NEW SPORTS HISTORY BOOK RELAYS WISCONSIN’S OLYMPIC STORIES
Just in time for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, sportscaster and Wisconsin Historical Society Press author Jessie Garcia shares stories of some of the Wisconsinites who made an Olympic journey, detailing captivating tales, legendary feats and unlikely brushes with glory in Going for Wisconsin Gold: Stories of Our State Olympians.
Since pioneering Wisconsin hurdler Alvin Kraenzlein won four gold medals in 1900, the state has nurtured, trained, or schooled more than 400 Olympic athletes in a vast array of sports — from weightlifting, track, sailing, and gymnastics, to hockey, curling, and of course, speed skating. The book documents them all through the 2014 Winter Games, including pictures from athletes’ private collections (some never published before) and features the in-depth personal stories of 22 of Wisconsin’s Olympians, including weightlifter Oscar Osthoff, trailblazing runner George Coleman Poage, Jesse-Owens relay-mate Ralph Metcalfe, sailor Buddy Melges, hockey star Karyn Bye, skeleton racer Matt Antoine, and speed skaters Dan Janse, Eric Heiden, Bonnie Blair, Casey FitzRandolph, and more!
Going for Wisconsin Gold satisfies 2016 Summer Olympics cravings, but most importantly, provides a deeper understanding of the sacrifices, joy, pain, heartbreak, and complete dedication it takes to reach the Olympics.
EARLY PRAISE
“This book is a blast, full of charm and grit and the dedication it took for athletes from Wisconsin to make it to the Olympics. Covering more than a century, Garcia has done a remarkable job. It will make you proud to read about these young men and women and the stories they tell.”
— Lesley Visser, Hall of Fame sportscaster
BOOK LAUNCH EVENTS
Tuesday, Aug. 2 — AN OLYMPIC EVENING WITH JESSIE GARCIA
Location: Madison Central Library, 201 W. Mifflin Street, Third Floor, Madison, Wis. 53703. The Wisconsin Book Festival hosts Society Press author Jessie Garcia to share the inspiring, personal stories of Wisconsinite Olympians featured in her new book Going for Wisconsin Gold. As part of the program, Garcia will lead Wisconsin Olympians featured in the book in a discussion about competing in and living after the Olympics. Those so far Olympians scheduled to appear include speed skaters Bonnie Blair and Casey FitzRandolph, Gold Medal sailing legend Buddy Melges, and curler Mike Peplinski. In addition, family members of some of Wisconsin’s Olympians will be present as well, including families of 1900 Olympic Games track star Alvin Kraenzlein who pioneered the modern hurdles, 1904 Olympic Games weightlifter Oscar Osthoff, and 2014 skeleton racer Matt Antoine. A book signing will follow.
Thursday, Aug. 4 — GOING FOR WISCONSIN GOLD BOOK TALK
Times: 6:30 pm
Location: Pewaukee Public Library, 210 Main Street, Pewaukee, Wis., 53072. Bring the 2016 Summer Games underway in Rio de Janeiro closer to home by learning more about Wisconsin’s very own great Olympians from Milwaukee sportscaster Jessie Garcia, author of the new Society Press book, Going for Wisconsin Gold. A book signing will follow.
Wednesday, Aug. 10 — GOING FOR WISCONSIN GOLD BOOK TALK
Time: 6:30 pm
Location:Village Center/Shorewood Public Library, 3920 North Murray Ave., Shorewood, Wis., 53211. Cohosted by Boswell Books. Society Press author Garcia shares the inspiring, personal stories of Wisconsinite Olympians featured in her new book Going for Wisconsin Gold. The program will also include stories from Susanna Tvede, the granddaughter of Wisconsin’s first Olympic athlete, Milwaukee’s own Alvin Kraenzlein who won four gold medals in the 1900 Olympics and who pioneered the modern hurdles. A book signing will follow.
Tuesday, Aug. 29 – WAUSAU
Time: 7 pm
Location:Marathon County Public Library, 300 North First Street, Wausau, Wis., 54403. Celebrate the wins of the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro closer to home by learning more about Wisconsin’s very own great Olympians past from sportscaster Jessie Garcia, author of the new Society Press book, Going for Wisconsin Gold. A book signing will follow.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jesse Garcia has been a Wisconsin TV sportscaster for 20 years, currently with WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee. The author of the recent Society Press book My Life with the Green & Gold: Tales from 20 Years of Sportscasting, Garcia is a graduate of Boston University College of Communication, Garcia was one of the first women in the country to host an NFL coach’s show. She also teaches journalism and enjoys time with her husband and two sons.
Media: For review copies of this book, please contact Kristin Gilpatrick, Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 816 State St., Madison, WI 53706; 608-264-6465; email:kristin.gilpatrick@wisconsinhistory.org.
NEW BOOK LAYS SIEGE TO PRIOR UNDERSTANDING OF THE WAR OF 1812
The War of 1812 was more than the bullet-pointed battles most Americans hear about in history class — the Battle for New Orleans, the burning of Washington, DC, and the writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A new Wisconsin Historical Society Press book, The War of 1812 in Wisconsin: The Battle for Prairie du Chien, brings a little-known, strategic corner of the war’s history to life. Author Mary Elise Antoine details the war’s lesser-known contest for control of the strategic Upper Mississippi River frontier and the lynch-pin fort at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
Antoine chronicles the years-long fight for control of this “western country,” which culminated in a three-day siege of the fur trade center’s Fort Shelby in July of 1814. The siege inserted pre-territorial Wisconsin into the War of 1812. After winning the three-day “battle,” the British (and their Native American allies) maintained the fort and controlled trade along the northwestern water routes. When news of The Treaty of Ghent finally reached the fort in 1815, the British left the Americans to maintain peace among Indian tribes whose shifting alliances were influenced by their growing dependence on European traders.
Antoine portrays this little-known story in riveting fashion, while never forgetting the effect that the nation’s ongoing war would have on this Southwest Wisconsin frontier town, and the state that would one day house it.
SPECIAL VILLA LOUIS LAUNCH EVENT SET
Join Antoine for further discussion of the Battle for Prairie du Chien, amidst an encampment of re-enactors reliving a War of 1812 battle scenario, at Noon, Saturday, July 16, at The Wisconsin Historical Society’s Villa Louis site in Prairie du Chien. (Site admission required.)
About the author Mary Elise Antoine is the president of the Prairie du Chien Historical Society and former curator at The Wisconsin Historical Society’s Villa Louis site. She has written numerous articles and books on Prairie du Chien, including two volumes with Arcadia Publishing. She is co-editor, with Lisa Eldersveld Murphy, of the forthcoming Wisconsin Historical Society Press book, Frenchtown Chronicles of Prairie du Chien: History and Folklore from Wisconsin’s Frontier, which debuts in Fall 2016. She also lives in a French-Candian home that dates from the early 19th century, which she helped to restore. She has three children, Elise, Nicholas and Matthew (who is a World Cup skeleton rider and one of the Olympic athletes featured in the Society Press book Going for Wisconsin Gold).
Media: For review copies of this book, please contact Kristin Gilpatrick, Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 816 State St., Madison, WI 53706; 608-264-6465; email:kristin.gilpatrick@wisconsinhistory.org.