- This program is brought to you
by the combined resources
of the Wisconsin Historical Society
and PBS Wisconsin.
[jaunty piano music, waterfall]
[unwinds fishing line, reel drags and clicks]
- Female Narrator: On Wisconsin Hometown Stories,
a community started by a university,
built up by harnessing the power of the Fox River,
a city lit up by innovation...
[gears clicking]
and industry,
and transformed
by education,
music,
[crowd cheering] and activism
on Wisconsin Hometown Stories: Appleton.
- Announcer: Funding for Wisconsin Hometown Stories: Appleton
is provided by
the Doug & Carla Salmon Foundation,
Chuck and Barb Merry,
the David L. and Rita E. Nelson Family Fund
within the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region,
Mary and Lowell Peterson,
Community First Credit Union,
Roger and Lynn Van Vreede,
Dr. Henry Anderson,
The Mielke Family Foundation,
Oscar C. and Patricia H. Boldt,
the Boldt Company,
Robert C. Buchanan and Bonnie G. Buchanan,
Peter and Connie Roop,
the Timothy William Trout Education Fund,
a gift of Monroe and Sandra Trout,
donors to the Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs,
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
- Appleton's river landscape
formed at the end of the last ice age
when melting snows poured water into glacial Lake Oshkosh.
Draining from the lake,
which would eventually become Lake Winnebago,
the water moved north toward Green Bay,
hemmed in by the high ground of the Niagara escarpment,
creating a river with some unusual features.
- Antoinette Powell: The Fox River runs
from southwest to northeast.
So, if you look at it on a map, it's going
what you think would be the wrong direction,
but water runs
from a high point to a low point.
So, Lake Winnebago is the high point.
[energetic piano]
- Leaving Lake Winnebago,
the Fox River eroded away softer rock layers,
which created a series of falls and rapids
that together equal the drop of Niagara Falls.
[waterfall cascades]
Portaging around the falls
made travel on the Fox slow and difficult,
but with a portage of less than a mile to the Wisconsin River,
the Fox served as a major trade route
for Native Americans and for the Europeans
that would arrive in the 1600s.
- Dustin Mack: The Menominee predominated in the area.
The Fox River was an important aspect
of their life and culture here, as well,
and so they traveled the river by canoe.
It became kind of an outlet into Green Bay,
but also into the interior of the continent.
And so, [paddling water]
by placing themselves along the river,
they gained into a huge trade network
that served them for hundreds and thousands of years.
- When French explorers arrived,
they also relied on the river for traveling.
Appleton would grow [rushing water]
alongside one of the largest falls on the Fox,
at a place the French called "the Grand Chute."
Here, travelers would naturally stop
to decide how to navigate
over or around the dangerous waters.
- Antoinette Powell: There were French fur traders,
French explorers, French missionaries.
The fur trade was extremely important during this era,
especially beaver fur.
It was because of fashion.
In Europe, wealthy gentlemen wore hats
made from felted beaver fur.
The European beavers had pretty much been decimated
by this time, and they needed a new source.
[traditional Meskwaki song "He Lives"]
- As French traders moved into the area,
so did a Native American nation from the east.
A tribe that would give the river its name.
- Johnathan Buffalo: We're created out of red earth.
Thus, we were named
Meskwaki Red Earth people.
By 1650, we moved to Wisconsin.
That's where we get our Chippewa name of Outagamie,
until the French renamed us to "Renard." Fox.
We moved down to the Fox River,
the Butte des Morts area,
Lake Winnebago area
to be closer to the trade that would be coming through.
And we controlled that trade.
- Like other First Nation people,
the Meskwaki made a living from the trade on the river.
For around 50 years, they collected tolls
on the boats of travelers passing by.
Their presence gave the Fox River its name.
But their control of the waterway
grew costly for the French,
who decided to end the domination of the Meskwaki.
[traditional Meskwaki song "I Don't Know Where She Is"]
- Johnathan Buffalo: In 1712, that started the Fox Wars,
which was fought until 1735.
[traditional Meskwaki song "I Don't Know Where She Is"]
It's been roughly estimated we were about 40,000 people.
By the time we left Wisconsin to go to Iowa,
what would become Iowa,
we were about a thousand people.
[traditional Meskwaki song "I Don't Know Where She Is"]
- After the Meskwaki left and the French and Indian Wars ended,
control of what would become Wisconsin
passed from the French to the British,
and, finally, to the United States.
When Wisconsin became a new territory,
the government began treaty negotiations
with the Menominee Nation,
forcing them to give up most of their lands.
- Dustin Mack: The Treaty of Cedars was signed in 1836
between the Menominee and the United States government.
