Historical Essay

The Wisconsin Folk Music Project was a collaboration between the University of Wisconsin and the Library of Congress to record music from the state’s diverse population. In the summers of 1940 and 1941 Helene Startman-Thomas and Robert “Bob” Draves traveled throughout Wisconsin recording folk music. Stratman-Thomas was a faculty member of the University of Wisconsin School of Music. Draves was a graduate student and her recording technician. In the summer of 1946, Startman-Thomas was assisted by student-technician Aubrey Snyder. In their travels they recorded over 700 performances by singers and musicians representing more than 30 ethnic and regional groups. On August 24, 1946, Lillie Greene Richmond performed in Lancaster, Wisconsin for the Folk Music Project. She was the only African American included in the project.

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By Dennis Wilson

High winds, snow, ice, extreme cold: Today we have the means to moderate these curses of wintertime, but things were different in the “good old days.” Farm families spread across the vast American landscape knew the meaning of the word “snowbound,” and the struggles that term implied. We get blizzard warnings from The National Weather Service created by using supercomputers and satellites. The television weatherman gives us the definition of a blizzard: “sustained winds of at least 35 mph lasting for a prolonged period of time— typically three hours or more. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow is not falling but loose snow on the ground is lifted and blown by strong winds.” We settle in, turn up the gas furnace, flip on the television, and wait the weather out in comfort. Even those who must travel turn on the heater and the stereo, and drive in front wheel or four wheel drive vehicles on a modern highway usually cleared by large, powerful snowplows. It wasn’t that way in the past. People experienced the full force of nature.

By 1870 Wisconsin’s population had grown to 1,054,670. Three quarters of its citizens lived on farms or in cities with a population of under 2,500. In the 1870’s and 1880’s winters were often extremely harsh. The “Little Ice Age” which had persisted from about the year 1300 was coming to an end. The winters in the years before the 20th century were characteristically colder and longer.

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By Dennis Wilson