>> This program is brought to
you by the combined resources of
the Wisconsin Historical Society
and Wisconsin Public Television.
[airplane engine buzzes]
>> On Wisconsin Hometown Stories
a city destined to be a
woodworking power house.
Built up by its own brand of
creative innovation.
A city transformed by fire,
battles for justice,
and a high-flying reputation.
On Wisconsin Hometown Stories:
Oshkosh.
>> Funding provided in part by
the John E.
Keunzl Foundation;
Alberta S. Kimball, Mary L.
Anhaltzer Foundation;
Oshkosh Area Community
Foundation; CastlePierce;
Theta and Tamblin Clark Smith
Family Foundation;
with additional support from
these funders:
the Friends of Wisconsin Public
Television;
and the Wisconsin History Fund,
supported in part by the
National Endowment for the
Humanities.
?
>> In a log cabin,
in what would become downtown
Oshkosh,
local residents met to decide
on a name for the future city.
The meeting marked the end of
an era,
and the end of a way of life,
on the ancient water route
of the Fox River.
>> It was on Lake Winnebago,
in what would be Oshkosh.
The Menominees would have a
fishing camp set up there during
the winter,
specifically to get sturgeon
out of Lake Winnebago
through the ice.
Sturgeon is sacred to the
Menominee people.
It is in our creation story.
It was also used
as a wild rice camp,
and that's what our name is.
Menominee, or Mawanew Weyak,
"People of the wild rice."
>> Well, Oshkosh, itself,
of course, sits at what was
a magnificent wetland.
The people who lived there,
lived in a pretty
pleasant place.
It was filled with water fowl,
abundantly clear water,
fur-bearing animals, which,
of course, brought the Europeans
there in the late 1600s.
The Fox River, although it's a
slow, meandering, narrow river,
does connect across the portage,
at Portage, the Great Lakes
to the Mississippi River.
It was, throughout the late
1600s into the 1700s,
the "Highway of Empire."
The French Army in the Fox Wars
came by there, the explorers,
the missionaries came by there,
and back and forth,
this fur trade.
First, of course, under the
command of the French.
Then, to the British, after they
took over the area.
[military drums]
>> As the As the Americans took
control from the British, they
began negotiating a series
of treaties with
the Menominee and Ho Chunk.
And Yankee settlers began
setting up farms.
>> White settlers began coming
in from New England.
Yankees.
There was quite a bit of a
cultural clash.
The French had blended in with
the Menominee and Ho Chunk,
and had even inter-married.
>> The middle men in the fur
trade were of French descent,
French-Menominee descent,
particularly at Oshkosh,
the Grignon family.
Augustin was the
pater familias of the group,
and Grignons called themselves
"Wisconsin's first family."
There were two sons there,
Robert and Charles.
>> In 1840, Winnebago County was
set apart from Brown County.
There were no villages or cities
to speak of, except for a
trading post that was
at what's now the
village of Butte Des Morts.
But since it was a county,
they needed a post office.
So, one of the
local farmhouses was going
to be that post office.
But, they needed a name for it.
>> A meeting was called at the
Wright House there in what is
now downtown Oshkosh.
>> About two dozen voting men of
the county got together at that
farmhouse.
They put forth several names.
>> The American contingent at
Oshkosh decided to call the
place "Athens."
>> Several wanted to call it
Stanford.
Someone suggested Osceola.
>> But the French and Menominee
contingent, there was a group
from Butte Des Morts, led by
Robert Grignon.
They were convinced this place
should be named
after Menominee Chief Oshkosh.
>> He was the grandson of the
"Old King," who was the head
Chief of the Menominee tribe.
He was mostly raised by famous
Chief Tomah, and actually served
with him during the War of 1812,
with the British,
against the Americans.
He had seen firsthand
the might and power of the
United States Government.
>> Oshkosh became Chief during
negotiations for the 1827 Treaty
at Butte Des Morts,
one of several treaties that
would force the tribe to give up
more than 10 million acres of
their ancestral lands.
During these times
of the treaties,
he would meet with the other
chiefs of the tribe,
but he was the main spokesman.
I can only imagine how
Chief Oshkosh felt.
Carrying a lot on his shoulders,
having to negotiate for lands
and to sell land, which was a
different concept that the
Menominee people didn't know of.
>> Probably the worst treaty
that was ever made was in 1848
at Poygan.
Oshkosh refused to sign in.
Basically, what that
treaty did was it took
all Menominee lands and was
going to transfer Menominee from
Wisconsin to Minnesota.
>> Oshkosh and the delegation of
chiefs, went over there to
inspect the land, and when they
got there, all they saw was two
warring tribes on both sides
of this land,
and the resources that they
had promised weren't there.
So, Oshkosh came back,
and spoke to the people first.