The Menominee ceded four million acres,
part of which was Appleton proper
and the land around it.
- The Treaty of the Cedars opened the land for settlement
by Yankee Americans from the east
and European immigrants.
The Fox River would continue
to provide a valuable transportation and trade route
for the Americans.
And the Grand Chute,
the future site of the city of Appleton,
drew the attention of investors from the east
who saw the falls not as an obstacle to navigation
but as a powerful source of water power for industry.
[classic orchestra music]
[solemn violin]
In 1844, a wealthy Boston merchant named Amos A. Lawrence
acquired nearly 5,000 acres of land
in northeast Wisconsin.
As a long-time philanthropist,
Lawrence decided to encourage development in the area
in an unusual way:
by establishing a university in the wilderness.
- Antoinette Powell: Amos A. Lawrence
decided to establish university
with the donation of $10,000 and land,
and the provision
that the Methodist Church come up with another $10,000
to establish the university.
Amos A. Lawrence wanted his new university
to be tied to a religious organization
because he felt that they had
the discipline and the morality
to improve
not only the students who went to this place,
but also the community.
[rushing water]
- Land agents recommended a site
south of Lawrence's land
by the Grand Chute,
with its many water power sites
and no settlers.
- Antoinette Powell: So it was kind of a clean slate,
and it could draw the New Englanders.
It could draw the people from New York.
Could draw the Protestants.
And it would be a perfect place,
a beautiful place
to establish this university.
The river was a draw.
The beauty of the area was a draw.
The city, the river, and the university
inextricably linked.
- Wisconsin's territorial legislature
approved the charter for the university in 1847--
one year before Wisconsin became a state.
- Antoinette Powell: Once it was established
that Lawrence University was going to be here,
the growth was exponential.
Within four or five years,
people were moving in.
Buildings were going up.
It was becoming a city.
- Harlan Kiesow: As the area became settled, Morgan Martin,
who was a Wisconsin territorial delegate and businessman,
had the idea of
constructing a transportation system along the Fox River.
- Dustin Mack: So, the improvements
included straightening and taming the river.
By taking out the rapids using the series of locks and dams,
the hope was that they could replicate
the success of the Erie Canal,
that they would be able to create
the same sort of river traffic
that would connect the Great Lakes through the Fox River,
and eventually, over to the Mississippi,
and out to New Orleans.
[hammering stone]
- Harlan Kiesow: After Wisconsin became a state,
the Fox River Project became
the first internal improvement project for the state.
Work started in about 1852, and by 1856,
it was completed enough that the Aquila steamship
could make a round trip
between the Mississippi River and Green Bay.
[rushing river]
- The massive project included
the construction of 17 hand-operated locks,
four of them in Appleton.
Bigger boats could now travel the Fox River,
and the dams could also capture
the power of the river for industry.
Words spread of the promise
of both the river project and the university.
- Antoinette Powell: In 1853,
the village of Appleton was created,
combining the three villages
of Lawsburg, Appleton, and Grand Chute.
Lawsburg was on the east.
Established by George Lawe.
In the center was Appleton, established by John Mead.
And then, on the west, was Grand Chute,
around the Grand Chute, the waterfall.
And then, in 1857, it was incorporated as a city.
- Dustin Mack: To make it more inviting
for the railroads to come through here,
Appleton was incorporated as a city.
And it worked because the railroad did come through,
and Appleton became a hub.
- Antoinette Powell: Water travel was superseded
[train whistle] by the railroads
pretty quickly after this happened.
And so, water travel wasn't exactly the way to get around
as people thought it was going to be.
- The coming of the railroads meant that the Fox
would be used mostly for shipping bulk freight,
but the power captured by the dams
would fuel the city's industries.
- Dustin Mack: Some of the early industries along the river
were sawmills, grist mills, and woolen mills.
[horse-drawn wagon]
Wheat farming was also a very important aspect
of Appleton's early economy.
The Fox River provided power for grist mills
so the wheat could be ground up.
And then, the Fox River was a transportation system.
And so, the wheat could be grown here,
it could be ground, and then shipped out.
- In 1853,
the Richmond Paper Mill, the Fox Valley's first,
began grinding up cotton rags and straw
to make wrapping paper for local markets.
And away from the river, College Avenue developed
as the major road in Appleton.
- Dustin Mack: College Avenue leads people to the college.
It leads people to downtown.
And so, it was the first place
that people came to where businesses set up.
It's essentially Main Street for Appleton.
And then, the community expanded beyond that as it grew,
including into the Third Ward and beyond.
[gentle guitar]
- Antoinette Powell: The area of Appleton
that's now known as the Old Third Ward
is around the Grand Chute.
