Restoring the Stories of a Rural Township's Civil War Soldiers

(On Memorial Day I drafted this post, which features a local history project that I’m working on. Eventually I intend to present this research in detail in another venue. Here I’m discussing it only to make a plea for doing similar research to create rosters or link the Civil War era with history at the grassroots. In the meantime, if you have a special interest in this part of Wisconsin or a family connection to the Town of Concord and would like to contact me, send an e-mail to historylynx@gmail.com.)


Memorial Day is theirs–the war dead–and that is why it is sacrosanct. It belongs to the fallen in each of our nation’s war, including the misguided ones. For better or worse, each death shaped out nation. Each death contributed to what we are today.

Rye Barcott, Washington Post (May 29, 2011)

REMEMBERING AND RESTORING

For me Memorial Day always brings back the image of my grandfather in his American Legion suit, marching in the parade in Rome, Wisconsin. He was a veteran of World War I, who returned to marry his sweetheart and work the farm he had purchased just before he was drafted. In the spring of 1919 he worried about getting home in time to plant fields of oats and corn but that Memorial Day he was still in Europe. My great uncle served in North Africa and Italy in World War II. He played in the band, his proudest moment playing for General Eisenhower. He returned to paint walls and hang wallpaper, and to play the organ in church on Sunday mornings and for many local weddings. As a member of the band, it ws also his duty to retrieve and carry stretchers of wounded men. Recently, I learned that Civil War bandsmen had to perform the same grueling task.

The American Civil War (1861-1865) was our nation’s greatest tragedy. More than 625,000 soldiers, men and boys from the North and South, died in that terrible war. If the same proportion of the population had died in Vietnam War, the number would have been four million–but for my generation the 58,000 names on the Vietnam War Memorial are exceedingly painful.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the opening fusillades of the Civil War, the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and the battles that followed in the summer and fall. So this Memorial Day I want especially to honor those from my Wisconsin community who fought and died to preserve the Union and to abolish slavery. I will honor them by working to restore their stories to the history of the Town of Concord, a rural township in Jefferson County, in southeastern Wisconsin.

Growing up in Concord, the Civil War was "unreal" to me and, I suspect, to most of my grade school friends. This war didn’t happen here, it had little to do with our community (a misconception), and our families didn’t take summertime trips to any Civil War battlefields. Though we studied US History in fifth grade, in a four-room school across from a church cemetery, we didn’t realize that Civil War veterans were buried there (1). The school buses passed by other local cemeteries, where Civil War veterans rested, but most of us we were ignorant of this chapter in our township’s history. I don’t ever remember hearing about Isaac Poe, who died of disease in Arkansas but was brought back to Concord in a zinc-lined coffin (2). He is buried on the Holcomb cemetery--a cemetery that until just a few years ago was overgrown with brush, many of its tombstones broken.

In high school we heard about the big battles--Bull Run, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Atlanta, and the March to the Sea–but these battlefields were far away. I do remember learning that Confederate POWs were housed at Camp Randall in Madison. Otherwise, we learned nothing that connected our part of the state with those four years of blood and tears. Not even a word about the heroic Cushing brothers of Delafield, Waukesha County (directly east of Jefferson County). First Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing died at Gettysburg while he and the men under his command were defending Cemetery Ridge against Pickett’s Charge. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2010. His brother, Naval Commander William Cushing, designed two small boats and then recruited 26 volunteers to go after a Confederate ironclad, the Albemarle, that had been attacking Union ships. The ironclad sank but that was not the end of Cushing’s exploits. He was recognized as a naval hero and no less than five Navy ships have been named Cushing. A third brother Howard served in an artillery regiment. (For more about the Cushing brothers see Resources.)

For me the Civil War became real only after I moved to south-central Pennsylvania. Here the war was very real. Local families felt very connected to that period in American history. Three times Confederate cavalry men attacked Chambersburg, a town just eleven miles down the road, and twice it was torched. Gettysburg was only thirty miles away. Visiting that battlefield awakened in me a sense of awe and dread that I could not have imagined before I walked its hallowed fields. The immensity of Gettysburg, the multitude who died there, none of this had a very deep meaning for me (my understanding of the Civil War was indeed stunted). I could only begin to comprehend the total number of Gettysburg’s casualties by comparing it to the engraved roster of the Vietnam Memorial (I’d seen it on a recent trip to Washington, DC). My parents visited Gettysburg too, when they came to see me, and they were deeply moved, especially my father.

I’m now living back in Wisconsin. After reconnecting with my Concord roots and joining the Concord Historical Society, I began to research the history of the families that had settled in Concord–beginning in the late 1830s. It was then that I first heard the story of Isaac Poe, which was well-known to members of the CHS. This was a sad story because Isaac and his wife Polly were the parents of seven children. But I didn’t stop to consider whether there were other civil war casualties or veterans from our community–until one day I discovered that two brothers, Anson and Samuel Baker, from the large Baker family, had both served in the First Heavy Infantry Regiment Wisconsin. How many more were there?

A Civil War Roster for the Town of Concord

Using data available at Ancestry.com, I did a search that brought up well-over 100 names. And nearly twenty of these soldiers were casualties. For years people had been talking about Isaac Poe, but the names of these other men had passed from memory. Of course, people strolling through local cemeteries would have noticed GAR markers on a few graves. Those markers could scarcely tell the story, however. Men who died far from home were rarely returned for burial. Veterans might settle elsewhere after the war or move to another county or state.

Now that the Wisconsin Veterans Museum has posted a database with more information I have used it to refine my results (see Resources). The two lists match almost perfectly but the WVM information includes the battles or places where soldiers were wounded, killed in action, or died later of wounds or disease. Both the WVM database and those at Ancestry.com provide the soldier’s regiment and company, date when he enlisted or drafted, and for veterans, the date and place where they were mustered out.

In 1860 there were 1,442 people residing in the Town of Concord.  There are 116 names in my Concord roster, including only eight draftees. Those who made the ultimate sacrifice number twenty-three.

The revised roster includes a few names that did not come up when I searched the WVM database. I considered these carefully before adding them. I’d like to explain why I did so as this may be of interest to others who are creating rosters.

