Water Works

The River Keepers

Though we can tell a history of Milwaukee's environmental movement, the effort to clean up and preserve our waters is also a story of the present. In this episode of Water Works, our season's finale, historian Jonathon Stuever tells the story of Milwaukee's river keepers.  Water Works is a production of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Department of History and the Milwaukee County Historical Society. For more information about the show, including photographs and documents from the era, check out milwaukeehistory.net/podcast/.

Cleaning Up Our Act

As we've seen, the history of Milwaukee's relationship with water has been in many ways defined by the damage Milwaukeeans have done to its rivers, lakes, and streams. In this episode of Water Works, we begin to focus on Milwaukee's concerted efforts to clean up the messes it has made by charting the history of our environmental movement. Water Works is a production of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Department of History and the Milwaukee County Historical Society. For more information about the show, including photographs and documents from the era, check out milwaukeehistory.net/podcast/.

The Battle for Blue Space

Milwaukee is widely known for its ample public beach space. But the lakefront was not always this accessible. In this episode of Water Works, produce Marisa Camacho explores how Milwaukee's abundance of blue spaces is in many ways a legacy of the Socialist Party's rise in the early 1900s.  Water Works is a production of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Department of History and the Milwaukee County Historical Society. For more information about the show, including photographs and documents from the era, check out milwaukeehistory.net/podcast/.

Under the Surface

Do you know where the water you drink comes from? And do you know where it goes when it flows down the drain? Well, on this episode of Water Works we not only explain how Milwaukee's water infrastructure works, we also explain how it came to be. For more information about the show, including photographs and documents from the era, check out https://milwaukeehistory.net/podcast/ [https://milwaukeehistory.net/podcast/].

Shipwrecks

The Lady Elgin often has an outsized presence in Milwaukee's maritime history. The boat's fateful voyage in 1860 took place in the midst of several local and national conflicts, while the ship's wreckage remains a destination for divers to this day. On this episode of Water Works we parse fact from fiction in the sinking of the Lady Elgin, and ask what shipwrecks can tell us about Milwaukee history more broadly. For more information about the show, including photographs and documents from the era, check out https://milwaukeehistory.net/podcast/. [https://milwaukeehistory.net/podcast/]