And said that he wanted to go to
Washington, and negotiate with
President Fillmore
to see if the tribe
could stay in Wisconsin
in their ancestral lands.
>> Through a translator, he
spoke for almost an hour
to the President.
Winfield Scott, who was a
General in the US Army said
that he was just overwhelmed
by the Chief's eloquence
and his power of speech.
And it made a very big
impression on the President
and those who were present
listening to him.
>> Oshkosh said that there was a
piece of land in the Ancestral
Territory of the Wolf River that
no one wanted, considering it
to be a wilderness.
Oshkosh said, "Let me move
my people there.
We know these lands.
We've lived here for centuries.
Let me move my people there,
and let us have this as a home."
The 1854 Treaty was signed at
Keshena Falls, and was here that
Oshkosh and other chiefs signed
this treaty that enabled us to
stay in our ancestral home
through the treaty era when a
lot of tribes
were being removed.
>> As the story goes, they
packed the house.
The votes are taken,
and the place is
named Oshkosh, overwhelmingly.
>> There was only four
votes for Athens,
only two votes for Stanford,
only one vote for Osceola.
There were fifteen
votes for Oshkosh as the name.
>> It's important, I think,
for the point of view of
appropriateness because it is
a Native American place.
Menominees were there
at the time.
Oshkosh was their leader.
But it's also important because
every state in the Union
probably has an Athens, every
state in the Union probably
has a Stanford somewhere.
But from early on here, 1839,
this spot has what we now call a
brand.
It is Oshkosh.
From early on,
it's a special place.
?
>> The first photos of Oshkosh
show a young and growing city,
on the banks of the Fox River.
>> We think of Oshkosh
on the Fox.
It is on the Fox, but
more importantly for its birth
as an industrial city, it's
on the Wolf.
>> The Wolf river and its
tributaries form an immense
watershed, draining thousands
of square miles of land,
all flowing toward Oshkosh.
Early lumbermen found that thick
stands of giant white pine,
covered much of the area.
>> Joseph Schaefer, who was a
Wisconsin historian from the
1900s, said of the place,
where Oshkosh was located, "That
there probably was no better
place to site a lumber-industry
city than where Oshkosh was."
>> Its location was
absolutely perfect.
You couldn't ask for
a better location.
>> Log drivers found
the lower Wolf to be an
excellent driving stream, with
few rapids or obstructions.
As the wolf flows
toward Oshkosh, it empties into
a series of broad lakes.
>> All those logs could come
down to those up-river lakes,
and they could go into holding
pens, where they would be sorted
according to the company.
You can imagine, looking at the
map, at the size of those lakes,
you can see how many tens of
thousands of logs could be held.
And those rafts of logs could
be, from there, brought down by
steamboats to the sawmills in
Oshkosh.
?
>> Mill owners in Oshkosh
overcame a lack of water power
by installing steam engines in
all of their mills.
>> They had a lemon site, in
terms of water power, so they
made lemonade with steam.
And mill after mill after mill
is able to be built there.
>> Located at a water crossroads
of the Wolf, the Fox, and Lake
Winnebago, Oshkosh schooners and
steamers could deliver wood
products to other settlements in
the area.
>> But what set Oshkosh apart,
what really made Oshkosh the
"Sawdust City of Wisconsin" is
the fact that the railroad came
early.
And it was the railroad that
transformed Oshkosh more than
anything else because the
railroad came to Oshkosh before
the Civil War.
>> That gives Oshkosh a
head-start on other cities in
the state, and opens it up to
the huge lumber market centered
in Chicago.
>> Now connected to the largest
lumber market in the world,
Oshkosh's growth exploded during
the Civil War.
Sawing railroad ties,
bridge timbers, and other wood
for the war effort,
Oshkosh's mills also moved
beyond rough cut lumber, and
found a ready market for other
kinds of building materials.
>> So they were making windows,
and they were making doors, and
they were making shingles.
One year, they made
80 million shingles.
A match company set up shop,
along with several
furniture makers, and
other wood products companies.
>> Just about everything that
could be made of wood is
made in Oshkosh.
Wagon wheels, wagons themselves,
buckets, tubs.
They even ground the wood up for
packing materials.
And from Chicago, their goods
went West, went East went
everywhere lumber could be sold.
Where wood products
could be sold, they went
through Chicago and out.
Altogether, they built
over forty steamboats here,
along with anything that
could sail on the lake.
Because they built boats, and
because they had steam-powered
mills, there was also a great
population of skilled mechanics,
People who were skilled
at running milling machines
and building boilers.
So, there was a diversification
of the economy pretty early on.
So the Oshkosh Logging
Tool Company started.
They made peaveys and axes,
and all sorts of things.
>> The hum of dozens of mills
mixed with the clatter of the
railroads running day and night,
and everywhere, the air smelled
of fresh-cut pine
and wood smoke.
>> Oshkosh grew economically.