• James Russell, for example, belonged to a large family of Scottish immigrants, whose homestead was in the northeast corner of the township. When he enlisted in the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry Regiment in September, 1861, he was living in the Town of Summit, Waukesha County (a township directly east of Concord). The Russells came to Concord before 1850 and James appears in the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 Federal Census records. In 1861 he was probably working in Summit for a local farmer. He was one of only eight Concord men who enlisted in the cavalry, no doubt because he had horse riding skills.
• Patrick McGinnis, an Irish immigrant who came to the US with his family in 1848 at age ten, had grown up in Concord, but he was living in the Town of Brookfield (in neighboring Waukesha County) when he enlisted. He also returned to Concord family after the war. 
• The WVM database includes George Lockwood and his friend Abner Gould but provides no information about where they were living when they enlisted–on April 18, 1861–the first of eighteen Concord men who would join the Union army by the end of that year.  A later biography tells us that George had lived with his family in Concord until the day he enlisted (3). I suspect that in the case of George and Abner, in the earliest days of recruitment, their place of residence was simply not recorded. Their regiment, the 3rd Wisconsin Infantry left Wisconsin just in time for the First Battle of Bull Run on July 25, 1861. After the war George went to medical school in New York and Michigan but then returned to Jefferson County, where he set up his practice in Rome (in the Town of Sullivan, directly south of Concord). Abner, wounded a place not indicated in the database, died on May, 28, 1864.
• Christian Mittelstadt was one of three brothers, from the same German immigrant family, who served in the Union Army. His brothers William and Charles were both living in Concord when they enlisted on August 13, 1862. William never made it home. He died of disease in New Orleans, in May 1864. Charles was mustered out with his company in June, 1865 but I don’t know what he did after that–except that at some point it seems that he moved to Iowa. Christian was married in Concord in 1861 but he moved with his wife to her father’s farm in the Town of Lowell, in Dodge County (directly north of Jefferson County) and it was from there that he was drafted in 1863. After the war he returned to Lowell for a year, then moved back to Concord, where he was living at the time of the 1870 Federal Census (4). I decided that Christian Mittelstadt’s connection to Concord was strong enough to include him in the roster alongside his brothers. 

Although my research on Concord’s Civil War soldiers is still a work in progress, earlier this month I shared some of my findings at a meeting of the Concord Historical Society. I had much more to say than time to say it so I focused on the earliest casualties and the battles, in 1862, in which they fought and lost their lives.

Battle of Shiloh (Tennessee). Fifteen men from Concord, all members of Company B of the 16^th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, fought at Shiloh on April 6th and 7th, 1862. Company B was one of four companies, under the command of General Prentiss, selected for picket duty in the hours before dawn on Sunday, April 6, 1862. When they were ambushed by a much larger Confederate force, Company A was hardest hit. So Concord men from Company B took part also in the main battle.

Concord lost two men as a result of this battle. Jesse Hills, missing in action at Shiloh, was the first casualty. We must assume that his body was not recovered. Joseph Quiner, who was wounded at Shiloh, but did not die on the battlefield. He was taken to Savannah, Tennessee, where he lingered until he died on April 28th.

Joseph Quiner was the second Concord casualty of the Civil War, yet most people in the area know virtually nothing about him. It is his niece Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prairie, who gets all the attention. Let me explain, very briefly, this family history. Joseph’s parents, Henry and Charlotte (Tucker) Quiner were living in the Town of Brookfield when, as the result of a shipping accident, Henry drowned in Lake Michigan. By 1850 Charlotte moved with her six children to Concord (possibly because her deceased husband had relatives in the area), where she soon met and married Frederick Holbrook. Joseph’s sister, Caroline (Quiner) Ingalls, was the mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Laura was born after the family had left Concord for Pepin, Wisconsin, but her parents were married in Concord. The Ingalls connection gives Concord a bit of fame among Little House aficionados. It disturbs me, however, that this seems to eclipse so much else of importance about this time period. I especially want to restore the story of Joseph Quiner to the place he deserves in the history of our community.

Joseph was a friend of George Lockwood and Abner Gould, whose letters are part of a collection available online at the Wisconsin Historical Society site (see Resources). He left behind a wife Nancy and two young children. Nancy’s brother Peter Frank, wounded in May, 1864, died in September at St. Charles, Arkansas.

Joseph’s uncle Edward Quiner (his father’s youngest brother) played a very important part in collecting, preserving, and writing about the history of Wisconsin’s contribution to Union army. And credit must be given to Edward’s daughters, for he kept them very busy clipping articles and letters from Wisconsin soldiers that had been published in local papers all over the state. These scrapbooks are now available online (see Resources).

Second Battle of Corinth (Mississippi). After Shiloh, the Union army spent about six weeks laying siege to the fortified town of Corinth (just south, across the Tennessee/Mississippi state line), until they captured it on May 29, 1862. This is sometimes called the First Battle of Corinth. Taking this town was of great strategic importance, as north-south and east-west railway tracks crossed in here. During the summer months Union troops repaired and then extended the town’s fortifications. In early October the Confederates attacked in a prolonged battle of several days, the Second Battle of Corinth, that ended on October 10^th. John Houser of Concord, wounded in this battle on October 3, died on October 6^th. This was the third Concord man from Company B of the 16^th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment to die fighting or from wounds inflicted in battle.

Battle of South Mountain (Maryland). Avery Perkins had enlisted in the 6th Wisconsin Infantry, one of the regiments of the famous Iron Brigade. He was killed in action on September 14, 1862, at the Battle of South Mountain, which was a prelude to the better-known Battle of Antietam. When I discovered this it took my breathe away because, in Pennsylvania I had lived in the Cumberland Valley, which lies between two ridges, one of these being South Mountain.

Avery’s death must have been especially hard on his younger brother Riley because their father and stepmother had died, both on the same day in 1855, perhaps in an epidemic. Riley enlisted on August 15, 1862, almost exactly a month before the death of his brother. He served in the 20th Wisconsin Infantry with seven other Concord men and survived the war.

Battle of Prairie Grove (Arkansas). This battle, on December 7, 1862, was the last major battle in northwester Arkansas. It reminds us that the Civil War took place west of the Mississippi. There is another story waiting to be told about what happened to Concord men "out west," where they had to contend with bushwackers as well as regular Confederate troops (5).

Two regiments with Concord men took part in the Battle of Prairie Grove: two cavarly men in 3^rd Wisconsin Cavalry and eight men in the 20th Wisconsin Infantry. The battle started when the Union Cavalry and the Confederate Cavalry clashed, with the Union horsemen driven back to Walnut Grove. The Confederate troops then positioned their artillery, with its four bronze cannon, on a ridge at Prairie Grove. After Union reinforcements arrived, the battle ended in a draw, with the casualties about the same on both sides.

Two Concord men, Adam Hazelwood and Samuel Lockwood (George’s brother) were wounded at Prairie Grove. Adam would go on to participate in the siege and Battle of Vicksburg (Mississippi). He was mustered out July, 1865. Samuel’s wounds were apparently more severe as that is the reason given for his discharge, three months later (March, 1863). Both returned to their homes in Concord. Adam, who had immigrated from England with his parents, married the daughter of a Welsh immigrant and became a leader in the community. Samuel also married, shortly after returning, and appears with his family in the 1870 Federal Census.

The National Park service has an excellent online lesson about this battle. It features two outstanding primary sources, accounts by witnesses who were children at the time: Julia West Pyeatt, who was fourteen; and Caledonia Ann Borden Brandenburg, who was nine. In my presentation I read short excerpts from these acounts, which told how their families hid in the cellar during the battle. The most moving passage comes from Caledonia, who described what they saw and did after dark, when they emerged from the cellar:

... we came out of the cellar. There was a dead man across the cellar door, wounded and dying men all around. ... The men worked through the night helping the wounded. Yankees and Rebels all got the same care. Pa sneaked back up the hill ... the home that we all loved so much, had been burned to the ground after the Yankees plundered the inside ... They killed and ate our cattle, hogs, sheep, chickens. ... We had 60 bushels of wheat stored upstairs and it slowly burned for three weeks in the rubble.

