Madison, Wisconsin

Located 142 miles northwest of Chicago and 80 miles west of Milwaukee, Madison is the capital of Wisconsin, the state's second-largest city (after Milwaukee), and the seat of Dane County. Madison is home to diligently preserved natural landscapes, a thriving history of grassroots progressive politics, and the University of Wisconsin's largest branch, UW-Madison, one of the nation's most prominent public institutions.

Landscape

Approximately 13,000 years ago, retreating glaciers shaped a beautiful landscape of rolling hills, lakes, and forests. The Ho-Chunk Indians named it "Taychoperah" or "Four Lakes" after the interconnected glacial lakes of Monona, Mendota, Kegonsa, and Waubesa. The present-day downtown area stretches along the half-mile isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona. The greater metropolitan area consists of Madison plus the remainder of Dane County, including towns like Fitchburg and Mount Horeb. Dane County has roughly 568,000 acres of farmland and 29,000 acres of public land set aside for recreational sports such as hiking, cycling, swimming, canoeing, boating, snowmobiling, and cross-country skiing.

The typically Upper Midwestern climate can run from -37 degrees Fahrenheit to 107 degrees. The winter average is 19.4 degrees, and summer temperatures average 68.6 degrees. The temperature in Madison remains below freezing for more than 100 days out of the year. Yearly snowfall averages 35 inches. In the twenty-first century, the region has seen more frequent and destructive storms and rainfall due to climate change. The state government has established the Office of Environmental Justice to examine and plan for the impact of climate change.

People

Today, the Ho-Chunk Indians live elsewhere in Wisconsin, and white people make up approximately 74.6 percent of the population of Madison, according to a US Census 2022 estimate. Although minority groups now account for about one-fourth of the city's population, the rest of Dane County is almost entirely white, mostly of German or Scandinavian descent. Over half of Wisconsinites can claim German heritage.

Madison is home to somewhat larger populations of the Hispanic, African American, and Asian communities, the latter of which remains as the city's fastest-growing minority population. UW-Madison attracts thousands of foreign students from more than 100 different countries each year.

Madison's food, music, speech, and celebrations have a diverse, global character. One can certainly find the state cuisine, featuring bratwurst (a German sausage), sauerkraut, beer cheese soup, fried cheese curds, and lutefisk (lye-soaked fish -- a Scandinavian delicacy). Yet, like other large cities, Madison also offers Greek, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Mexican, and Middle Eastern food. While some college towns are known for their diverse musical offerings, not many can lay claim to polka, which was named the official state dance in 1993.

Madison's various accents and languages coexist with "Wisconsin English," a local dialect that combines a Midwestern twang with Germanic elements. Its unique vocabulary includes terms such as gemuetlichkeit, meaning a comfortable, down-home sort of good time -- such as Oktoberfest.

A thriving heritage of liberal politics draws baby boomers, activists, and gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals to Madison. The humorous nickname "The Mad City" arises from the participation of vocal, eccentric personalities in civic controversies.

Economy

Approximately one-third of Madison's workforce is employed in state government and related occupations. UW-Madison has more than 35,600 undergraduate students, and the school encourages research with commercial applications, through its Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), which has spun off over 100 companies. The university leads in both medical research and treatment, especially organ transplantation.

Dane County, among the nation's top ten agricultural counties and one of the most productive dairy regions anywhere, is home to nearly one-fifth of the state's ample farmland. In true Wisconsin fashion, cheese, milk, and other dairy products are the chief agricultural products, but Dane County farmers also raise alfalfa, corn, pigs, and meat cattle. Interstates 90 and 94 provide a convenient route for agricultural products and light manufactures to be shipped from Madison to the Twin Cities, Chicago, and other lucrative markets.

For years, Madison discouraged heavy manufacturing to safeguard its natural beauty, but in modern times, the city encourages biotech, information technology, and insurance companies to open facilities there. At one time, the area's largest employer was the Oscar Meyer meatpacking plant, founded in 1919. American Family Insurance has supplanted Oscar Meyer as Madison's number-one employer.

Madison's economy has weathered a serious state budget crisis, the high-tech industry "bust," and several national downturns. Many UW-Madison graduates find it economically feasible to stay in the area, making it even more appealing to high-technology industries that need highly educated labor.

Landmarks and Attractions

In addition to outdoor sports, Madison hosts a farmers market, concerts by the Madison Symphony and Ballet, an annual blues festival, and a St. Patrick's Day parade. State government and architecture fans enjoy public tours of the governor's Classical Revival mansion, as well as the State Capitol. It boasts a 200-foot gilded dome, the only granite capitol dome in the United States. Nearby Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center finally opened in 1997 after a half-century of wrangling over architect Frank Lloyd Wright's original vision.

On the UW-Madison campus, football fans can visit and pay homage to the famous Lambeau Field. The botany and horticulture departments offer an Arboretum, the Wisconsin State Herbarium, the Allen Centennial Gardens, and the Botany Garden. The garden made news in 2001 with the rare blooming of its titan arum, described as "one of the world's largest and malodorous flowers."

Nature enthusiasts appreciate Madison's Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Henry Vilas Zoo, and the Aldo Leopold Nature Center, which celebrates Wisconsin's most prominent environmentalist. Blue Mounds State Park, 25 miles west of the city, is home to the highest point in southern Wisconsin. Nearby in Mount Horeb is the Mustard Museum, which lightheartedly boasts the world's largest collection of mustards, with flavors such as beer 'n' brat and jalapeno honey. Other, more traditional museums in Madison include the Elvehjem Museum of Art, the Madison Arts Center, the Madison Children's Museum, the State Historical Museum, the UW Geology Museum, and the Wisconsin Veterans Museum.

