Cream City Chronicles: Stories of Milwaukee's Past

Summary

This collection of Milwaukee history shares lively stories about the people, the events, the landmarks, and the institutions that have made the "Cream City" a unique American community. These stories, each featuring a historic photograph, represent the best of historian John Gurda's popular Sunday columns that have appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 1994. Find yourself transported back to another time, when the village of Milwaukee was home to fur trappers and traders. Follow the development of Milwaukee's distinctive neighborhoods, its rise as a port city and industrial center, and its changing political climate. From singing mayors to summer festivals, from blueblood weddings to bloody labor disturbances, Cream City Chronicles offers a generous sampling of tales that express the true character of a hometown metropolis.

Author

JOHN GURDA is a Milwaukee-born writer and historian who has been studying his hometown since 1972. He is the author of twenty-three books, including The Making of Milwaukee and Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods. In addition to his work as an author, Gurda is a lecturer, tour guide, and local history columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The common thread in all of his work is an understanding of history as “why things are the way they are.”