And this was the area where industry was building up.
It became industrialized pretty quickly,
so the people who moved there
weren't necessarily drawn by the beauty of the river,
but by the opportunity of the river.
[rushing river]
Industrialists built their homes
on the bluffs overlooking the river.
So, they were overlooking their businesses.
So, you had the working class, you had the mill workers,
and then, you had the industrialists
living in the Old Third Ward.
- The city of Appleton continued to expand around the river,
and the growing Lawrence campus,
whose own growth would continue to help shape
the future and character of the city.
[upbeat instrumental]
?
[rushing river]
The decision by Boston merchant Amos A. Lawrence
to develop a city
by first building a university
paid off just as he predicted.
Lawrence University attracted both settlers and students,
who first studied a preparatory curriculum.
- Jerald Podair: It's like a prep school.
These schools exist today where sometimes, after high school,
a student will go to a prep school for a year
to get them ready for the rigors of college,
and that's what Lawrence featured at the very beginning.
[bright orchestra music]
- By 1857, the school grew to become a conventional college,
graduating its first class of four men and three women.
- Jerald Podair: It's a co-educational institution,
which is pretty unique at the time.
Only really the second in the United States.
- As the city grew around it, Lawrence brought famous speakers
and politicians to Appleton,
like the abolitionist Frederick Douglas
and U.S. President William Howard Taft.
During downturns in the economy, the young college
often struggled to recruit students and pay its debts.
But in 1894, Samuel Plantz, a graduate of Lawrence,
returned to usher in a new era of growth.
- Jerald Podair: When Samuel Plantz becomes president of Lawrence,
he does a lot of things for the university.
He certainly straightens out its finances.
He increases the enrollment.
He increases the endowment.
- Many campus buildings rose up
during the President Plantz building boom,
but the new president
also changed the focus of the college.
- Jerald Podair: He says, "We are not going to do
what the larger universities do.
The core of Lawrence's mission is a liberal arts mission."
- With its new mission as a liberal arts college,
the number of students would soon quadruple,
and under the leadership of President Plantz
came a new emphasis on music
that would also grow
to be a core of the school's-- and the city's-- identity.
- Brian Pertl: Samuel Plantz created the Conservatory of Music
that has lasted ever since.
And it was at the same time that they created
the first official music degree.
[arpeggios on piano]
Some of our earliest professors in the conservatory
were prominent women musicians on piano and on voice.
For us, women have been a huge part of our conservatory,
both as in the professorate and the student body.
The other aspect of that early conservatory
that I think is important is
it wasn't just people attending the college courses,
but from the very beginning,
there was a community music aspect
to the Conservatory of Music.
[cacophony of instruments]
- In Main Hall, the growth of the program
created a musical disturbance in neighboring classrooms.
To solve the issue, President Plantz
began the building of Peabody Hall.
- Brian Pertl: And it was a big deal
because it was a building dedicated to music.
It had a fairly large hall
that could seat almost 400 people in it.
- During the Plantz building boom,
a lack of funding caused the construction
of one last building to be delayed.
- Brian Pertl: This was a Methodist institution.
They needed a chapel.
But they had grander ideas
because it was never supposed to be just a religious space.
It was supposed to be a gathering space for the campus
but also for the Appleton community.
And the idea for the chapel came about in 1908.
- Fundraising for the chapel dragged on for a decade
until an anonymous donor pledged over $60,000...
if the Appleton community would match it.
- Jerald Podair: Lawrence actually went on
its probably most successful fundraising campaign,
described as a whirlwind campaign at the time.
It took about a week or so.
They were able to raise the $60,000,
and they even got an extra $10,000 for an organ.
- Brian Pertl: And I love that
because it's kind of this nexus point
between the university and Appleton.
And so, this has been this gathering place
since it was built in 1918.
By the '20s,
that had pretty much shifted to a more secular use.
?
[Sista Strings, Nickel & Rose play strings music]
It is used for performance of all kinds,
for speakers, for music,
for orchestras, for choirs, bands.
You name it, and it goes on here.
So, one of the wonderful things about Lawrence,
and then the chapel,
is that it's the home to the Artist Series,
which has existed at Lawrence for over a hundred years.
A hundred years of bringing in renowned artists
from around the globe.
It's mind-boggling how many people have been here
speaking or performing.
[Lawrence College Concert Choir sings traditional song]
- Announcer: We bring you now a special 15-minute program
of choral music from Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin.
- Through its artist series, rigorous musical instruction,
and performing ensembles,
the Lawrence Conservatory built a nationally recognized program.
- Brian Pertl: In the '40s and '50s,
the voice was our primary focus.
We had orchestra.
We had band.