It grew socially.
Its political power was growing.
>> Oshkosh quickly became
the second largest city
in Wisconsin,
but time and again,
catastrophic fires
would devastate the city
and test its spirit.
[fire crackles]
?
>> Many cities had huge fires,
but normally it was just once.
Oshkosh had five of them.
The first great fire wiped out
the entire business district
in Oshkosh.
Every person in town who owned
a business was destroyed.
The second fire, it burned out
almost everything that
hadn't been burned out
in the first fire.
>> As the city rebuilt again,
architect William Waters
arrived in Oshkosh.
>> He received commissions as
soon as he got here.
One for an elaborate fire house,
which stands today,
in its original form.
Despite the fires, Oshkosh
continued to grow rapidly,
and Waters found plenty of work
designing schools, supervising
construction of what would be
the Winnebago County Mental
Health Institute,
and another fire station,
which burned down, in one of
the two great fires of 1874.
>> We had one
devastating fire in May,
and a second one in July.
>> By 1875, they
experienced their last great
conflagration here.
It wiped out a great deal
of the factory areas,
got to Main Street, again,
and into residential areas
east of Main Street.
Several thousand people were out
of their houses that time.
You have horses running
down Main Street on fire,
people jumping out of buildings,
people trying to save what they
could from their businesses,
from their homes.
Then they realized that they
could not save much of
anything, and the main purpose
was just to get safe themselves.
That they were going
to lose everything.
>> A few people were burned out
in a given fire, and throw in
the towel, but, by and large,
people generally felt that
Oshkosh was destined to be
second only to Milwaukee.
It was the motivation, I believe
that helped people decide,
"We're going to re-do the town
because our destiny is there."
>> William Waters joined in a
manic effort to rebuild
the city, bigger and better,
as quickly as possible.
>> Waters had, by December, in
five or six months, twenty
buildings, all in masonry,
on Main Street.
Which is incredible!
>> That year, the North Woods
yielded up almost a hundred
million logs for Oshkosh mills,
and Waters could continue a
building spree, that would last
for the next forty years.
He designed large homes,
in the latest fashions,
for the business elite.
The commissions
just came flying in.
They could finance any project
that he could dream up.
His work reflected Oshkosh's
growing affluence and power,
and a desire to move beyond
its frontier roots.
>> We have a lot of churches
in Oshkosh that he constructed.
And we have several churches
that are made out of his
favorite material which is blue
limestone, which came out of the
local quarry.
They talk about his buildings
being handsome and imposing.
Regardless of the architectural
style, that seemed to be what
people were looking for
at the time.
Waters designed the new State
Teachers College,
a massive city hall,
a substantial post office,
and later, a permanent home
for the Oshkosh Public Library.
But it was his Grand Opera House
that would showcase the Sawdust
City's drive to become a
cultural center.
Built by local subscriptions,
and dedicated solely to the
performing arts,
the opera house was big enough,
and opulent enough to draw the
finest talent.
>> The men that were very
involved in building this opera
house and getting it started,
were also men who were here
as young men in the
1850s and the 1860s.
Nothing brings in more pride
than what they are trying to
accomplish here in Oshkosh.
Building it together,
and the fires destroying them,
and they're building
it again together.
You can understand what
this meant to these people
to have this.
>> Businessman George Athearn
rallied Oshkosh citizens to buy
into another subscription drive
that would hire William Waters
to design a luxury hotel
across the street.
He publicly states that,
"Everything for this hotel is
going to come from Oshkosh,"
and people go crazy.
They want in.
He builds a beautiful, beautiful
hotel, kitty corner,
across the street here
from the Grand Opera House.
The paper says, "Now we have the
main center of our city."
The Athearn Hotel is the last
stamp on the whole thing.
Finally, they could sit back and
say, "This is it.
We've got it.
We did it.
Here it is."
?
>> As Oshkosh progressed as a
city, some of its lumber mills
grew much larger in size,
specializing in making doors,
windows and blinds.
>> They dominated the market for
sash, doors and blinds
in the U.S. and in England,
and nobody could compete with
them, because other people were
not paying such low wages.
<< Waves of immigrants, from a
wide array of countries, made up
most of the workforce, making
barely enough to support their
families.
>> The workers in the mills
worked 6 days a week, 10 hours a
day.
>> Education of the immigrants
was considered a waste of time.
To give you an example: My dad
went to work at the Paine Lumber
Company at the age of 12.
[workers' boots on sidewalks]
The people were so poor they
couldn't afford to take
the streetcar to work.
With the wooden sidewalks,
with all these thousands and
thousands of men, my mother
tells me there would be just a
roar in the city, up and down,
with the men's boots pounding
that wooden sidewalk as
they went to work.
The fact that where
I grew up in the 6th Ward,
The women, generally speaking,
had a kid every year
if they were Catholic.
