#phyllis reske

[uwmarchives]

Election Time Invite 

The image is of an invitation from the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Milwaukee to its members to attend an event called State Night. State Night was a gathering held after election day in November. Club members invited out-of-town female guests and provided lunch and/or dinner, and hosted a speaker who discussed state and federal politics. 

Affiliated with the National Federation of Women's Clubs, Inc., which was founded in 1919, the Business and Professional Women's Club of Milwaukee started in 1920. Its purpose was to enrich the professional and private lives of members through education, legislation and community activities. Membership was open to any working woman and represented a variety of professions. The invitation is in the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Milwaukee Records, 1920-1998 (UWM Mss 127, box 2, folder 51).

~Phyllis Graduate Student Intern, UWM Archives

The midterm election is just days away on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. What are your post-vote party plans?

[uwmarchives]

March on Milwaukee: Freedom House on Fire, 1967

This powerful image appeared on the front page of the Milwaukee Sentinel newspaper on August 30, 1967, at the height of Milwaukee’s fair housing marches. The Freedom House was located on North 15th Street and was the headquarters of the Milwaukee NAACP Youth Council.

The fight for open housing began in 1962 when Vel Phillips introduced a law to the Milwaukee Common Council called the Phillips Housing Ordinance. The bill outlawed housing discrimination.  The council defeated the bill 18-1 with Phillips’ vote being the only one in favor. In 1967, after three more failed attempts at getting the bill passed, the Milwaukee NAACP Youth Council offered to help Phillips. The Youth Council picketed homes of the aldermen who voted against fair housing and marched twice in protest across the 16th street viaduct. 

After the protests, the marchers returned to the Freedom House. On the night of the fire, police reported sniper activity in the area and cordoned off nearby streets. They patrolled in front of the Freedom House with shotguns and, trying to disperse the crowd, fired tear gas into the Freedom House. The house burst into flames. The annotation on the back of the picture is a note from James Groppi stating, “the Milwaukee police burning the Freedom House... The neighborhood was tear gassed and young people had to flee from the house.” The fire department was nowhere to be seen. Fire chiefs reported later that it was difficult to get to the House because the main streets, under previous orders from the police, were cordoned off. 

All that was left of the Freedom House was a charred frame. Eventually, the federal government passed an open housing law in 1968. A few days after the federal law was passed, the Milwaukee Common Council passed a city-wide open housing ordinance stronger than the federal law. 

[uwmarchives]

Milwaukee Beauty

What an upper class woman would look like according to the Milwaukee Elite Directory, 1891-92. According to the publisher, the Directory was not aimed to be a “mere Society Blue Book;” it was a way to provide to the public the “addresses of several thousand well-known and well-to-do Milwaukeeans.” The little blue book did inform Milwaukee citizens on proper rules of etiquette, including the proper timing of house calls for gentlemen (it had to be within the week that the lady requested the call so as to not show “great discourtesy”), and the proper way to invite guests (it was not considered “good form” to enclose one card of invitation to several people). Most interesting is the inclusion of the seating charts of long lost Milwaukee theaters such as the Bijou Theatre. The Milwaukee Elite Directory, 1891-92 is part of the archives’ library collection.