Creating Old World Wisconsin: The Struggle to Build an Outdoor History Museum of Ethnic Architecture

Notes

h 207 Notes Intro­duc­tion 1. The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, which was founded in 1846 as a private organization, became a state agency in 1949. It is now called the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS). In the text I abbreviate references to it as either SHSW or the Society. The best history of the Society remains Clifford Lord and Carl Ubbelohde, Clio’s Servant: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1846–1954 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1967), but their work needs to be updated. 2. Attempts to salvage buildings commenced before the Eagle site had been secured. The Society acquired or attempted to acquire five buildings during 1968 and 1969—the Schultz-Zirbel house (Dodge County), the Pagel house (Green County), the Grosenick house (Dodge County), the Varo house (Crawford County), and the Schuler house (Calumet County). Two had been disassembled and stored, and three were heavily damaged but still at their original locations. In the end, the Society failed to salvage these buildings. John W. Winn ( JWW) to Leslie H. Fishel Jr. (LHF), March 6, 1969, SHSW Folder 1980/032, “Heritage Village: List of Inventoried Buildings.” 3. Ned Kaufman, Place, Race, and Story: Essays on the Past and Future of Historic Preservation (New York: Routledge, 2009), 296. The museum’s first “official” name, Heritage Village, demonstrated the visionaries’ strong commitment to saving a part of the state’s tangible past. Staff frequently linked Wisconsin’s heritage (legacy) to its ethnicity. Gary A. Payne, “OWW: Ethnic Research & Acquisitions,” January 27, 1974, SHSW Folder 1979/188, “Old World Wisconsin Policy”; William H. Tishler, “Saving Ourselves: Our Rural Heritage,” Museum News 55, no. 4 (1977): 21–25. 4. David Lowenthal, Possessed by the Past: The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (New York: The Free Press, 1966), 102. 208 H notes฀to฀page฀4 5. As late as 2000, Norman Tyler noted that the role of historic preservation in American life “is still being defined.” Historic Preservation: An Introduction to Its History, Principles, and Practice (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 12. William J. Murtagh, Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America, 3rd ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), 75–76. Richard Longstreth noted that the 1960s and early 1970s were critical years for both the discipline of architectural history and the field of historic preservation. He did not use Old World Wisconsin, which exemplified the melding of architectural history and historic preservation, as an example. “Architectural History and the Practice of Historic Preservation in the United States,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58, no. 3 (September 1999): 326. 6. The literature on the history of open-air museums is not vast but it is growing. The two best surveys are Jay Anderson, Time Machines: The World of Living History (Nashville: American Association of State and Local History, 1984), and Sten Rentzhog, Open Air Museums: The History and Future of a Visionary Idea, trans. Skans Victoria Airey (Stockholm, Sweden: Jamtli Förlag and Carlsson Bokförlag, 2007). Two older studies of great value are Richard W. E. Perrin, Outdoor Museums (Milwaukee: Milwaukee Public Museum, 1974), and Edward P. Alexander, Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums (Nashville: American Association of State and Local History, 1979), esp. 84–95. Short surveys that treat open-air museums include Candice Tangorra Matelic, “Through the Historical Looking Glass,” Museum News 58, no. 4 (1980): 35–40; Michael Wallace, “Visiting the Past: History Museums in the United States,” in Presenting the Past: Essays in History and the Public, ed. Susan Porter Benson et al. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), 127–61; Warren Leon and Margaret Piatt, “Living-History Museums,” in History Museums in the United States, ed. Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 64–97; and Edward A. Chappell, “Open-Air Museums: Architectural History for the Masses,” Journal of the Society for Architectural Historians 58, no. 3 (September 1999): 334–41. Other general studies often appear as coffee-table books. Examples include Irvin Haas, America’s Historic Villages & Restorations (New York: ARCO Publishing Company, Inc., 1974); Ross Bennett, ed., Visiting Our Past: America’s Historylands (Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1977); John Bowen, America’s Living Past: Historic Villages and Restorations (New York: M & M Books, 1990); and Gerald L. Gutek et al., Plantations and Outdoor Museums in America’s Historic South (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996). 7. Emily G. Jackson, Historic Preservation of U.S...