The thing that saved the average
working people that worked in
the factories was the fact that
they could raise
their own crops.
The lots were relatively large.
I can remember
this very clearly.
Every square inch of that yard
would be a vegetable garden.
Also, by law, you could have a
barn on your property.
You could have chickens.
You could have cows.
Plus, this area around Oshkosh
was full of wild animals.
Deer and rabbits, ducks
by the thousands upon
thousands and thousands.
[rifle shots]
We went out, and we shot.
There were no regulations
on how much you could take.
The Fox River was
teaming with fish.
During the spring,
you'd have what we called
the "white bass run."
There'd be millions of fish.
There were no regulations
on the amount of fish.
I can remember my Dad bringing
home tubs full of white bass.
>> Wages in Oshkosh the early
1890s apparently had been
relatively comfortable for the
new immigrants who were coming
to town and building houses.
They were able to function
pretty well.
>> That all began to change in
1893 when the "Panic of 1893"
began.
The mill owners cut wages 10% as
soon as the bad times started.
Then, they cut wages a second
time and a third time.
Then, in the Spring of 1898, the
Spanish-American War came.
There was suddenly a massive
inflation of food prices, and
rents, and everything that
woodworkers had to pay for.
And so people who had been
making a comfortable income in
the years of the early '90s,
found themselves in dire
straits.
>> Facing destitution, Oshkosh
woodworkers turned to Thomas
Kidd, General Secretary of the
Amalgamated Woodworkers Union in
Chicago, who helped them
organize local woodworkers
unions.
The workers voted to present a
list of demands to the mill
owners, including higher wages,
and recognition of the union.
>> The mill owners in Oshkosh
got together, and they rejected
that.
No union!
So in 1898, the lumber mill
workers went out on strike.
>> The wooden sidewalks now
quiet, the mills kept running
with skeleton crews of
strikebreakers.
And as the weeks dragged on,
women relatives of the strikers
got involved, organizing massive
demonstrations to shut down the
mills.
>> People like my grandma would
fill their aprons with vinegar,
salt, pepper, and all that
stuff.
>> And they would embarrass the
scabs, as they called them, the
strikebreakers.
They would throw rotten eggs at
the scabs.
They would throw salt and pepper
into the eyes of the scabs, and
make it as uncomfortable as
possible, when they came out of
the factory.
>> Now, you're talking about
desperate people.
They're on the verge of what
they could eat, how much money
they could make.
>> Then, the next morning, they
were prepared to go to the
McMillen Mill.
That was when the great
demonstration occurred that
resulted in the death of one of
the strikers.
Jimmy Morris and a friend of
his-- he was a 16-year old
painter at Paine's-- was really
excited about the demonstration.
They went to the front of the
line, in front of the women
protesters, and were hanging on
to the fence.
At about that time, Ed Casey,
who was an engineer at McMillen,
came out with a fire hose and
tried to keep the demonstrators
from breaking down the fence by
turning the hose on them.
That infuriated the people
behind him.
That was the surge that pushed
them to push so hard against the
fence that they broke the fence
down.
Jimmy and his friend were
propelled into the yard.
The first person who Jimmy
encountered was Ed Casey, who
had been holding the fire hose.
But when the fence fell down, he
dropped the fire hose and picked
up a stick.
He hit Jimmy Morris in the head
with this club.
It was probably a two-by-four.
Jimmy Morris died that night.
Thomas Kidd arranged a massive
funeral-- the biggest funeral in
Oshkosh history-- for him at
St. Peter's Catholic Church.
The whole procession walked to
Riverside Cemetery, where he was
buried.
His grave is there, but there's
no marker for Jimmy Morris.
>> The Governor called out units
of the National Guard to quell
the disturbances.
>> They set up machine guns on
every corner of 6th and Oregon
Streets, and around the
factories.
>> The occupation lasted
for a week.
When the National Guard went
home, lo and behold, the
strikers went back to picketing.
They took a vote that they were
not going to cave, they were not
going to give in, they were not
going to end the strike.
They were going to keep up as
usual.
>> To break the strike, George
Paine, owner of the biggest sash
and door plant, decided to press
criminal charges against Thomas
Kidd, and two of the strikers.
>> He argued that a union and a
picketer and a striker, by their
very nature, are conspiracies.
People get together, in secret,
and decide to attack a
corporation.
If they were accused and
convicted of criminal
conspiracy, if Kidd were
convicted of criminal
conspiracy, the danger that Kidd
recognized immediately and that
his friend in Chicago, Clarence
Darrow, recognized immediately
was that this could be the end
of the labor unions.
This could be the end of
strikes.
This could be the end of
collective bargaining.
This could be the end of
picketing.
So when the attack on Thomas
Kidd began, he decided that it's
absolutely essential to settle
this strike because the union is
going to have to provide all of
this legal effort for his trial.