But I think it was really the choirs.
People started to notice this music school in Wisconsin
and realize how fine the education was.
It just started to build from there.
We've developed into a school
that doesn't have "the one thing we're good at."
The one thing Lawrence is good at...
is everything,
and that's really something that sets us apart.
People who visit say, "You've got something special here,
"and you should be really proud of what's going on
because it's amazing."
That, to me, is the magic of this place.
[Lawrence University Choir sings in blended voice]
?
[flag rustling, river rushing]
- The power of falling water
fueled the growth of Appleton's pioneer industries.
Flour mills, woolen mills, and rag paper.
[urgent instrumental, military marching]
As local militias headed to Camp Randall in Madison for training,
the Civil War would transform Appleton's paper industry,
bringing about huge changes to the city and the region.
- Carol Couillard: The Civil War marked
a change in the way that the whole country communicated.
So people became used to getting the news during the Civil War
because we had the telegraph.
People were used to that, and they demanded it,
and so newspapers really had to scramble to keep up,
and the thing that held them back really
was having enough newsprint.
[birds chirping]
- At the time, a change in Appleton's wheat industry
would help the city answer
the nationwide call for more paper.
[horse neighing, reins clicking]
Wheat farming had moved to more western states,
and Appleton's small flour mills couldn't compete
with the giant modern mills running in Minneapolis.
Appleton's papermakers bought up closing wheat mills
and began installing new machines
that could grind up wood for pulp instead of cotton rags,
allowing Appleton to help meet the demand
for more newsprint.
- Carol Couillard: Appleton's a really desirable place
for papermaking
because it has everything you need to make paper.
You need some sort of fiber,
you need water, and you need a power source,
and Appleton had all three of those in abundance.
A lot of the infrastructure was already here.
The flour mills all had water wheels already.
They knew how to get the goods to the different markets.
And so, it was just kind of perfect
that they found something that they could manufacture
and really take the lead on.
[steam engine chugs, blows whistle]
- A chance meeting on a train would further jump-start
Appleton's papermaking expansion.
[train chugs, rings signal bell]
Henry Rogers, who made a fortune
in western land speculation and silver mining,
used that fortune to open banks in Colorado and Wyoming.
- George Schroeder: He starts the first bank
in the state of Wyoming in Cheyenne.
Why does he pick Cheyenne, Wyoming?
A little thing called the Transcontinental Railroad
is coming through.
And when opportunity knocks,
Henry wants to be there to answer.
When the railroad arrives in 1867,
he now makes another fortune
financing the economic explosion that follows the railroad.
The railroad is also another part of the story here
because on the railroad between Cheyenne to Chicago,
he's going back and forth,
he meets two gentlemen, William and John Van Nortwick.
Their dad owns the biggest paper mill west of Ohio.
It's right outside of Chicago,
and its biggest customer is the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper,
but it can't keep up with demand.
So, Henry's got another great idea.
He's got the fortune.
They've got the technical expertise.
Let's get into the paper business,
and they've gotta pick a spot.
Where do they pick?
Appleton, Wisconsin
because it's perfect for the paper industry.
- Rogers and the Van Nortwicks
formed the Appleton Paper and Pulp Company
in 1876.
Soon the mill was grinding out pulp for Chicago
and making six-and-a-half tons of newsprint a day.
- George Schroeder: The Rogers and Van Nortwicks aren't alone
when it comes to paper mills in Appleton.
There are others who will recognize
the benefits of Appleton for the paper industry.
- Kimberly-Clark & Company expanded from nearby Neenah.
Opening a series of mills in Appleton,
including the Atlas Mill, one of the largest in the country.
- Carol Couillard: Kimberly-Clark & Company, when they built the Atlas,
they were in what we would think of as mainstream paper.
So, writing paper, Manila paper, all those different things.
The Atlas Mill kind of set itself apart
because Kimberly-Clark then ventured into wallpaper,
which was a huge moneymaker for them,
and it was huge for the Atlas.
- George Schroeder: Appleton ends up with
the highest concentration of paper mills in the world.
By 1890, there are 22 mills
just between Appleton and Kaukauna.
And so, they're cranking out pulp and paper
for a national market.
I mean, it's why we still call the valley "the paper valley."
One of the essential parts of the story
are the workers in the mill.
- Carol Couillard: The Appleton Crescent was running headlines
of bring more people here, bring more industry here.
There's room on the river for everyone.
- George Schroeder: They're attracting people
from all over the country and all over the world,
and those are the people
who are really driving the explosion of growth in Appleton.
Appleton grows 400% in the 20 years from 1860 to 1880.
