The Weekend Historian
American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten CrisisBy Adam Hochschild My Rating: ★★★★★ What a great read—and everyone should read this. Everything I read I saw parallels with our time. People say history rhymes—in this case it has! Xenophobia—why do we hate immigrants so much? Why do we associate them with… Continue reading Book Critique: “American Midnight”
Week 4 of #52Ancestors in 52 Weeks!
Never before in the history of the state has it become necessary to close schools, churches, theaters, saloons; in fact, everything except factories, offices and places of regular employment, including hotels, restaurants and stores in which food and clothing are sold were closed for periods varying from three weeks to eight weeks or more.State Board… Continue reading Wisconsin and the Great Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918
Here are some of the headlines from the local Oshkosh Daily Northwestern newspaper on the early accounts of the "Spanish Flu" in the city.
Had you been around during World War I you would have lived through some things that would have made you say, "Uhhh, is this America?!" Yeah, things got that ugly. Freedoms were suspended, food was rationed, and your neighbor could get you arrested for saying gesundheit after a sneeze. There are a few of those… Continue reading Throwing Shade During WWI: The “Slacker” Part I
In a previous post, I wrote about my family members that served in the United States military during World War I. Those were the only three I had known of that had served, but I recently discovered that my Great Granduncle Leo Zillmer also served with American Expeditionary Forces over in Europe. Since then I've… Continue reading Ancestors in the Great War Update
April 6, 2017, will mark the 100th anniversary of the United States of America officially entering World War I. The US was hardly prepared to fight a war in 1917. When war was declared, there were only 208,000 men in its standing army--80,000 of them were part of the national guard. Additionally, weapons and munitions were in short… Continue reading Winnebago County’s Gold Stars of WWI
Austin M. Frederick 