Here  wecome face to face with the painful experiences of civilians caught up in the war. We also feel the strength of their compassion ... binding up the nation’s wounds in December of 1862, long before the peace at Appomattox.


Personal Connections to the Past

After my presentation one of our members, a descendant of Adam Hazelwood, who had just returned from a visit to Vicksburg, where he had participated in an elder hostle program, shared with us many fascinating details about that battlefield. What impressed me most, however, was the deep personal connection he felt to the past. Yes, the Civil War veterans are all long gone, but their stories are still being carried forward by their descendants. I feel the same kind of connection to World War I, my grandfather’s war. 

When we can connect the past to real people, who were there and experienced it, the past becomes more than words on the pages of history books, more than documents preserved in archives, more than images or artifacts curated in museums. Of course, all of these help us to imagine the past. Every community needs stories about real people, grassroots people, to enrich its collective memory. There are Civil War soldiers with no descendants to tell their stories. For those of us who love history it is our duty to restore their stories to our communities.

PROJECTS

These are projects for a US History class, a local historical society, local media reporters, a Boy Scout or Girl Scout troop, family reunion organizers, genealogists, or anyone who cares about keeping our communities connected to the past. These efforts will make a lasting contribution to local history and provide much needed resources for local teachers. 

ROSTER: Does your community have a roster of its Civil War soldiers? If not, recovering their names and basic information (such as that available in the Wisconsin Veterans Museum database) should be a priority. If a roster exits but was created several years ago, it probably needs checking and revising–as new information may be available.

CEMETERY ROSTER: Survey all the cemeteries in you community and compile a roster of Civil War soldiers burial sites. This roster will (and should) include names of veterans who moved into the community after the war. Then use available databases to add basic information about each person listed. Share this roster with local organizations, schools, and media. Turn it into a Civil War walking/driving brochure of these cemeteries.

FAMILY HISTORIES: What do you know about the families of those who served in the Union or Confederate armies? I’ve discovered that sometimes even genealogists do not know about family members who fought in the Civil War. And it is sad to read obituaries of Civil War veterans that fail to mention their service. At the same time, you can add a vital dimension to any name in the roster by connecting it to families in census records or to information gleaned from family trees. 

SOLDIERS’ STORIES: Using regimental histories and accounts of skirmishes and battles, it is possible to reconstruct the activities of soldiers–or at least follow their movements during the course of the war. What might they have experienced at Shiloh or during the siege of Vicksburg? Are there any documents (including letters, diaries, discharge papers) to help restore their stories? Dig deep in local archives, talk to members of local historical societies, find obituaries, check out resources at state historical societies or repositories, and consult military or Civil War museums. Piece together what you find, speculate a bit (as long as you’re honest about it), and turn names from a list into real people.

HOME FRONT STORIES: Those who didn’t go off to war also made important contributions to the war effort. Find out what’s in local newspapers and look for clues in any surviving correspondence from the Civil War era. Examine agricultural and industrial policies at all levels of government–and compare pre-war, wartime, and post-war statistics–to uncover economic aspects of the war and its aftermath. In communities with many immigrants don’t forget to check out local newspapers in European languages (for example, the German press in Wisconsin).

GENERAL RESOURCES

Anderson, Nick. "Teaching the Civil War, 150 Years Later." Washington Post (April 10, 2011): http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/teaching-the-civil-war-150-years-later/2011/04/01/AFyFxaGD_story.html

Blight, David W. "Forgetting Why We Remember." New York Times (May 29. 2011): http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/opinion/30blight.html?ref=opinion

• Did you know that the first Memorial Day was observed on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, South Carolina? (I’m including this resource because it too illustrates a fascinating piece of local history.)

Valley of the Shadow: http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/ 

• A University of Virginia digital archive of primary sources (letters and diaries, census and church records, speeches) created by people living in two counties, one in the North (Franklin County, Pennsylvania) and one in the South (Augusta County, Virginia). These are organized into three time periods: Eve of the War, War Years, and Aftermath.
• An excellent example of local history resources collected for the purpose of putting localities into the broader flow of history.
• These sources are of great value for topics not tied necessarily to the Civil War, such as local social history. Where I was teaching our department secretary discovered a scandal from those years in her husband’s family!
• Highly recommended for use in high school and college classes across the country.

"The Battle of Prairie Grove: Civilian Recollections of the Civil War." National Park Service: http://www.cr.nps.gov/NR/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/70prairie/70prairie.htm

• Prairie Grove is a state park but the NPS features it in its series "Teaching with historic Places Lesson Plans." Explore this series for other Civil War lessons and primary sources.

RESOURCES: WISCONSIN AND THE CIVIL WAR

Civil War Wisconsin: http://www.civilwarwisconsin.com/

• Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Commission’s web site of resources for local historical societies over the next five years.

Wisconsin Veterans Museum: Civil War Database: http://museum.dva.state.wi.us/civilwaronline/Search.aspx

Wisconsin Historical Society: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/civilwar/
"Quiner, Edwin Bryant." Wisconsin Historical Society: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/civilwar/people.asp?term_id=2671&action=search

• For links to ten volumes of letters Quiner clipped from newspapers during the war years and to regimental histories from his book, Military History of Wisconsin (1866).
• Also a link the diary of Emilie Quiner (his daughter).

"Turning Points: Wisconsin in the Civil War Era." Wisconsin Historical Society: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/subtopic.asp?tid=5

"Letters by Relatives of Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1861-1919." Wisconsin Historical Society: Turning Points: Wisconsin Civil War Ear: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=1728

• For letters by George Lockwood, Samuel Lockwood, Verdine Carpenter, and Horatio Brewer (all Concord men who fought in the Civil War).