[people chatting, trolley ringing]
- Carol Couillard: One of the interesting things about the paper industry
in Appleton is that
it didn't just have a lot of mills, which it did.
There was a lot of supporting industry
that was really important in helping the industry flourish.
One thing that was really important
is just the construction companies.
A lot of them built their business around
constructing these huge mills.
Not only did they construct the mills.
They would go in and do machine repair.
It was a very specialized industry.
A lot of the companies began here, and they work worldwide.
It was something else that really set Appleton apart.
- The paper industry also attracted
paper-related companies
like the Appleton Wire Works,
creating a highly specialized product for the industry.
- Dustin Mack: And they saw that there were no wire factories
in the Western United States.
So they moved out into this area and began making wire mesh,
and eventually became the largest producer in the world.
[factory sounds]
- Wire mesh is critical to the papermaking process,
straining out the water from the pulp slurry.
And at the same time,
creating a bed to make a continuous sheet of paper.
?
- Carol Couillard: They couldn't have one wire out of place,
or it would obviously mark all the paper that they made,
and it had to be woven in one continual looping screen.
They called it "the clothing for the paper machines."
- Dustin Mack: So, wire weavers were often
the most skilled workers within the wire industry.
They had to go through an apprenticeship
over a number of years
to learn exactly how to weave wire without any imperfection.
They would often work in teams of two or three,
pushing a shuttle back and forth on a large loom
in order to make the weave perfect,
but also to keep an eye on the process.
So, any little imperfections earlier on in the weave
would screw up the rest of the sheet.
- To meet the demand for new kinds of paper,
the Wisconsin Paper Industry partnered with Lawrence College
to create the Institute of Paper Chemistry in 1929.
Lawrence constructed a building and began a program
of researching and teaching paper science.
This research resulted in innovations
that helped paper manufacturers
improve paper quality and production.
With plentiful natural resources
and a highly skilled workforce,
Appleton's paper industry led the way
in answering the national call
for more paper and creating new kinds of paper products.
- Dustin Mack: Appleton was at the right place at the right time
to serve that need.
?
[industrial machines running]
- In the late 1800s, powerful new technologies
transformed American life,
launching a period of growth and change
called the Gilded Age.
In New York, inventor Thomas Edison
vowed to light up the city with his new light bulb
using coal-powered steam electrical generators.
As the project began, word of the effort
reached the Appleton paper baron Henry Rogers.
In the spring of 1882, [fish pulling on line]
Rogers went on a fishing trip with his friend H.E. Jacobs,
who had just begun working
for the Western Edison Light Company.
- Robin Rolfs: Well, as they're sitting in the boat,
the fish really aren't biting all that much,
but Jacob seems pretty excited about his new job,
and he starts telling his story of how Mr. Edison, the inventor,
was producing a giant lighting plant
in Lower New York in a Financial District.
He's going to light up a whole square mile
using his brand-new incandescent lamps.
Rogers is just fascinated with the story.
- Although president of the Appleton Gas Company,
Rogers saw the huge potential
of switching gas-lit homes and factories to electricity.
And as he thought about it,
Rogers had a lightbulb moment of his own.
He wondered, "Could the water power of the Fox River
be converted into electricity?"
- Robin Rolfs: He said, "When I got home that night,
I couldn't think of anything else."
He says, "This idea of electricity
kept going through my mind."
Roger convinces three Appleton investors
that this is the opportunity of a lifetime.
If we can produce a working dynamo
and generate electricity for electric lamps,
we can sell this electricity
to other businesses and residences.
Now, a dynamo is nothing more than
a machine that can produce direct current electricity.
[coils rotating]
The dynamo works on the principle of magnetism
and passing coils of wire through a magnetic field.
And as long as there is motion between the wires or coils
and the magnetic field,
this machine will keep producing electricity.
[electricity sizzles]
- Edison ran his dynamos off steam created by burning coal.
To test his water-powered idea,
Rogers connected a dynamo to a water-powered pulp grinder
at the Appleton Pulp and Paper Mill.
He wired the mill and the Kimberly-Clark Mill next door
for electric lights.
Rogers also ran a line to his new home,
still under construction.
- George Schroeder: He's building this beautiful big mansion
that overlooks the river.
The house is almost done
by the time he decides he's going to electrify it,
and so they've gotta run wiring
in places they've already installed illuminating gas,
but he never turns the gas on.
- In the fall of 1882,
the Dynamo was connected to the lights
for a very public test.
- Joan Rolfs: The word spread around town, and a crowd came,
and they were a little leery
about this new-fangled electricity,
but he stood out there and flicked the switch.
[lights click on]
[crowd gasps] The lights went on!
Everybody said, "It's as bright as day!"
It was a miracle.