>> Workers negotiated with each
of the mills to end to the
strike.
And strikers went back to work,
without winning a union
contract.
>> What else were you gonna do?
You were stuck.
You were stuck here.
>> In October, the trial began.
Kidd had a couple of local
lawyers and Clarence Darrow.
He was probably the most
well-versed lawyer in the
country, about conspiracy
charges against union
organizers.
His questioning of hostile
witnesses was ferocious.
He tore the people apart who
came on as witnesses against
Thomas Kidd.
He shredded their arguments.
He's constantly building up
these suspicions in the minds of
his jury, that he had picked so
carefully, about the real nature
of the deceit.
The real nature of the
conspiracy in this case is not a
conspiracy that Kidd organized.
It was a conspiracy that George
Paine organized.
He was the great conspirator in
the Oshkosh trial.
When the jury went out in the
Kidd conspiracy case, the
verdict was "Not guilty."
Unions were safe.
Strikes were safe.
Pickets were safe.
Darrow and Kidd had the
feeling it was a tremendous
victory because they had saved
the union movement in America.
?
>> In 1871, Oshkosh landed
the bid to build one of
Wisconsin's eight teachers
colleges, which would help cope
with a flood of immigrant
children into area schools.
>> The country was
growing rapidly.
The birth rate was high, a lot
of immigrants coming from around
the world.
There was a huge need for public
school teachers.
>> With the goal of establishing
statewide teaching standards,
then called "Norms", these
colleges were first called
"Normal Schools."
>> Their function and their
mission, that whole movement
nationally, was to teach
teachers for the public schools.
The interesting thing too,
historically, is because there
weren't a lot of avenues for
women who were exceptionally
bright and talented, most or
many of them ended up going and
being schoolteachers.
The Normal Schools were
wonderfully successful.
They gave some exceptionally
talented women from working
class and middle class families,
a good career, and helped a lot
of immigrants acculturate or
assimilate into our state here.
>> In addition to the Normal
School bringing new
opportunities for women,
Oshkosh's 20th Century Club
became a place where
prominent women not only studied
literature and the arts,
but engaged in public service.
A charter member of the club,
Jessie Jack Hooper, would go on
to achieve national recognition
for her work for women's rights
and world peace.
>> She was born in 1864 in
Northeastern Iowa.
A lumber salesman from Oshkosh
married her sister.
On one of her trips visiting,
Jessie met Ben Hooper.
They liked each other and got
married in 1888.
Shortly after Ben and Jessie got
married, Ben brought up the idea
that he was willing to share his
vote with her.
That he thought the two of them
were equally interested
in politics and knowledgeable
about it.
He didn't think it was fair that
he was the only one who could
vote.
So, in alternate elections, she
would give him her ticket of how
she wanted him to vote, and he
would vote it.
>> I think that she understood
that her privilege of having the
vote depended on her husband's
benevolence.
It didn't acknowledge her real
right to have a vote.
Over the years, while she
appreciated it, it just wasn't
enough.
I started to talk to women's
clubs as Jessie, explaining that
I had somehow come back to see
what was going on with the
causes that I was interested in:
women's rights and world peace.
I thought, "Well, this is one
way to bring her message to
people who wouldn't otherwise
have known about her.
I think that women, as the
people who bring all the people
into the world, have a unique
voice and perspective that the
world needs to hear and that
needs to be part of our
government.
>> Hooper went public with her
frustration with politics, as
many of her efforts to improve
Oshkosh's schools and public
health failed.
>> I noticed that when we would
go to Madison to talk to
Legislators about making
changes, they would listen to
the men in our group much more
that they would listen to me and
the other women.
I realized that those men could
vote.
We women were trying to dig a
hole with a teaspoon, when what
we needed was a steam shovel.
We needed the vote.
>> The Wisconsin Legislature
passed a bill in 1911 calling
for a referendum to be held in
Wisconsin where all the men
voters of Wisconsin would get to
vote on the question of whether
women should be allowed the
vote.
>> Oshkosh activists joined a
new organization, called the
Political Equality League,
and took to the streets, in what
was then an astonishing manner--
boldly asking men to share
power, and give them the right
to vote.
>> Jessie was one of a number of
Oshkosh of women who went down
to Milwaukee to organize the
Political Equality League.
Sophie Gudden went down to
Milwaukee.
She was an immigrant from
Germany who had been very highly
educated in Germany and was a
very forceful speaker.
Rose Swart was another pro-
suffrage person who
was very active.
She was a faculty member at the
Normal School.
Sarah James had taught at the
high school.
She really devoted her life to
the suffrage cause.
So there were several people who
were strong and well-connected
in Oshkosh.
They were very prominent in that
referendum campaign.
>> The Oshkosh women organized
parades.
They embarked on speaking tours
up and down the Wolf River.