Wisconsin Veterans Museum: Civil War Database: http://museum.dva.state.wi.us/civilwaronline/Search.aspx

Loohauis-Bennett, Jackie. "150 Years Ago, Faraway Battles Drew Wisconsinites ." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (April 2, 2011): http://www.jsoline.com/entertainment/119079394

Jones, Meg. "Descendants of Wisconsin Veterans mark Anniversary of the Civil War." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (April 12, 2011): http://www.jsoline.com/news/milwaukee/119671359.html

Dodge Jefferson County Genealogical Society: http://www.dodgejeffgen.com

• Click on ARCHIVES and scroll down to Concord (Jefferson Cty) for link to "Nathaniel Carpenter Ransom biography." It contains a much information, including Ransom’s attempts to enlist and how he experienced the Civil War.
• Use their extensive collection of obituary clippings and library to research the genealogies of Civil War soldiers.
• DJCGS has just received (still cataloguing) a special family collection that includes Civil War documents.
• Site includes links to online Rosters at the Wisconsin Historical Society site: Civil War, Roster of Wisconsin Civil War Soldiers, vol. I; Civil War, Roster of Wisconsin Civil War Soldiers, vol. I

"Civil War Encampment September 2007." Johnson Creek Historical Society: http://www.johnsoncreekhistory.com/civilwar.htm


The Cushing Brothers

"Civil War Soldier Awarded Medal of Honor." CBS News (May 20, 2010): http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/20/national/main6502241.shtml

"Winning a Battle to Honor a Civil War Hero." New York Times (June 11, 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/us/12medal.html?hpw

• Includes a photo of Alonzo Cushing and five others, taken at Antietam
• Describes how Margaret Zerweh spent 23 years to restore Alonzo Cushing's story to national history, finally convincing Senator Russ Feingold to help in the effort to award him the Medal of a Honor

"The Story of William Barker Cushing." U.S.S. Cushing Association. http://cushing.0catch.com/wbcush.htm

• Link from this page to "In William Barker Cushing's Own Words: The Destruction of the Albemarle" and other primary sources

"Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Fuger’s "Brief" Military History of Nearly 44 Years of Service in the 4th Regiment of Artillery, U.S. Army." Cushing’s Battery: http://cushingsbatterywi.com/historical.html

• Fuger, who was at Gettysburg with Alonzo Cushing, provides a detailed account.
• Site is currently being updated.

NOTES

1) That school is now closed. Students in the township attend schools in the Watertown, Jefferson, Oconomowoc, and Johnson Creek districts. I am pleased to report that the Johnson Creek elementary school is doing a great job with its annual Civil War encampment program (see photos at site listed in the Wisconsin section of Resources).

2) A series of Civil War letters from Isaac Poe to his family and by relatives and friends were published in the Milwaukee Journal (May 28, 1961) under the title "Dear Wife and Children." Poe belonged to the 29th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, Company F, with ten other Concord men. He was one of five Concord casualties from this company (there were two others from another company). The survivors were mustered out in June, 1865, at Shreveport, Louisiana.

3) "George S. Lockwood, M.D." Entry in The History of Jefferson County, Wisconsin (Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1879). Online: http://www.rockvillemama.com/lockwoodg.txt

4) Based on Federal Census data, the WVM database, and significant additional information provided by Bob Mittlestadt.

5) Isaac Poe, who died in 1863, served on the frontier (I intend to tell more of his story in a follow-up presentation). William Allen, who died of disease at Rolla, Missouri, October 1862, was part of this western story and one of the five Concord causualties of 1862

Update III

(I've decided to insert "Update" posts as needed rather than weekly, so I'll edit the previous titles to reflect this change.  Expect an update about every 7-10 days, depending on the topics covered.)
  
Wisconsin and Union Rights Protests

Resistance to Gov. Scott Walker’s union-restricting agenda continues in Wisconsin, with few signs of ending any time soon. From various sites in Illinois fourteen state senators are preventing the quorum necessary to pass any fiscal measures in the State Senate. Yesterday (March 1) Gov. Walker unveiled a state budget for the 2011-2013 biennium that Democrat legislators, protesters in Madison, and their stay-at-home supporters are denouncing for its draconian cuts to school districts and local governments. Stay tuned by going to the web sites of Wisconsin TV stations and newspapers (as listed in "Cairo in Wisconsin?").

1) In my first post on the Wisconsin protests (Feb 20) I suggested that when protesters decided to occupy Wisconsin’s iconic Capitol, they were carrying out, deliberately, a symbolic act. I can now support this interpretation with visual evidence from a Washington Post photo gallery (1). In the center of the first slide there is a sign proudly proclaiming, "Whose house? Our house!"

• "Wisconsin Budget Battle: Protesters Rally Against Anti-Union Bill" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2011/02/19/GA2011021900272.html?sid=ST2011022103805). This is an excellent collection of 53 slides (so I’ve deleted an earlier slideshow of poor photos and put this one in its place).

2) For more analysis of Wisconsin’s pro-union protests (and more historical background) listen to these segments from WUWM (89.7 FM)’ "Lake Effect" program:

• Lake Effect (2-23-2011): "Analyzing the Fireside Chat" (9:24). Mitch Teich interviews David Canon (UW-Madison, Professor of Political Science). URL: http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/view_le.php?articleid=1184
• Lake Effect: "Wisconsin’s Labor History" (9:06). Dan Harmon interviews Steven Meyer (UW-Milwaukee, Professor of History, specialist in Wisconsin’s labor history). Meyer is the author of "Stalin Over Wisconsin": The Making and Unmaking of Militant Unionism, 1900-1950 (New Brunswick, 1992). URL: http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/view_le.php?articleid=1184
• Lake Effect (2-17-2011): "The Stakes of Gov. Walker's Plan to End Collective Bargaining" (12:00). Bonnie North interviews Philip Dine (George Washington University, Adjunct Professor of Labor Management Relations). Dine is the author of State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence (McGraw Hill, 2007). URL: http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/view_le.php?articleid=1179

3) For a list of solidarity rallies around the US visit the Jobs With Justice site (http://www.jwjblog.org). From the blog’s menu of recent posts, select "Worker Solidarity Rallies Planned." This brings up a roster of last week’s events (February 20-26) as well as this week’s rallies. Students could plot these on a US map to discover how labor issues are spreading.

• From the JWJ About page: "At Jobs with Justice, our goal is to build a strong, progressive labor movement that works in coalition with community, faith, and student organizations to build a broader global movement for economic and social justice."

4) Unions--public and private--are under attack in virtually all 50 states. Two articles in The Nation provide detailed information about nation-wide efforts to ban or restrict unions:

• Jane McAlevey, "Labor's Last Stand." The Nation (2-16-11).
  URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/158640/labors-last-stand
• Robert Pollin and Jeffrey Thompson, "The Betrayal of Public Workers." The Nation (2-16-11).
  URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/158647/betrayal-public-workers.

More Signs of Connectivity Among Dissidents and the Disgruntled

In "Cairo in Wisconsin?" the Lynx pointed out that some protesters in Madison had signs referring to the Egyptian uprising against Mubarak. Since the fall of Mubarak, his dictatorship has receded into the realm of history and so there are few signs making explicit parallels between Mubarak and Gov. Walker. There are, however, plenty of "Stop the Imperial Walker" signs, alluding to the four-legged monster robot of the Star Wars movie (2). See, for example, slide # 23 in the Washington Post gallery, "Wisconsin Budget Battle."

It is still a viable strategy to launch a discussion of on-going protests in the US and abroad by acknowledging that protesters may be drawing inspiration from the success of the Egyptian uprising (3). Now I can point to a photo of a "Walk Like an Egyptian Sign" that illustrates "cognitive connectivity" between the current crop of protesters in the US and those in North Africa and the Middle East. See slide #23 in "The 100 Best Protest Signs At The Wisconsin Capitol" (http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-best-protest-signs-at-the-wisconsin-capitol).

