Beginning in the mid-19th century, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was home to a vibrant German-langauge intellectual scene. This work documents the contributions of notable German-speaking writers and their works, including plays and operettas, prose, poetry and serial novels.

While Germans, the largest immigration group in the United States, contributed to the shaping of American society and left their mark on many areas from religion and education to food, farming, political and intellectual life, Americans have been instrumental in shaping German democracy after World War II. Both sides can claim to be part of each other's history, and yet the question arises whether this claim indicates more than a historical interlude in the forming of the Atlantic civilization. In this volume some of the leading historians, social scientists and literary scholars from both sides of the Atlantic have come together to investigate, for the first time in a broad interdisciplinary collaboration, the nexus of these interactions in view of current and future challenges to German-American relations.

This study of Civil War-era politics explores how German immigrants influenced the rise and fall of white commitment to African-American rights. Intertwining developments in Europe and North America, Alison Clark Efford describes how the presence of naturalized citizens affected the status of former slaves and identifies 1870 as a crucial turning point. That year, the Franco-Prussian War prompted German immigrants to re-evaluate the liberal nationalism underpinning African-American suffrage. Throughout the period, the newcomers' approach to race, ethnicity, gender and political economy shaped American citizenship law.

Music Cultures in the United States is a basic textbook for an Introduction to American Music course. Taking a new, fresh approach to the study of American music, it is divided into three parts. In the first part, historical, social, and cultural issues are discussed, including how music history is studied; issues of musical and social identity; and institutions and processes affecting music in the U.S. The heart of the book is devoted to American musical cultures: American Indian; European; African American; Latin American; and Asian American. Each cultural section has a basic introductory article, followed by case studies of specific musical cultures. Finally, global musics are addressed, including Classical Musics and Popular Musics, as they have been performed in the U.S.. Each article is written by an expert in the field, offering in-depth, knowledgeable, yet accessible writing for the student. The accompanying CD offers musical examples tied to each article. Pedagogic material includes chapter overviews, questions for study, and a chronoloogy of key musical events in American music and definitions in the margins.

"At the close of the nineteenth century, new printing and paper technologies fueled an expansion of the newspaper business. Newspapers soon saturated the United States, especially its cities, which were often home to more than a dozen dailies apiece. Using New York, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Chicago as case studies, Julia Guarneri shows how city papers became active agents in creating metropolitan spaces and distinctive urban cultures. Newsprint Metropolis offers a vivid tour of these papers, from the front to the back pages. Paying attention to much-loved features, including comic strips, sports pages, advice columns, and Sunday magazines, she tells the linked histories of newspapers and of the cities they served. Guarneri shows how themed sections for women, businessmen, sports fans, and suburbanites illustrated entire ways of life built around consumer products. But while papers provided a guide to individual upward mobility, they also fostered a climate of civic concern and responsibility. Charity campaigns and metropolitan sections painted portraits of distinctive, cohesive urban communities. Real estate sections and classified ads boosted the profile of the suburbs, expanding metropolitan areas while maintaining cities' roles as economic and information hubs. All the while, editors were drawing in new reading audiences--women, immigrants, and working-class readers--helping to give rise to the diverse, contentious, and commercial public sphere of the twentieth century." -- Publisher's description

In Encore! The Renaissance of Wisconsin Opera Houses, Brian Leahy Doyle chronicles the histories of ten Wisconsin opera houses and theaters, from their construction to their heydays as live performance spaces and through the periods when many of these stages went dark. All but one of the featured theaters has been restored to its original splendor. Just as the beginnings of these theaters were often the result of the efforts of local citizens, Doyle discovers that their restoration is due to the commitment of dedicated and passionate people. More than one of these revived theaters has spurred the revitalization of its surrounding downtown business district as well.

Music and Urban Life in Baroque Germany offers a new narrative of Baroque music, accessible to non-music specialists, in which Tanya Kevorkian defines the era in terms of social dynamics rather than style and genre development. Towns were crucial sites of music-making. Kevorkian explores how performance was integrated into and indispensable to everyday routines, celebrations such as weddings, and political culture. Training and funding likewise emerged from and were integrated into urban life. Ordinary artisans, students, and musical tower guards as well as powerful city councilors contributed to the production and reception of music. This book illuminates the processes at play in fascinating ways. Challenging ideas of "elite" and "popular" culture, Kevorkian examines five central and southern German towns—Augsburg, Munich, Erfurt, Gotha, and Leipzig—to reconstruct a vibrant urban musical culture held in common by townspeople of all ranks. Outdoor acoustic communication, often hovering between musical and nonmusical sound, was essential to the functioning of these towns. As Kevorkian shows, that sonic communication was linked to the music and musicians heard in homes, taverns, and churches. Early modern urban environments and dynamics produced both the giants of the Baroque era, such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann, and the music that townspeople heard daily. This book offers a significant rediscovery of a rich, unique, and understudied musical culture. Received a subvention award from the Margarita M. Hanson Fund and the Donna Cardamone Jackson Fund of the American Musicological Society.