The investors were thrilled,
and they really felt that the lightbulb
was a means of lighting our homes and industry.
- While thrilling,
the new technology had its share of problems
due to fluctuating levels of power
from the pulp machine.
- George Schroeder: And so, you had to constantly monitor this thing
to make it work.
Henry decides he's got to put it
on its own dedicated water wheel.
And so, what they do is they build a small building.
It's a little power plant just outside the paper mill,
on a dedicated wheel,
and that's where he's going to put his Model K dynamo
and that works so much better.
You can regulate it much more closely.
It is really the first purpose-built hydroelectric plant
in the world.
- With the new technology came new jobs,
including one called "the governor."
- George Schroeder: He had to sit in a chair and stare at a lightbulb.
The lightbulb hung over the dynamo,
and when the lightbulb got too bright,
he had to close the sluice a little bit
to slow down the water,
and when it didn't get bright enough,
he had to reverse the process
to try to keep everything working properly.
There were no voltmeters.
The governor literally had to sit there all night
staring at a lightbulb to make the system work.
- Electricity use spread across Appleton
as new power stations were added.
The Waverly Hotel and Ormsby Hall on the Lawrence Campus
were lit up by the power of the Fox River.
[trolley bell chimes]
And in 1886,
Appleton built a new hydroelectric railroad trolley,
one of the first in the country,
which further fulfilled Roger's vision
of using hydropower in new ways.
The success of hydroelectric power in Appleton
led the way for many communities in Wisconsin
to also electrify,
revolutionizing industry and ushering in a new way of life.
- George Schroeder: It's amazing!
The idea that you can take this new technology
and transform the city you live in
and all the surrounding countryside.
I mean, that's it. Wow!
That's a guy who sees things that other people don't see.
?
- A traveling exhibit created in 2014
by Appleton's History Museum at the Castle
revealed some of the hidden and often forgotten
Black History of Appleton and other Fox Cities.
- Sabrina Robins: As we just find out what life looked like,
we feel that the Black contributions deserves
to be part of the regional history and the local histories.
- Nick Hoffman: The idea for this project first started
when I started to learn a little bit more
about some of the early Black community members
that lived in Appleton and so.
- Historian Nick Hoffman's desire
to learn more about Appleton's Black history
led him to team up with Dr. Sabrina Robbins
of Appleton's African Heritage, Incorporated.
- Sabrina Robins: We really felt compelled to contribute
and help with this project
to be able to participate
in chronicling the experience
of Blacks and African Americans in the region.
The project uncovered important records of Black settlement
of the area from its earliest days.
It's not just Europeans alone who are settling in this region.
Since that immediate time, Black men, women, and children
have lived along the Fox River.
People have hopes that this could be their long-standing home.
[cannon fire]
- The Civil War became a turning point
for Appleton's Black History.
In 1863, President Lincoln signed
the Emancipation Proclamation,
which declared that Black people held as slaves
in the Confederate states were freed.
The document also declared
the acceptance of Black soldiers in the Union Army,
whose numbers would grow to almost 200,000.
Horace Artis served
in the 31st United States Colored Troops Regiment
during the Civil War and fought in several battles.
He also witnessed the surrender of General Robert E. Lee.
After the war,
Horace and his wife Bercina moved to Appleton,
joining a growing Black population moving North.
- Sabrina Robins: North, within the African American tradition,
represents Canaan:
freedom and a paradise.
Canaan represents the promised land,
and so naturally, Wisconsin would represent
almost the apex of what Canaan means.
[military drumroll]
- As thousands of Wisconsin Civil War volunteers
returned to the state,
they were joined by a growing number of Black residents.
- Nick Hoffman: For northern states
that supported the Union effort during the Civil War,
people really had a wide variety of beliefs
about what equality could look like after the war.
And so, that really sets up a really big conversation
in Appleton and Wisconsin when there's larger numbers
of African Americans moving and settling in the region.
- As more Black people settled in Appleton,
they were often met with hostility.
Despite his status as a veteran and owning land in the city,
Horace Artis was once arrested for vagrancy
and spent a night in jail.
To keep Black people out of the city,
real estate contracts began including racial covenants,
which blocked Black buyers from becoming property owners.
- Nick Hoffman: Appleton, very quickly from 1910 to 1920,
is going to go
from having a growing Black population to zero.
[people shouting]
- After World War I, a growing Ku Klux Klan movement
further intimidated Black people in Wisconsin
and kept communities like Appleton all white.
Appleton became known as a "sundown town,"
one of many in the area with unwritten rules
requiring Black people and other minorities
to leave town before sunset.
- Sabrina Robins: That sundown town mentality and mindset
is really about controlling Black bodies.
