Awake at 5 AM for our journey to Madison, WI. All aboard at 6 and on our way to the land of the “cheeseheads”. Okay, now I know there is more to Wisconsin than cheese and the Green Bay Packers. My husband has always told me how beautiful Wisconsin was, and now I believe him! LOL  

We began the morning at the State Historical Museum with an overview of some publications that they have produced.  I was completely impressed with the fact that they produce their own textbook, for the 4^th grade, on Wisconsin history. I really wish that the Colorado Historical Society worked in such close conjunction with teachers in order to produce materials that they can use. A lot of the resources that are available in Colorado are not cost effective; such as the history trunks. I would love to use those in my classroom, but the cost of shipping it back is simply more than I want to handle.  And field trips are out of the question at this point. There simply isn’t any money to take kids anywhere, and asking the families to take care of it is a hardship on them. Most of my students can barely afford school supplies; but I digress…

I loved the exhibit “Odd Wisconsin”. It was so entertaining yet extremely informative. That is definitely one of those “hooks” we keep hearing about! Kids would love to visit an exhibit like that. I also liked the openness of the museum. You didn’t feel “boxed in” by the history.  It also made it more inviting, like you could just wander at your own pace. They were so accommodating at the Museum; genuinely happy that we were there.

Off to lunch at one of Jonathan’s favorite watering holes which was quite delicious. It was so nice to actually sit in the sun for a change.  I was beginning to think all it did was rain around here. That would of course account for all the green. All we get is wind and hail at home.

Then we began our afternoon at the State Historical Society. We started with our lecture by Jonathan Pollack. I loved his approach of talking about immigration by showing naturalization papers over a span of several years. It brought in to sharp relief the issues surrounding immigration at the time, anti-immigrant feelings, and how the process became harder and more involved.

We then received a brief overview of their website and were allowed to visit the research room. I can’t believe they just gave us unfettered access to documents like that. We were holding original documents from people we had just studied. Simone ( I think that was the assistants name) said that they don’t have all of those documents reproduced or scanned. When we asked what would happen if one of them was damaged or lost, she just kind of looked at us. Another employee responded “these are from the 30’s and they are still in really good condition.” Maybe I misunderstood, but I just can’t understand how they couldn’t have copies of all that material. I know it’s time consuming, but that is invaluable history. Once it’s gone, there is no getting it back.

Our final lecture of the day with Stan Schultz was great! He was so charismatic and excited about his topic, it was easy to listen to him. I learned more about the Progressive Era in that short hour than I think I knew from all my studies combined. It was very beneficial. I would love to be able to take a class from him.