I’ve discovered that the title "Cairo in Wisconsin?" was too provocative for a few potential readers–who appear not to have noticed the question mark. It was NOT my intention to encourage anyone to see Egypt and Wisconsin (that is, the historical and/or contemporary contexts of these events) as equivalent. To equate what the people of Egypt suffered under Mubarak with efforts to undermine or eliminate labor rights in the USA would be to trivialize the brutality and torture of dissidents in Egypt–and the poverty of most Egyptians. I would never do that. I have lived in a dictatorship (Idi Amin’s Uganda), fearing for the safety of my family and friends.

Of special interest then, is this item in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Egypt, Madison Link Flawed, Student Says" (4). It is whether there is anyone else with about the experience of Alex Hanna, co-president of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s TAA (Teaching Assistants Association), which functions as a bargaining unit. Hanna was in the thick of events in Madison, even sleeping in the Capitol, but he had witnessed events in Cairo just prior to returning to the Madison campus. He was in Cairo doing research for a master’s thesis on how social media enable communication in regimes that restrict political speech and activism. He cites major differences between Madison and Cairo but also points out that in both cases social media played a role–though somewhat differently.

What is significant, however, is the "cognitive connectivity" that we can observe as dissident or disgruntled citizens in what may be very different contexts observe the outcome of protests in one context and apply it their own circumstances (*). The young man carrying the "Walk Like an Egyptian" sign had connected the dots in a cognitive/neurological process and his sign was the external manifestation of this process. To understand his behavior we need to take into account links that, viewed more objectively, may be "flawed." Of course, for teachers this provides an opportunity to engage students in a broad discussion of "people power" and its limitations. No doubt the discussion would pivot around the differences between protests here and abroad.

Relevant to the kind of connectivity I’ve been thinking about is Richard Grusin’s notion of "premediation." He examines how today’s news and social media prepare audiences psychologically for multiple possibilities in the future. In his new book, Premediation: Affect and Mediality After 9/11, he describes the impact of the anticipation elicited by social media during the 2009 election protests in Iran (*). In yesterday’s Lake Effect program he considers the way in which premediation is occurring in both Egypt and Madison.

• Lake Effect (3-1-2011): "Premediation: Reporting on Tomorrow Today" (16:19). Stephanie Lecci interview with Richard Grusin. URL: http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/view_le.php?articleid=1188

Grusin suggests that one of Egypt’s effects has been an intensified sense of hopefulness among protesters in Madison. Disgruntled people in Wisconsin, after seeing and hearing--with unprecedented immediacy--what was happening in Egypt, were psychologically prepared to act. While he thinks Wisconsinites would have protested regardless of what was happening elsewhere, he suggests that the structure and intensity would have been different without "premediation." Grusin, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Professor of English, directs UWM’s Center for 21^st Century Studies.

In addition, Chinese dissidents have observed the protests across the Arab world and tried to emulate them by calling for a "Jasmine Revolution" in China (see NYT 2-20/21-11). The response of Chinese officials, including the arrest of human rights activists, indicates how seriously the government is taking attempts to use social media to call for protests that might create instability (6). Despite the government’s surveillance of social media, it seems that Grusin’s "premediation" is also operating in the Chinese context.

Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe, when citizens there (no doubt, including quite a few dissidents,) gathered to watch Al Jazeera and BBC videos of events in Egypt, the police arrived and seized their equipment (laptop, DVDs, projector) and took 46 of them into custody. Those detained were charged with "attempting to overthrow the government by unconstitutional means" and face up to twenty years in prison (7).

For those who have been wondering why people in sub-Saharan are not rising up against tyrants ... just wait. Listen to Trevor Ncube, owner of independent newspapers in Zimbabwe and The Mail & Guardian (a major South African paper): "Indeed the single most important lesson frojm Tunisia and Egypt is that we as Zimbabweans are our own liberators" (8).

I strongly recommend that you access the original Ncube article and also read the comments. Ncube asserts that events in Tunisia and Zimbabwe "certainly planted ideas in Zimbabweans’ minds that may influence the country’s future in a significant way." This supports my argument about "cognitive connectivity" and Grusin’s notion of "premediation." But, as Ncube points out, "Zimbabwe’s political predicament is far worse" and this, of course, goes far in explaining Zimbabweans’ reluctance to rise up and overthrow Mugabe (though protests have occurred–and politicians, lawyers, and human rights activists have been arrested and sometimes brutally beaten or tortured). Very candidly, Ncube describes what people in Zimbabwe are facing, the entrenched power of Mugabe’s regime. The comments reveal even more. Share this unique primary source with your students.

Notes

1) See also Michael Fletcher, "Wisconsin Gov. Walker Threatens to Trigger Layoffs for Thousands of Public Workers, Washington Post (2-26-2011). From this article access video, "Wis. Legislation Sparks Country-wide Protests" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/25/AR2011022507027.html).

2) DISCLOSURE: I have a vintage AT-AT Imperial Walker in my basement (keeping it for my son, who turns 36 this month).

3) Protesters in Columbus, Ohio have also alluded to the Egyptian revolution. See "After Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana Face Union Fight," New York Times (2-23-11).

4) Craig Gilbert, "Egypt, Madison Link Flawed, Student Says," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (3-2-2010).

5) Richard Grusin, Premediation: Affect and Mediality After 9/11(Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Available in hardcover and paperback.

6) Andrew Jacobs, "Chinese Government Responds to Call for Protests," New York Times (2-21-2011).

7) Celia W. Dugger, "TV Viewing Leads to Zimbabwe Arrests," New York Times (2-22-2011).

8) Quoted in Celia W. Dugger (see note 7). For the original article see "We Are Our Own Liberators," The Guardian & Mail (2-28-2011). URL: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2011-02-18-we-are-our-own-liberators/

Wisconsin and the 1848 Revolutions in Europe

In a recent post ("Mideast: Resource Round-Up") the Lynx strongly recommended Ann Applebaum’s article suggesting that the current wave of upheavals in the Arab world is more like the revolutions in Europe in 1848 than any other era of unrest. For teachers this is potentially a "double-duty" article because there is also a link between Wisconsin in 2010 and Europe in 1848.

This connection is not simply comparative or inferential. It is real and indisputable because the historical chain begins with real people, mostly Germans, who participated the 1848 revolutions and then emigrated to America. Those who settled in Wisconsin, and in Milwaukee in particular, brought their ideas and ideals with them–their brains weren’t empty suitcases!

In Germans in Wisconsin, Richard Zeitlin explains that German immigration to Wisconsin occurred in three waves. The first wave included some farmers and artisans, but it was the Forty-Eighters who passed on a special legacy–for among them were a large number of "intellectuals, radicals, religious dissidents, advocates of Free Thought, and reformers of all kinds" (1) These free-thinkers dominated Milwaukee’s cultural and intellectual life for more than a generation, turning the city into the "German Athens" of America (2). The result was an intellectual infusion that is still detectable today. Fortunately, if you want to read more about this topic, Hani Holzman’s thesis, "The German Forty-Eighters and the Socialists in Milwaukee: A Social Psychological Study of Assimilation" is available online (3).