If a majority of the Black population
has been pretty much targeted to Milwaukee
and a little bit of Madison.
And as you move north,
the population numbers significantly stop.
That is not by accident or happenstance.
It is by design.
[gospel music]
- In the 1950s, a growing civil rights movement
began demanding equal rights and freedom under the law.
By 1961, Appleton native Jim Zwerg
joined a growing civil rights movement
traveling the south with the Freedom Riders
in an attempt to desegregate bus station terminals.
The severe beating of Zwerg and several others by a violent mob
made national news and brought the civil rights debate
home to Appleton.
The debate continued
when a famous segregationist came to town.
- Nick Hoffman: In March 1964, George Wallace was governor of Alabama,
and one of the major national leaders in favor of segregation,
was invited to speak in Appleton, Wisconsin.
In response to Wallace's invitation to come to Appleton,
students at Lawrence University started to organize.
Students led a civil rights week.
They started to bring in major national civil rights leaders
to help them organize and also to help challenge the city.
[blues music]
- At the same time, Lawrence began recruiting Black students
who would face widespread discrimination
both on and off the campus.
- Joe Patterson: I matriculated
to Lawrence's campus in the fall of 1965.
I'd heard about Lawrence as the Harvard of the Midwest,
and that phrase stuck with me.
I was very attracted to that.
Well, it was a shock to me, first of all,
to be in a region
where the closest African-American community
was 120 miles away.
The first day of class,
the biochemistry professor told me straight up,
I didn't belong there, and in fact,
if you stay in my class, your A, your A equivalent, is a C minus.
and if you don't like it, yeah, then, you know, leave.
- To create community and support
and push for needed changes,
Black students came together
to form the African American Association on campus,
known as AAA.
- Joe Patterson: I became its first--
its inaugural president.
And the idea there
was to, again, make the campus more viable for the,
in effect, life and times of African American students.
Not a separatist movement,
and we were talking about inclusion.
I tried to create an environment that basically
would not allow other African American students
to face, basically, the same plight that I did.
- The Students of the AAA presented a list of demands
to Lawrence President Curtis Tarr
that would create a more welcoming culture
of fairness and inclusion.
Most importantly, they demanded the school
increase the number of Black students.
- Joe Patterson: Through the Association of African Americans,
we were able to get some clarity
and get some of these things remedied,
but nothing's perfect,
and it's always a work in progress.
But I think while I was there,
I think I made a difference.
- Robert Currie: The kind of exploration
that a Liberal Arts College
allows you to do.
I first arrived in Appleton in 1970.
It wasn't long after being here when we had all been subjected
to some of the racism, in town mainly,
of folks calling out to us when we walked downtown.
That bonded us in a way that we, very early in our tenure here,
said we're going to work to change some things here.
By my sophomore year, I assume the presidency of AAA.
And I said we need to do something
that will catch the attention of the entire campus
by shutting down the business operation.
And so, in the dead of night
on that particular day in March 1972,
we occupied the administration building.
People just started showing up with the signs and the placards
and the yelling and marching in front of the building
and everything.
- The next day, President Smith met with members of the AAA.
He agreed to bring 35 new Black students to campus,
hire more Black faculty,
offer more diverse academic subjects
and better academic support.
Black students at Lawrence
challenged the local community's mindset and beliefs around race.
And in the 1970s,
Appleton's sundown practice came to an end.
- Robert Currie: We had to focus on the similarities
and not the differences that we may have.
That there are ways to bridge those differences.
I left here with that
as one of the things on my personal mission and journey
that I wanted to be able
to practice, espouse, and articulate
for the rest of my life.
And Lawrence forced me to do that.
- Joe Patterson: The word diversity really applies to Lawrence now.
- I present to you Lori A. Carter, our 17th president.
[cheers and applause]
- Joe Patterson: I think, with President Carter,
this is something that's unprecedented;
to have an African American, who happens to be female,
to be president.
So, it's a different place,
as Appleton is a different place.
John Kennedy, he says,
"We all live on this small planet called Earth.
"We all breathe the same air.
"We all wish the best for our progeny,
"our children, and our grandchildren,
"and we're all mortal.
We gotta find a way to get along, period."
[gentle acoustic guitar]
- The Stone of Hope exhibit
shed light on the forgotten history
of the early Black residents of Appleton.
- Keith L. Brown (Mr. I'M Possible): This is why we're here.
This is why we thrive.
Juneteenth 1865.
- And now, each year during the Juneteenth holiday,
the city remembers and celebrates
the end of slavery in the United States.
- Sabrina Robins: Juneteenth is about freedom, unity, and community.
There's still a lot of work to do.