But the opposition also
campaigned, persuading men to
vote "No" on the suffrage
ballot, which was to be printed
on pink paper.
>> The vote was almost
two-to-one against women's
suffrage.
But the women were not
demoralized.
They were sad and frustrated,
but they felt that they needed
to keep on.
>> Carrie Chapman Catt, who
headed up a national suffrage
organization, called on Mrs.
Hooper to come to Washington
and lobby Congress
to pass an amendment to
the U.S. Constitution.
>> Jessie was known as a very
tactful person.
She had good social skills.
She had good argumentative
skills.
She could frame an argument in a
way that made it convincing to
the person she was talking to.
She had a sense of humor.
That always helps.
She could really deliver a
speech because she always made
it speaking from the heart.
She spoke about what she
believed in, and had very good
success.
Two votes shy of passage in the
House, Hooper returned to
Wisconsin to lobby the prominent
men in her area.
>> Speaking to lawyers, speaking
to storekeepers, and begging
them to send telegrams,
we got those two votes.
The House, for the first time,
on January 1918 actually voted
in favor of women's suffrage.
>> When the amendment passed
Congress, Hooper convinced the
Wisconsin Legislature to quickly
approve it.
And Wisconsin became
the first state in the nation
to ratify the
women's suffrage amendment.
Jessie Jack Hooper went on to
become the first president of
the Wisconsin League of Women
Voters, and in 1922, she became
the first woman in Wisconsin to
run for U.S. Senate.
>> Jessie was really rooted in
her community.
I think that she was more
typical of the kind of local
leader whose foundation of her
political strength is in her
family and in her town, her city
and her community.
I think that's an important
perspective because those
grassroots women were the ones
who got the suffrage amendment
ratified.
?
>> Once a year, members of
the Oshkosh Memorabilia Club put
their collections on display.
While providing a trip down
memory lane, the items also
showcase a long tradition of
turning the city's memorable
name into a brand.
The Oshkosh Brewing Company took
the image of the city's
namesake, Chief Oshkosh, as an
emblem for its beer.
A mythical image of the Chief
helped the Oshkosh Trunk Company
market their top-of-the-line
travel trunks, built for those
embarking on an extended voyage.
But with a skilled work force,
innovative entrepreneurs, and
local investors to back them,
there also developed an Oshkosh
brand of innovation.
>> Oshkosh is a city that
embraced creativity and
inventiveness.
People had ideas, and people
were willing to embrace those
ideas.
They were willing to say, "Give
it a shot.
Let's see what happens!"
In 1878, boiler makers,
machinists, and lumbermen
teamed up to build a
steam-powered car, named "the
Oshkosh," and entered a race
from Green Bay to Madison.
Averaging six miles an hour, the
Oshkosh outlasted the
competition, and took the prize.
20 years later, Oshkosh
metalworkers crafted one of
America's first submarines.
Designed by Richard Raddatz, a
graduate of the Oshkosh
Teacher's College, the 31-ton
sub successfully dove, and
drove, up and down the Fox
River.
>> One of the founders of
Rockwell International, the
giant company that built the
test model of the space shuttle,
first began building his
business in Oshkosh.
Engineer Willard Rockwell took
over a factory that made
woodworking machines, and
re-tooled it to make axles for
cars and trucks.
He patented an improved
heavy-duty truck axle, with
gearing that delivered more
power to the wheels, making
possible bigger wheels and
bigger trucks.
Willard Rockwell went on to buy
many more companies, building
one of the world's largest
corporations.
And Wisconsin Axle, or "the
Axle," as it was known locally,
became an industry leader,
and one of Oshkosh's
biggest employers.
Many of the axles went into
heavy-duty trucks built right
across town, at Oshkosh Truck.
Oshkosh Truck--which would
become Oshkosh Corporation--
began in a modest factory,
building grocery stores on
wheels that could reach farm
families on rough country roads.
Then, making use of the
power-boosting Rockwell Axles,
the company would go on
to build ever bigger
and more capable trucks.
Road crews found the
four-wheel-drive trucks not only
had the power to build
Wisconsin's early roads, but
could also clear them of snow.
Even with a heavy plow attached,
there was plenty of horsepower
to bust through the deepest
snowdrifts.
[alert sounds,plane engine]
>> During the Cold War,
Strategic Air Command bases
remained on high alert for a
Soviet sneak attack.
Airmen trained with
B-52 aircraft that could
launch a nuclear strike
at a moment's notice.
But on Northern air bases,
snowplows were unable to clear
the long runways fast enough.
Oshkosh Truck won a bid if they
could handle the job.
>> So what Oshkosh Truck did, we
developed the largest truck, I
believe, ever developed
in the United States
for snowplow trucks.
We could clear those runways
so the B-52 bombers could take
off to meet the Russian threat,
if it ever occurred.
