Though we can tell a history of Milwaukee's environmental movement, the effort to clean up and preserve our waters is also a story of the present. In this episode of Water Works, our season's finale, historian Jonathon Stuever tells the story of Milwaukee's river keepers.  Water Works is a production of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Department of History and the Milwaukee County Historical Society. For more information about the show, including photographs and documents from the era, check out milwaukeehistory.net/podcast/.  ..read more

As we've seen, the history of Milwaukee's relationship with water has been in many ways defined by the damage Milwaukeeans have done to its rivers, lakes, and streams. In this episode of Water Works, we begin to focus on Milwaukee's concerted efforts to clean up the messes it has made by charting the history of our environmental movement. Water Works is a production of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Department of History and the Milwaukee County Historical Society. For more information about the show, including photographs and documents from the era, check out milwaukeehistory.net/podc ..read more

In the years after its effective response to the 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic, Milwaukee became known as “the healthiest city.” But that reputation, and the public health preparedness that made it possible, wasn’t built up overnight: Milwaukee learned how to respond to a dangerous epidemic the hard way. In episode one of The Healthiest City podcast, Maddy Tabor and Olivia Hoff explore how Milwaukee’s public health policies were affected by the smallpox outbreak of 1894.  German and Polish immigrants on Milwaukee’s South Side feared government control and saw the city’s isolation of childre ..read more

In the years after its effective response to the 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic, Milwaukee became known as “the healthiest city.” But that reputation, and the public health preparedness that made it possible, wasn’t built up overnight: Milwaukee learned how to respond to a dangerous epidemic the hard way. In episode one of The Healthiest City podcast, Maddy Tabor and Olivia Hoff explore how Milwaukee’s public health policies were affected by the smallpox outbreak of 1894.  German and Polish immigrants on Milwaukee’s South Side feared government control and saw the city’s isolation of childre ..read more

By the end of the epidemic, the United States had lost 0.6% of the population to the Spanish Flu, with around 675,000 deaths. Yet Milwaukee suffered a relatively low death rate. In 1918, Milwaukee was the thirteenth largest city in the US and one of the nation’s most densely populated cities. Perhaps Milwaukee’s response can account for some of this discrepancy; per capita, the city outspent 9 of the 12 most populous cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, on health and sanitation. In this episode, we explore the global impact of the epidem ..read more

As the 1918 influenza pandemic tore its way across the globe, the damage it caused went hand-in-hand with the ongoing combat of World War I. The massive mobilization of troops from around the world provided the perfect conditions for the disease to spread. And with the need to keep sending troops to the trenches, and to keep morale up on the home front, efforts to slow the spread were hampered.  In episode three of The Healthiest City podcast, Christina Grev and Katie Bischof discuss how, in the midst of war, the flu made its way into Milwaukee. Ports up and down America’s coasts had beco ..read more

In the winter of 1918, the city of Milwaukee faced a crisis almost exactly like our own. A highly contagious and deadly virus found its way to the city. This disease was the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919; and like the coronavirus pandemic today it completely upended life in our city. What might we learn about our own moment by looking to the past? What can the history of Milwaukee's other pandemic teach us about navigating our own crisis? From the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Department of History and the Milwaukee County Historical Society comes a new podcast about our ci ..read more

In episode two of The Healthiest City podcast, hosts Bailey Green and Roman Lulloff explore how the rise of the Socialist Party in Milwaukee helped build up the city’s public health programs in the years before the 1918 flu pandemic struck. Emil Seidel was elected as the city’s first Socialist mayor in 1910, and the party captured a majority in the Common Council the same year.  The Socialists kept their campaign promises when it came to public health, building new isolation hospitals and neighborhood clinics for children. They also built a sewer system and pressed for sanitation inspecti ..read more

While pandemics can seem to disrupt every facet of our daily lives, they are, at their core, medical crises. This week on The Healthiest City we talk about how doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals face these challenges. We open by talking with an ICU nurse in Milwaukee who worked in the unit that treated the first wave of coronavirus patients back in March, 2020. Then, we explore how doctors and nurses in the past dealt with the flu. Health Commissioner George Ruhland makes another experience, expanding Milwaukee's medical facilities to deal with the sick. But we also discu ..read more

By the end of the epidemic, the United States had lost 0.6% of the population to the Spanish Flu, with around 675,000 deaths. Yet Milwaukee suffered a relatively low death rate. In 1918, Milwaukee was the thirteenth largest city in the US and one of the nation’s most densely populated cities. Perhaps Milwaukee’s response can account for some of this discrepancy; per capita, the city outspent 9 of the 12 most populous cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, on health and sanitation. In this episode, we explore the global impact of the epidem ..read more