People are paying attention to how Wisconsin
is studying and communicating its history,
and Appleton is one of the leading cities,
and it's just absolutely outstanding
that our hometown
can be a beacon for others,
as we continue to know more about our history.
[The Talbott Brothers play folk rock blues]
- Another Appleton Festival celebrates
the city's long-standing tradition
as a center of music.
[Them Coulee Boys play banjo stomp] - ? My love, say it's okay - ? It's okay
- Brian Perth: So, the Mile of Music Festival started in 2013,
and the idea was is it would be a festival
that celebrated handmade, handcrafted music.
[Birds of Chicago play world roots music]
The Mile of Music brings in
90,000 to 100,000 people over 4 days.
[Kyle Megna & the Monsoons play blues folk rock]
The Appleton community is flooded by music,
and it's distributed all over town.
[Forté and the Pianissimos play ukulele]
- Most of the Mile of Music runs along historic College Avenue,
still the heart of the city and center for entertainment.
[marching band performs]
And the community events...
...like the city's popular Christmas parade.
["Santa Clause Is Coming to Town"]
Along the waterfront,
a new restoration of the Fox River Locks
now brings boaters back to a river
that suffered from decades of pollution.
- Film Narrator: The river is the life's blood of the region's economy.
On no other river in America
are the paper mills so densely concentrated.
And the Lower Fox
is still one of the dirtiest rivers in North America.
- Jordan Salley: When the paper companies came,
they did bring a big economic boom for this area,
but they also released
a lot of toxic chemicals in the water.
One of those is PCBs or polychloride biphenyls.
They don't break down in the environment,
so they persist over time,
and they also bioaccumulate up the food chain.
- A massive cleanup of the Fox began in 2004
to remove the PCBs from the bottom of the river.
- Jordan Salley: Had we not done this cleanup,
the PCBs would still be persisting in the river
and contaminating the fish, the birds, eventually us.
- In the 2000s,
Wisconsin's paper industry faced a crisis.
Stiff competition from foreign mills
and the growing use of computers
reduced the demand for Wisconsin paper.
And so, over the years,
many Wisconsin mills began to shut down,
and so did the mills in Appleton.
- George Schroeder: While the industry is no longer making an impact,
it has made an imprint here, and that's important.
[acoustic guitar]
- The history of other industries that left an imprint
lives on along the Fox River.
Visitors can explore
the Hearthstone Historic House Museum,
where hydroelectricity began.
Or at a reproduction
of one of the city's early hydroelectric power stations.
[motor running]
Another pioneer industry
continues to operate on Appleton's Shore
at the Courtney Woolen Mill,
where raw wool is still spun on traditional machinery.
- Tom Courtney: Nothing much was changed inside of the mill itself.
The machines, they still work fine yet,
so I'd like to keep them running
just as grandfather, great- grandfather, dad, and myself.
- The decline of the paper mills and the cleanup of the river
is now leading
to a transformation of the riverside.
- George Schroeder: Most of the buildings still stand.
They're being used in new ways.
They're being restored and renovated,
and they're now filled with lovely apartments and condos.
- Kelly Reyer: The City of Appleton has been one of our founding supporters
of the annual Fox-Wolf Watershed cleanup event.
Today, we have over 1,600 volunteers throughout the basin,
cleaning up garbage
from the lakes and the rivers they cherish.
We are blessed with an abundance of water in our area.
So, it's up to us to help keep it clean.
- George Schroeder: There's been this metamorphosis
and how we sort of view the river
and how we can now reuse it and restore it
and make it a part of our lives.
Now, we've got wildlife returning.
Before, the river was, well, embattled.
Now the river is embraced.
- Dustin Mack: That river is the reason why Appleton is where it is today.
It had a huge impact on its history, on its culture,
on the people that came and settled here.
It's really the Fox River that gives shape to the community
and to everything that surrounds it.
- Announcer: PBS Wisconsin
gratefully acknowledges the contributions
of the History Museum at the Castle
and the following organizations:
?
- Announcer: Funding for Wisconsin Hometown Stories: Appleton
is provided by
the Doug & Carla Salmon Foundation,
Chuck and Barb Merry,
the David L. and Rita E. Nelson Family Fund
within the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region,
Mary and Lowell Peterson,
Community First Credit Union,
Roger and Lynn Van Vreede,
Dr. Henry Anderson,
The Mielke Family Foundation,
Oscar C. and Patricia H. Boldt,
the Boldt Company,
Robert C. Buchanan and Bonnie G. Buchanan,
Peter and Connie Roop,
the Timothy William Trout Education Fund,
a gift of Monroe and Sandra Trout,
donors to the Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs,
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.