When we showed the military
that those five trucks
could do the job, we
eventually got an order.
I believe it was for 900 trucks.
This place, Oshkosh Truck,
exploded with joy, because
that's the biggest contract
the Company ever got.
That truck was built
in the '50s,
and today, as a consultant
engineer, I still get calls from
people that own those trucks
that are still running
after 50, 60 years.
>> In 1895, James Clark
partnered with James Howard
Jenkins, a Civil War veteran who
helped write the popular
marching song "John Brown's
Body," which provided the
inspiration for "The Battle Hymn
of the Republic."
They decided to form a company
to manufacture overalls.
They marketed their J&C brand
to railroad and construction
workers, factory workers and
farmers.
The company was soon taken over
by William Pollock, shown here
giving a prize to the
first person to swim across
Lake Winnebago.
Pollock dreamed up the novel
idea, inspired either by seeing
a vaudeville show or an ad for
razor blades on the wall of a
lunch counter, of calling his
overalls, "Oshkosh B'gosh."
>> Nobody knows for sure
how it started.
>> The catchy name stuck.
Business doubled, and then
doubled again, providing steady
work for hundreds of women,
even through the years
of the Great Depression.
And like its heavy duty, and
high quality overalls, Oshkosh
B'gosh became one of the most
durable brands
in American history.
>> Let your Oshkosh B'gosh
dealer get out that tape measure
and fit you up right.
Then you won't forever
be pulling and hitching
up your clothes.
No, sirree!
You'll be enjoying comfort
with a capital 'O'.
'O' for Oshkosh, that is.
So, take my advice: let your
dealer measure you up for the
comfort ablest, best-looking
overalls that ever was.
Oshkosh B'gosh.
>> After World War II,
sales of overalls declined,
as America's jobs got cleaner.
>> Railroad man wasn't shoveling
coal anymore.
The farm machinery
has been cleaned up.
In automotive garages, people
were wearing shirts and pants,
and things like that to work.
We knew we had to change.
Oddly enough, at that same time,
we were told by several
marketing consultants,
"Get rid of that name.
The name Oshkosh is corn."
So, we came up
with this new line.
We called it The Guys .
That was gaining,
but it was disappointing.
Well, the small overall had
always been in the line.
Little kids size 2.
We hated the thing.
It was a pain in the neck
in the Production Department.
It was a problem in Inventory.
We had to buy
different size hardware.
That was hard to get.
It was just a nuisance,
that little bib overall.
We were halfway tempted
to drop it.
>> The little overall caught the
attention of Alberta Kimball,
president of the Miles Kimball
Company, a highly successful
Oshkosh mail order firm,
featuring distinctive
specialty items.
When she placed them
in the catalog, they sold
by the thousands.
>> And because of that,
we published our own catalog,
and sent it out
to potential customers.
>> The highest of the high end
stores-- Niemen Marcus, Sak's
Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale's,
and Marshall Field's-- all
placed orders, which led
to sales all over the country.
>> All of a sudden
the children's bib overalls,
is 90% of our business.
>> As sales continued to grow by
leaps and bounds, the company
developed a full line of
children's clothing, and Oshkosh
B'gosh became a global brand.
>> Oshkosh B'gosh was just
a natural for the kids.
Thank God we didn't
change the name.
?
>> In the 1950s, Oshkosh
residents carried on with life,
much as they had for decades.
At Morgan Doors,
woodworkers still crafted doors
made of solid wood.
The Paine Lumber Company
continued to produce doors by
the thousands.
Most of them built using a
hollow-core framework,
covered with a hardwood veneer
for added beauty.
Workers at Dunphy Boat still
built wooden boats,
with the addition of modern
materials and methods.
While many things
remained the same,
the City of Oshkosh was about
to undergo massive changes.
In ten years, enrollment
at the State Teacher's College
would grow from 700 students
to over 3,000.
>>From Madison, here is the
Governor of the State of
Wisconsin, the honorable
John W. Reynolds.
>> How do you do?
>> In 1963, Governor John
Reynolds described a
State College System
about to be further swamped by
the coming baby boom generation.
>> Every year, we'll have 6,000
more students in our State
Colleges and Universities.
6,000 more-- I want to repeat
that-- than we had the previous
year.
At the Wisconsin State College
at Oshkosh, we have an example
of one of our institutions of
higher learning where we are
preparing for a great surge of
students that will double
enrollment in ten years.
At the State College of Oshkosh,
however, the enrollment will
double in five years.
>> The school's explosive
growth, never imagined by the
college founders, would create
headaches for the city, and take
down much of the historic
neighborhood around it.
But in the process, UW-Oshkosh
would add nearly 13,000
students, develop many new
fields of study, and create a
new and powerful engine of
growth for the city.
>> In the 1950s, Main Street
continued to serve as the vital
business and retail center of
town, drawing shoppers the way
it always had.