For the general context in which the ideas of European revolutionaries took root in Wisconsin--where they contributed one way or another to the Republican Party, the Progressive movement, and Milwaukee’s "Sewer Socialism" see the Turning Points page of the Wisconsin Historical Society web site. These are short articles, handy as references or for reading in class, but each has an ample collection of printable primary sources. While not focusing on the Forty-Eighters, they sum up Wisconsin’s labor history and progressive political tradition:

• 19th-Century Immigration http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-018/?action=more_essay
• Wisconsin and the Republican Party http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-022/?action=more_essay
• Progressivism and the Wisconsin Idea http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-036/?action=more_essay
• The Birth of the Labor Movement http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-030/?action=more_essay
• Milwaukee Sewer Socialism http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-043/?action=more_essay

　
For links to episodes in Wisconsin labor history and other protests see articles posted on the "Odd Wisconsin Archives" (http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/

• "Striking Out"  http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001946.asp
• "The Ghosts of Protests Past." http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/004468.asp

　
Carl Schurz

On the national stage the most famous Forty-Eighter was Carl Schurz, whose Wisconsin connection is well-known to teachers and students in Wisconsin. In 1848 he was just 19 years old, a student in Bonn, when he joined a German revolutionary movement. In his Reminiscences Carl recalled the exhilaration that overtook him when he learned, in February 1848, that the French had toppled Louis Philippe (4). An excerpt is part of Internet Modern History Source Book. This primary source fits the life history approach as it illustrates so well how a young man became caught up in events.

In 1848 German was a collection of principalities and states. Carl’s group of revolutionaries had as their primary goal a unified nation-state. Their actions resulted in the detention of Carl’s teacher and mentor, Gottfried Kinkel. Though Carl and his friends managed to rescue Kinkel, the movement’s defeat forced them into exile. Among Carl’s fellow revolutionaries was Fritz Anneke, who would emigrate to Wisconsin with his wife Mathilde and settle in Milwaukee. Mathilde Anneke is revered in Wisconsin as one of the state’s foremost feminists (5).

Carl Schurz,accompanied by his wife, arrived in New York City in 1852. By 1855 they had moved to Wisconsin, where they lived in Watertown. Finding a political home in the newly formed Republican party, Schurz went on to campaign for Lincoln in several states and briefly served the Lincoln administration as envoy to Spain. During the Civil War, as Brigadier General Schurz, he was charged with leading a cohort of the Army of the Potomoc’s German-speaking troops (6). After the war he turned to journalism. A decision to become part owner of a German-language newspaper in St. Louis brought him to Missouri. In 1869 he was elected U.S. Senator from that state. Later he served in the administation of President Rutherford B. Hayes.

During the years that Carl and Margarethe lived in Watertown, she opened the first kindergarten in America (7). In school, of course, we heard much more about Margarethe’s kindergarten than we ever learned about Carl’s reformist and liberal (in the 19^th century sense) ideas. (DISCLOSURE: I attended Watertown High School, where social studies teachers in the 1960s were very circumspect about their political views.)

So let me insert here a plea for teaching more Wisconsin history in the state’s US history classrooms. We now have a fine new textbook for teaching state history in fourth grade but that’s insufficient. Students need exposure to state history as part of national and world history; they need to re-study it when they are old enough to handle topics too abstract or complicated for fourth graders. I’m sure a few teachers are doing this already, but whenever I’ve voiced this concern most people agree--more needs to be done.

Resources for Carl Schurz

Mesaros, Glenn. "Carl Schurz, German American." This biographical sketch is fairly detailed. It is followed by a noteworthy set of links to local newspapers and excerpts from the New York Times (1861) and Watertown Daily Times (2001). http://www.watertownhistory.org/Articles/CarlSchurz.htm
　
Brief biographies of Carl and Margarethe Schurz are part of the "Dictionary of Wisconsin History" and from "Carl Schurz you can access a description of the Carl Schurz papers. Click on "Browse People" at http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary/index.asp?action=browse&term_type_id=1&term_type_text=People

Read more about Carl Schurz in Wisconsin Magazine of History articles available on the Wisconsin Historical Society site. Perhaps the best item is the translation of a diary Schurz kept as a young revolutionary (a great primary source for European and world history).

To print these, find the left column where it is says "view: document description" and change this to "view: complete print version" and click on GO (this brings up a PDF file).

1) Schurz, Carl. "The Surrender of Ratstatt." Wisconsin Magazine of History 12 (March 1920): 239-70. http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/wmh&CISOPTR=6585&CISOSHOW=6475&REC=4

• ARTICLE ABSTRACT (WHS): This diary was kept by Carl Schurz (1829-1906) during the climactic events of the German Revolution of 1848-49. Across the German states in 1848, large numbers of citizens demanded freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and an elected parliament. Leaders and participants in the democratic movement, if caught, were executed or sentenced to long prison terms; many fled to the U.S., where they were known as "Forty-eighters." A short-lived democracy centered in Frankfort was easily overthrown by the armies of Austria and Prussia. When soldiers in Baden mutinied rather than suppress the movement, they were quickly crushed by the Prussian army in May of 1849 at Rastatt. Schurz was on the barricades at Rastatt, where he kept this personal account. It was unearthed in Germany in 1928 by Wisconsin Historical Society director Joseph Schafer and first translated here.

2) Fish, Carl Russell. "Carl Schurz–The American." Wisconsin Magaine of History 12 (June 1929): 345-58.
http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/wmh&CISOPTR=6720&CISOSHOW=6590&REC=8

3) Schafer, Joseph. "Carl Schurz, Immigrant Statesman." Wisconsin Magazine of History 11 (June 1928): 373-94.  http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/wmh&CISOPTR=6331&CISOSHOW=6203&REC=9
　
Trefousse, Hans Louis. Carl Schurz, a Biography. 2^nd edition. Fordham University Press, 1998 (1^st edition 1982). Also at Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Xh88sn29RVwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=carl+schurz&ots=y9zuezPpZw&sig=A1C89MEkiByA_mRg9xK7adEcHiw#v=onepage&q&f=false

"Carl Schurz." Wikipedia. See for much detailed information and citations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schurz

For access to additional online material consult "Google: Timeline Results for CarlSchurz." http://www.google.com/#q=carl+schurz&hl=en&prmd=ivnsbo&tbs=tl:1&tbo=u&ei=buBnTYOdF8H38Ab5z_GsCw&sa=X&oi=timeline_result&ct=title&resnum=17&ved=0CHcQ5wIwEA&bav=on.1,or.&fp=42ea6e12edc6080
　

Notes

1) Richard H. Zeitlin, Germans in Wisconsin. Revised and Expanded Edition (Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 2000), pp. 6-7. Later waves were dominated by farmers and laborers displaced by industrialization.

