimeSlips facilitator at St. Ann's Center for Intergenerational Care in Milwaukee. Rodriguez is also a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. As part of his classes, he's ...
May 24, 2017
For several years now, kids and seniors in Lodi have played games, painted, sung songs, and read stories together as part of an intergenerational program at the Good Samaritan Center. ...
April 21, 2017
For many years, Sagashus Levingston felt like she was faking motherhood. The women she knew looked nothing like the mothers in books and on TV, and she felt like she ...
March 29, 2017
Vata Edari always loved chocolate. And reading about it and experimenting with chocolate became a refuge for her from her work as a successful criminal defense attorney. Law wasn't the ...
February 15, 2017
It’s hard to imagine that any musician could be as prolific as Jay Anderson. The saxophonist performs nearly every night, has started his own record label, and grows his own ...
November 25, 2016
Corin Reilly always wanted to be an actor. He found a way to live his dream as part of Encore Studios, a theater company for people with disabilities. "I began ...
November 9, 2016
Raised beadwork was once widely practiced by the Iroquois but the art form had declined precipitously in the mid-20th century. Beadwork arose in the 19th century among the Iroquois as a ...
October 21, 2016
Antonio Saldana began working in the fields with his family as a migrant worker when he was four years old. "Everybody had to work," says Saldana. "If you could walk ...
October 19, 2016
The Wilson Place Mansion front door was crafted at the turn of the twentieth century as a gift for philanthropist, lumber baron, and senator James Huff Stout and his family. ...
October 12, 2016
Peter David knew little about wild rice when he began his job as a biologist for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. He’s since devoted his life to ...
October 7, 2016
The Hiawatha statue, also known as the "Big Indian," in La Crosse's Riverside Park is one of the most recognizable statues in the city. It's also a controversial symbol for Native ...
September 28, 2016
Created in 1933, Rose Mary Drab created a pillow sham to honor her brother Edward’s service in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The Drabs lived on a farm south of Antigo. Rose ...
September 16, 2016
Few people win one Pulitzer Prize. Madison-born Thornton Wilder won three, including one for the seminal play, “Our Town.” Wilder was born in Madison on April 17, 1897, the second ...
September 14, 2016
Perhaps no American historian stirs a more impassioned response than Frederick Jackson Turner. His ideas about the western frontier were both admired and maligned, sparking controversy across decades. He wasn’t ...
September 9, 2016
Best known now for the movies made from her books, Edna Ferber was one of the best-selling and most prolific writers of her era. Ferber wasn’t born in Wisconsin but ...
September 7, 2016
A prolific writers of novels, short stories, and essays, Wisconsin-born writer Hamlin Garland broke with the romanticism of his time to describe the harsh realities of farm life in his ...
September 2, 2016
The Pulitzer Prizes turn 100 this year. We’re honoring the occasion with a look at five winners with Wisconsin ties. Writer Zona Gale’s life in Portage inspired her work and ...
August 24, 2016
When he was 6 years old, David Rozelle’s mother left him and his sister at an orphan home in Racine. What was supposed to be a temporary situation as his ...
August 19, 2016
You may have seen someone wearing goggles, a corset, and a bustle in a local parade. Mixing the Victorian age with technology and industry, steampunk has taken off in recent ...
August 17, 2016
Barbershop music with its close four-part harmonies was very popular in the first part of the 20th century. You can still find barbershop quartets performing today but few are as ...
August 12, 2016
The Babcock butterfat test, developed at the University of Wisconsin, provided a simple and inexpensive way to assess the quality of milk. The test improved standards for milk producers, transforming the nation's dairy industry and setting ...
August 12, 2016
Zed Kenzo’s music is a reflection of her personality: bold, independent and creative. Zacharia Ruffin, known more commonly by her stage name Zed Kenzo, is a Milwaukee-based musician who has ...
August 10, 2016
One of the most well-known figures in Civil War Wisconsin wasn’t a person at all, but a bald eagle named Old Abe. Despite the name and the bird’s fame, though, the ...
July 22, 2016
Fruit and vegetable carving is a tradition that goes back centuries in Thailand. Monsiri Baird learned to carve as a child in school in Thailand. All the students learned, boys ...
July 13, 2016
June Dalton has defied expectations her entire musical career, and the all-female jazz band she founded called Ladies Must Swing is no exception. Based in Madison, Ladies Must Swing is ...
June 15, 2016
Raphael Baez was one of the first Mexicans to call Milwaukee home. Trained as a classical musician in Mexico, Baez was recruited to come to the United States by the ...
June 10, 2016
Ann Lewis grew up the daughter of a Great Lakes ship captain. Ships came in, ships went out – and with it, her father. "He was gone a lot, from ...
June 8, 2016
Some people make art using paint; others draw. Artist Stick Vega uses gun powder to create pop art. He discovered the potential of gun powder in art while on a ...
June 3, 2016
This story is produced in collaboration with Set List, WPR's home for new music. Discover more music from Set List here. Anna Vogelzang is a singer-songwriter with a big ...
May 27, 2016
It was bike touring that sparked the ultracycling obsession in Kelsey Regan. "You just load a bunch of camping gear on your bike and start riding," says Regan. "You go wherever you feel ...
May 25, 2016
Writing on the body is as old as time. Artists learn how to do it in multiple ways, including apprenticeships. Gabe Joyner is a second-year apprentice at a tattoo shop ...
April 29, 2016
Sherry Ackerman always loved art but hid her interest and her work until retirement. Now she sells her paintings and helps other nonprofessional artists discover and nurture their own artistic ...
April 27, 2016
Death is something we all experience. But what we don't experience much anymore is the actual dead body of our loved ones. Jonas Zahn didn’t plan to make a career ...