But the downtown began to lose
its luster, with the
construction of a freeway on the
edge of the city, which started
to draw new business
development.
At the same time, the Fox River
waterfront, still lined with
historic industries, began
showing signs of decay.
The blight spread to adjoining
properties on Main Street, many
of them built after the last of
Oshkosh's great fires.
In 1966, the Miles Kimball
Company launched an ambitious
urban renewal project called
"Park Plaza."
It bought up 16 acres of land
from riverfront industries and
businesses.
The Company convinced three
railroads to tear up tracks that
snaked around town blocking
traffic.
It cleared the riverfront, and
broke ground on a
state-of-the-art indoor shopping
area with rooftop parking that
would breathe new life into the
old Downtown.
Later, entire blocks of
buildings, were taken down,
making way for a waterfront
convention center and hotel.
These projects revitalized the
downtown area, and provided a
new vision for the future of the
waterfront.
>> Despite the best efforts to
keep shoppers downtown, the draw
of the freeway proved to be
irresistible.
Many businesses left the City
Center, and set up shop along
the frontage roads.
And like most manufacturing
centers in Wisconsin, Oshkosh's
economy changed rapidly when it
began losing many of its
historic industries.
The old Sawdust City companies:
the sash and door plants,
the match factory, the
furniture makers, began to
disappear from the riverbanks.
As they fell, the city mourned
not only the loss of jobs, but
the end of a way of life for
generations of workers.
?
>> The seed for a new industry
was planted by Steve Wittman, a
nationally-known air racer,
airplane builder, and manager of
the local airport.
>> He's a natural born
aeronautical engineer.
He designs a racing airplane.
In the 1930s, into the 1940s,
builds a reputation as one of
the most Prominent air racers in
the country.
When Paul Poberezny President of
the Experimental Aircraft
Association was looking for a
new site for the EAA's Annual
Air Show, Steve Wittman gave him
a call.
>> Steve contacted him, and
said that, "Here in Oshkosh,
we have two long runways that
don't cross so you could bring
in twice as many airplanes
at one time."
Paul came up, liked what he saw,
and in six months, Paul and the
volunteers from the EAA created
their first convention site here
in Oshkosh for 1970.
>> Community leaders convinced
the EAA to move its Headquarters
and Museum to Oshkosh, and give
the Air Show a permanent home.
>> It was, of course, a
tremendous boost to
the Oshkosh economy.
>> I like to call it aviation's
family reunion because if it has
flown, is flying, or will fly,
it will come to this event at
some point.
Attendance is more than 500,000.
We have more than 10,000
airplanes that come to the
region for the event.
5,000 could fit on this Airport
at any given time.
People come here just to see
the breadth, the depth,
the freedom of the aviation
world in the United States
and here in Oshkosh.
It's said that you can go
anywhere in the world, and tell
a pilot that you're from
Oshkosh, and they'll know
exactly what you're talking
about because of all this
that is now here.
So, Oshkosh has developed the
kind of publicity that you can't
buy because people have a
positive image of it instantly
with something that they've
experienced within the
community.
>> The experience gained from
hosting the Air Show opened the
way for developing many other
Oshkosh events.
Events have become part
of what Oshkosh culture is.
We welcome people from all over.
We want them to enjoy
what we have here.
?
>> My first WaterFest
was in 1999.
I was in a rock band called
Cowboy Mouth at that time.
I believe that they
still play the Fest.
It was on the back of a flatbed
outside the Convention Center.
Within five years, they had
gotten an endowment from a
local philanthropist to build
this beautiful amphitheater.
We think that WaterFest
introduces the community and its
possibilities to people and
gives them a reason to return.
Not just to WaterFest,
but to the community.
Not just on WaterFest nights,
but throughout the year.
?
>> Repeat visitors now have many
choices, like touring the
Oshkosh Public Museum, designed
by William Waters, they can walk
the botanical gardens of the
Paine Art Center and view its
fine art collections, or stop in
for a burger at one of the
city's vintage drive-ins.
Oshkosh continues to make the
most of its location on Lake
Winnebago and the Fox River, and
continues to rely on its
distinctive name, as a brand.
>> It still stands out as a
distinctive place and that goes
all the way back to this funny
meeting there on the banks of
the Fox where Native American
people and people of French
heritage and American heritage
came together and decided,
"We're going to name this place
after our Chief, Oshkosh."
?
>> Funding provided in part by
the John E.
Keunzl Foundation;
Alberta S. Kimball, Mary L.
Anhaltzer Foundation;
Oshkosh Area Community
Foundation; CastlePierce;
Theta and Tamblin Clark Smith
Family Foundation;
with additional support from
these funders:
the Friends of Wisconsin Public
Television;
and the Wisconsin History Fund,
supported in part by the
National Endowment for the
Humanities.