2) For Germans in Milwaukee, see John Gurda, The Making of Milwaukee (Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Historical Society, 1999), especially Chapter 3 (for the Forty-Eighters, pp. 62-63, 96). For Milwaukee’s labor history (to which Poles and other immigrants made significant contribution), see Chapter 5. For Milwaukee socialism, see Chapter 6.

3) Hani M. Holtzman, M.A. Thesis, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1948. URL: http://minds.wiconsin.edu/handle/1793/7106?show=full

4) Schurz, Carl. Reminiscences. New York: Doubleday, 1908. The excerpt is from Vol. I, pp. 112-14, 116-17. URL: http://www.fordahma.edu/halsall/mod/1848schurz.html

5) "Carl Schurz" in Wikpedia. For brief biographies of Fritz and Mathilde Anneke, use the "Dictionary of Wisconsin History" (click on "Browse People"). http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary/index.asp?action=browse&term_type_id=1&term_type_text=People. See also Gurda (note 2).

6) Glenn Mesaros. He the fascinating detail that the officers of General Fremont’s corps, to which these troops were attached, wore Hungarian Forty-Eighters. To expand the Forty-Eighters in America theme, you might begin with Wikipedia’s "Forty-Eighters" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-Eighters)

7) Whether this was actually the nation's first kindergarten is sometimes disputed. The people of Watertown and nearby localities, however, proudly make this claim.

Cairo in Wisconsin?

(This post is unavoidably personal as the Lynx grew up in and now lives in Wisconsin. I believe it is better to signal a POV than to pretend, out of a misplaced perception of objectivity, not to have one.)

When I was a kid and needed braces on my teeth, my mother took me to an orthodonist in Madison, whose office was on the Square. Madison’s grid of streets form a square around the Capitol, a building with four entrances (1). Whereas Tahrir Square is a vast empty space, the Square in Madison is an epicenter around an iconic building that, when protesters occupied it, expressed their sense of civic investment: this is our Capitol and we own it. From the Square it’s only a few blocks up State Street to the University of Wisconsin campus. Like Cairo, Madison is a city with students and faculty quite willing to act on their idealism. For me it was trips to Madison, and especially exposure to UW’s cosmopolitan atmosphere, that convinced me I had to go to college there.

It is truly amazing to see so many Wisconsinites filling the Square and all levels of the Capitol’s rotunda. Wisconsin rarely makes an appearance on the national stage (an exception being the 2008 presidential election, when Wisconsin was a battleground state). Now, thanks to the national media’s attention to events in Madison, Wisconsin’s "days of rage" have put it on the the global stage.

What’s at stake is the future of public employee unions in Wisconsin and across the nation (2). What began as a protest against Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill has turned into a struggle to preserve union rights in a state with a long history of union organizing, where the nation’s first public employee union was formed more than 50 years ago (3). Yes, Walker’s agenda really is a union-busting agenda–despite his insisting, over and over again, that it’s all about the budget deficit (4).

Please don’t misconstrue my title. Let me make it clear that I’m NOT proposing that we view protests in Madison and around the state as if they were strictly analogous to those in Egypt. What I want to emphasize is the information age connectivity that we can observe flowing between them. In today’s world, what goes around in the 24/7 media circus just keeps swirling–making it possible for protesters in Madison to compare the behavior of the Gov. Scott Walker and with that of Mubarak. This is not all that surprising since many protesters in Wisconsin are teachers, who were probably already plugged into current events in the Arab world.

Earlier this week, while watching local news on Milwaukee TV station, I saw a young protester carrying this sign: "WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN." Obviously, he had connected emotionally with the new-found pride and empowerment of his Egyptian peers. And, people in Egypt know about what’s happening here. Yesterday in Tahrir Square a young Egyptian held up a sign of solidarity: "Egypt Supports Wisconsin!"(5). That's what inspired me to write this post.

By the way, I don’t condone truly outrageous rhetoric because, as Ann Althouse has suggested, it hurts the cause. She makes her point by embedding a Wisconsin GOP video that highlights the hypocrisy of liberals who espouse civility but then act out their incivility (as some clearly are doing in Wisconsin (6). Most Wisconsinites, whatever their politics, are polite and conservative in their personal decorum. So the tone of the rhetoric is signifying how angry people are about Gov. Scott Walker’s positions (refusing to compromise on the benefits issue, overreaching on the union rights issue).

What’s my position on public workers unions, more specifically on teachers’ unions? To be honest, I’m somewhat critical of unions that could do more to uphold professional standards and do less to protect ineffective teachers. Still, teachers and public workers need unions to protect their interests. And unions do serve the interests of students when their efforts improve working conditions in the classroom. I belonged to a faculty union when teaching at a university in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Thanks to APSCUF (the PSSHE union) I had excellent health benefits and a reasonably good salary. In those days (I don’t know current details) APSCUF helped to maintain the quality of education by negotiating contract that kept the numbers of adjuncts low. This union was affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, whose current president Randi Weingarten, has addressed the need for more rigorous teacher evaluations and other reforms (7).

Finally, I am concerned about political patronage. Let me explain. I grew up in Jefferson County and attended Watertown High School. The city of Watertown, though mostly in Jefferson County, is partly in Dodge County, the home turf of the Fitzgerald clan. On Saturday I discovered that NYT columnist Gail Collins (nearly always a hoot to read, even if you don’t agree with her) had heard of the infamous Fitzgeralds (8). The Senate Majority Leader is Scott Fitzgerald and the Assembly Majority Leader is his brother Jeff Fitzgerald. Oh, there’s one more, their father, appointed by Gov. Walker to head the state patrol. The stench of nepotism now polluting (figuratively) the Horicon Marsh is not unlike that of the Mubarak regime. Perhaps some of Gov. Walker’s supporters now see the folly of this appointment.

Teaching About the Wisconsin Protests (For detailed references and URLs see lists of resources.)

What’s happening in Wisconsin raises a lot of national issues, concerning public policy, labor unions and politics, local/state/federal government budget deficits, and growing income inequality (9). So this is a current events topic with relevance across many subject areas. Language arts and social studies teachers can use it as a stepping-stone to greater global awareness. A lesson on protests at home would help students understand that Americans get frustrated, too, but have rights to free speech and assembly that elsewhere people do not have or are struggling to secure. In addition, it would undermine the notion that tumultuous protests only happen in other countries.

Teachers in Wisconsin should find it fairly easy to bring these themes into a civics or history lesson. For a whole roster of suggestions, turn to Eugene Kane’s column in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

For a student/teacher event at a local high school see WISN TV’s Slideshow, "School Walkouts, Protests."

To give students an overview of events and issues, show the WISN program "UP FRONT with Mike Gousha" (online as three segments). Gusha interviews a Democrat Senator, then a Republican Assemblyman; a colleague interviews a Marquette University law professor.