April 20, 2016
We each have a unique story but there are themes that reach across all human experience. Writer Debra Monroe shares a memory of her earliest memory and the lessons of ...
April 13, 2016
Will Hoverman is a sophomore at UW-Madison studying political science and journalism. But outside of school, Hoverman's life is filled with music. When he started college, Hoverman was lucky enough ...
March 23, 2016
For more than a century, the women of the Swan Creek Sewing Circle have gathered on the first Wednesday of the month for friendship and good works. Several members have ...
March 9, 2016
On an early summer evening in 1836, the steamship New York docked on the Milwaukee lakefront and a young naturalist and engineer stepped ashore. Only 25 years old and already ...
February 8, 2016
Renee had fallen on hard times when her longtime friend Rick stepped in to offer his support. Curiosity brought them into the Literacy Network in Madison. "I live right across the street ...
February 8, 2016
Miss Elizabeth came to Milwaukee from Liberia in 2007. She knew no English. She’d never really even gone to school. “Well, I didn’t go to school but I went to ...
February 8, 2016
Bonnie began volunteering as a literacy tutor after seeing a notice in the newspaper. She was soon paired up with Ruth, who is working toward her GED. The two have been ...
February 8, 2016
Augie has been a welder for forty years. A problem at work exposed his reading disability and led him to seek help from a tutor. "I did well in school ...
February 8, 2016
Maria Huerta came to Milwaukee from Mexico with her husband. She knew no English but soon started classes at Journey House in Milwaukee. "I think learning another language is really ...
January 27, 2016
In the mid-1990s, Sara DeLuca received gift of letters from her aunt Margaret. The letters, written by the women in her mother's family, told of their life from the 1920s ...
January 20, 2016
It’s two a.m., and the terrier can’t sleep. Raccoons and possums are prowling. The terrier wants to go outside, guard our farm, protect our crops. I’d welcome her vigilance were ...
January 8, 2016
From 1937 to 1946, Sidney Robertson Cowell, Alan Lomax, and the University of Wisconsin’s Helene Stratman-Thomas, with federal support from the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of ...
January 1, 2016
Many of us collect things, from baseball cards to comic books and dolls. Gary Brockman of Middleton collects buttons. He fell in love with buttons while working in publishing in ...
January 1, 2016
Many of us collect things, from baseball cards to comic books and dolls. Gary Brockman of Middleton collects buttons. He fell in love with buttons while working in publishing in ...
December 23, 2015
Earl Holzman was already an accomplished woodworker when he decided to try something new. He began making nyckelharpas, an early Swedish relative of the violin with keyed notes, after his ...
December 7, 2015
William Henry Gleiss was an engineer on the Milwaukee Road who died in a tragic train crash in 1918. In a story not unlike that of folk hero Casey Jones, Gleiss' ...
December 4, 2015
After a car accident at age eight, Jeremy “Opie” Lade began using a wheelchair. A lifelong sports fan, Lade discovered adaptive sports at a camp held at the University of Wisconsin- ...
October 5, 2015
More than 1,000 photos were submitted in our "Wisconsin Life Summer Life" photo contest. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest - there were some incredible photos from all over the state! ...
October 2, 2015
“Buddy, you are 7 years old, in the prime of life. These are the good years. Enjoy.” The words stared up at me from the vet’s receipt. Buddy was a Springer ...
August 24, 2015
Cameron Gillie worked as a photojournalist for many years before he decided to take photography down to its simplest form – a pinhole camera. The simplicity of the camera has ...
July 8, 2015
Milwaukee-based actor Ron Scot Fry has been traveling around the world introducing kids to Shakespeare for years. He tells us how he fell in love with the Bard and why ...
July 8, 2015
Weekends are usually quiet at the Milwaukee High School of the Arts. But for a few hours on Saturday mornings, the Amazing Grace Chorus fills the band room with song. ...
July 2, 2015
Elderberries grow abundantly in ditches, stream beds, and along bike paths in Wisconsin. Forager and chef Lee Davenport has been harvesting elderflowers around Madison for more than a decade. Elderberries have a ...
June 30, 2015
The brewing floor of Madison's House of Brews is often bustling with activity, but not like this. Brittany Cavallaro reads from selections from her latest book of poems to a ...
June 4, 2015
When a series of tornadoes hit Verona on June 17, 2014, the town was hit hard. Trees, a school, barns, and homes suffered severe damage. It also inspired a work of art by ...
April 1, 2015
Pressed for time, doctors often have little time to spend getting to know their patients. An innovative program at the VA hospital in Madison lets veterans share their stories with ...
March 18, 2015
Flat-track roller derby has become a phenomenon in recent years. Invented in the 1920s, it has evolved into a predominately female sport drawing women from a variety of backgrounds. For ...
January 30, 2015
Photographer Kevin Miyazaki spent 13 days driving the 1800-mile perimeter of Lake Michigan. He stayed off the major highways and as close to the lake as possible to capture the ...
January 16, 2015
Quilting may be centuries old but artist Leah Evans makes quilts that are far from traditional. Inspired by maps, aerial photography, satellite imagery, and microbial images, Evans creates textiles that ...
December 8, 2014
Before California was the center of the American wine universe, the Midwest loomed large. Wisconsin had vineyards and wineries before the Civil War. Historian Erica Hannickel shares the history of ...
November 17, 2014
When most people think of food rationing, they think of WWII. But Americans were first urged to conserve during the First World War and many of the programs were pioneered ...
November 14, 2014
Not everyone who went to war was a soldier or nurse. Chaplin Walter Beaudette (1884-1962) was a Roman Catholic chaplain with the American Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.) in France from 1917-1919. He was ...
November 12, 2014
Wisconsin Senator Bob La Follette was one of the leading opponents of U.S. entry into WWI. Historian Nancy Unger tells us what La Follette believed and why he voted against ...