History

Since Wisconsin is one of the most heavily "ethnic" American states, Madison's history is chiefly a tale of immigration waves. Native Americans arrived between 1000 BC and 1000 AD. By the time French explorers arrived in the 1630s, the area's residents were a farming and hunting people who called themselves the Ho-Chunk (also known as Winnebagos). The English, who controlled Ho-Chunk territory from 1763 to 1815, were more interested in fur trading than settlement, although a few English, Scottish, and French Canadian people remained in the region.

Initially, the US government recognized the Ho-Chunk as a sovereign nation with land rights. During the late 1820s, European Americans began to mine lead and lay claim to the rich farmlands in present-day southwestern Wisconsin, and the Ho-Chunk were gradually forced off of their land. To this day, they do not have a federally recognized reservation, and have had to purchase all of their reclaimed land.

The city of Madison has its origin in 1,200 acres of land that territorial judge James Duane Doty purchased from the federal government in 1829. In 1836, President Andrew Jackson formed the Wisconsin Territory, whose capital was initially in Belmont. Dane County was incorporated that same year. In 1848, Wisconsin became the thirtieth state to enter the Union, the University of Wisconsin was founded, and the settlement on Doty's land was incorporated as the village of Madison, with a population of 626. Named for President James Madison, it was incorporated as a city in 1856, with a population of 6,864. The present-day capitol building, dating from 1917, is the fourth to be constructed in Madison. The first two buildings were too difficult to maintain, and the third was largely destroyed in a 1904 fire.

During the nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands of immigrants flocked to Wisconsin, which offered inexpensive, fertile farmlands and a relatively tolerant political climate, unlike the East Coast. Many lead miners of the 1830s and 1840s came from Cornwall in southwestern England, although they left Wisconsin when the mines ran out. During the 1840s and 1850s, impoverished Catholic refugees from An Gorta Mor, Ireland's Great Hunger, began to arrive, along with much smaller numbers of Welsh fleeing English persecution. Most of these new immigrants worked as farm laborers. Today, the Irish are the state's third-largest ethnic group, and of course the one responsible for Madison's lively St. Patrick Day Parade.

The first Germans and Scandinavians overlapped with the arrival of the Irish. Norwegians were the earliest, most abundant Scandinavian group, followed by the Swedish and Danish: all were small farmers displaced by rural overpopulation. The first German wave (1845-1860) included farmers and radical intellectual refugees from the unsuccessful revolution of 1848. The second wave (1865-1875) brought more small farmers, this time fleeing the depression caused by the entrance of American wheat in European markets. The last, largest, and poorest group of German immigrants, mostly displaced farm laborers, arrived between 1875 and 1890. By 1900, fully one-third of all Wisconsinites were native Germans, a large portion of which resided in Dane County. Finally, political and economic disruptions brought so many rural Polish Catholics to Wisconsin between 1870 and 1910 that they became the state's second-largest ethnic group. Polish dill pickle soup took its place in the state cuisine alongside sauerkraut and lutefisk.

New ethnic groups continued to arrive in Madison during the early twentieth century. Sicilians and southern Italian stonecutters built the State Capitol and the State Historical Society, and founded Madison's Greenbush neighborhood. Greek immigrants established the Assumption Orthodox Church, still the site of the annual Greekfest. The Great Migration brought a few Africans Americans from the southern United States. There was no sizeable Asian population in Madison until Japanese American citizens were forcibly removed to internment camps during World War II. Small numbers of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans arrived after the war, and later still, Cubans and Central and South American war refugees. Asian immigration, especially of Indian and Japanese university students and Hmong war refugees from Laos, has taken off in recent decades.

Wisconsin's history of openness to newcomers has profoundly shaped its politics. Wisconsinites, particularly Dane County's own Robert LaFollette (1855-1900) spearheaded the Progressive Movement (circa 1890-1930). Progressives sought government regulations and social programs to relieve the poverty and difficult labor conditions that the ever-growing immigrant population faced. Significantly, many Wisconsin immigrants came from European traditions advocating a strong labor movement and a strong government role in social welfare. They have left their mark on Madison and indeed the whole nation to this day.

Trivia

• Madison is said to boast the most restaurants per resident of any American city.
• Why is Wisconsin the Badger State? The early lead miners were called "badgers" because, like their namesakes, they toiled underground during the day and slept in the hillside forests at night.
• On February 18, 1930, a local Guernsey cow named Elm Farm Ollie distinguished herself as the first bovine airplane passenger.
• One in every 760 Americans holds a degree from UW-Madison.
• During the 1940s, UW-Madison researcher Karl Paul Link discovered the chemical basis of Coumadin, the most frequently used blood thinning medication. This compound also lead to the world's most common rodent poison, named warfarin after WARF.
• In 1837, the first white child born in the Madison area was a girl named Wisconsinana Victoria Peck.

"Climate Change Impacts in Wisconsin." Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 2023, dnr.wisconsin.gov/climatechange/impacts. Accessed 21 Feb. 2024.

"Madison City, Wisconsin." US Census Bureau, 2023, www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/madisoncitywisconsin/PST045223. Accessed 21 Feb. 2024.

"Madison, WI: Economy at a Glance." US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 21 Feb. 2024, www.bls.gov/eag/eag.wi‗madison‗msa.htm. Accessed 21 Feb. 2024.