For a print-media overviews aimed at a national audience see the New York Times ("Wisconsin Leads Way as Workers Fight State Cuts") or the Washington Post ("Obama Joins Wisconsin Budget Battle").  NYT reporter Steven Greenhouse considers the national and long-term implications of the Wisconsin confrontation in a "news analysis" article ("A Watershed Moment for Public-Sector Unions").

Charles Benson’s interviews with Gov. Walker and President Obama on TMJ4 TV offer different takes on the controversy. These could be used in middle school as well as high school classes.

For advanced students, if you are interested in POV analysis, "Cairo in the Midwest?" by Tobin Harshaw is an excellent resource. (Honestly, I created my title before I saw his.) Harshaw, a native of Wisconsin, provides a sampling of analysis and opinion. Each excerpt is linked to the original and students should be encouraged to check out at least some of thesepiece and, in many instances, find additional material. For example, John Nichols, a Wisconsinite writing for The Nation and from a pro-union/progressive point of view, presents a running account in "ON WISCONSIN: Live Reports From Ground Zero for Labor Rights" that is worth reading in its entirety.

OBSERVE: Simply tell students to look for signs mentioning Egypt or Mubarak in visual media (TV news, video, photos in print or online). Then ask them to share examples in class. ASK: Do these tell us anything about how Wisconsin protesters are processing their reactions to Gov. Walker’s proposals?

COMPARE/COMPOSE: Some commentators have suggested that the Wisconsin protests, with their focus on the rights of organized labor, have more in common with labor protests in Europe over wage/retirement concessions that governments are trying to enact. Encourage students to find out more about protests in Greece, Spain, or France in 2009. Then students prepare content to present--in an oral report, PowerPoint, or essay–to support or refute the idea that workers in Europe have concerns similar to public employees in the US.

CRITICAL THINKING: In a journalism or media studies class, examine the the spinning of facts and the accuracy statements by both politicians and media pundits. Send students to Politifact Wisconsin, where there are several items related to the Madison protests.

EXPAND: Read and discuss "First Amendment Remedies: How Working Wisconsinites Took Their Constitution Back" (from the Cap times). Then ask students to search online for a broader range of opinion on the constitutional issues.

WISCONSIN MEDIA RESOURCES

For breaking news and local/state opinion and editorials see coverage on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or Wisconsin State Journal sites. Also check out these TV web sites for breaking news, video from news casts and special features:

TMJ4 (Milwaukee). http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local

1) ARTICLE: "Rallies Continue .."
http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/116516323.html

2) VIDEO: "Charles Benson Sits Down with Gov. Walker." TMJ4 reporter’s interview with the Governor.  http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/116514928.html

3) RAW VIDEO: Charles Benson Sits Down With President Obama." Reporter’s one-on-one with the President on Wednesday (Feb 16).
http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/116358199.html

CBS News 58 (Milwaukee). http://www.cbs58.com/news.html

1) VIDEO: "Tea Party Rally on Saturday"http://www.cbs58.com/index.php?aid=16216
　
WISN (Milwaukee). http://www.wisn.com/

1) SLIDESHOW: "Images from Madison" (79 slides some out-of-focus)http://www.wisn.com/slideshow/news/26887954/detail.html

2) SLIDESHOW: "School Walkouts, Protests" (15 slides)http://www.wisn.com/slideshow/education/26902326/detail.html

3) VIDEO: UpFront with Mike Gusha (three segments)

• http://www.wisn.com/video/26931751/detail.html
• http://www.wisn.com/video/26931520/detail.html
• http://www.wisn.com/video/26931359/detail.html

Wisconsin State Journal.


The Cap Times.  (Published only online.)   http://host.madison.com/

1) Editorial. "First Amendment Remedies: How Working Wisconsonites Took Their Constitution Back." http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_adcacc1a-b0d6-5026-b142-d41f0a69be7c.html?sourcetrack=moreArticle

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. http://www.jsonline.com

1) Breaking news (2-19-2011): "Biggest protests yet as pro-Walker side, larger union crowd meet peacefully."  http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/116519738.html

2) Bill Glauber and Don Walker. "Showdown Called Defining Moment in Organized Labor" (2-20-2011).  http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/116545638.html

3) Don Walker, Lee Bergquist, and Bill glauber.  "Unions Concede on Money Issues; Governor Says Bargaining Must Go" (2-20-11).


4) Kane, Eugene. "Teachers’ Absence Could Turn into Civics Lesson for their Students." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (2-20-2011). http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/116544193.html

OTHER RESOURCES

Althouse   The blog of Ann Althouse, a UW-Madison law professor, who voted for Scott Walker in the November 2010 election. She has posted many photos and video clips related to the protests.
Politifact Wisconsin   http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/

Cooper, Michael, and Katharine Q. Seelye. "Wisconsin Leads Way as Workers Fight State Cuts." NYT (2-19-10). http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/us/politics/19states.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Denis, Brady, and Peter Wallsten. "Obama Joins Wisconsin's Budget Battle, Opposing Republican Anti-Union Bill."  Washington Post (2-18-2011).

Greenhouse, Steven. "A Watershed Moment for Public-Sector Unions." NYT (2-19-2011). http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/us/19union.html?ref=politics


Harshaw, Tobin. "Cairo in the Midwest?" NYT (2-18-2011).
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/cairo-in-the-midwest/?ref=us


Nichols, John. "ON WISCONSIN: Live Reports From Ground Zero for Labor Rights." The Nation (2- 17-2011). http://www.thenation.com


Pollin, Robert, and Jeffrey Thompson. "The Betrayal of Public Workers." The Nation (2- 16-2011). http://www.thenation.com


Notes

1) For a map of the Square in Madison go to "Biggest protests yet as pro-Walker side, larger union crowd meet peacefully" and scroll down left side: http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/116519738.html

2) "Showdown Called Defining Moment in Organized Labor" (2-20-2011).
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/116545638.html

3) Bill Glauber and Don Walker in the Milwaukee Journal (2-20-2011).  See also John Fund, "What's at Stake in Wisconsin's Budget Battle," Wall Street Journal Online (2-19-2011).  http://online.wsj.com/

4) See Gousha interview with Gov. Walker. Robert Pollin and Jeffrey Thompson, "The Betrayal of Public Workers."

5) CBS 58 News at 5 PM (2-19-2011). (I don’t recall the details for the first sign.)

6) "After all those efforts to paint Tea Partiers as using violent images and rhetoric, these pictures from Madison have got to hurt.." Althouse (2-17-2011). Access here to Wisconsin GOP video: "Rhetoric vs. Realty: Liberal Protest of Gov. Walker’s Budget" (on YouTube).

7) See interview with Randi Weingarten , "Wisconsin Public Workers Union Rights Go Head-to-Head with State Budget Woes." PBS: Newshour (2-18-2011). Transcript available on site.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june11/wisconsin_02-18.html

8) Gail Collins, "Sacred Cows, Angry Birds." NYT (2-19-11). See the last five paragraphs.

9) For inequality see Laura Essig's provocative post, "Is It Egypt, Yet?" Online at the Chronicle of Higher Education (2-17-2011), with comments.