The Wisconsin Historical Society Press is launching new book showing the dark side of Milwaukee in Milwaukee at the Milwaukee Public Library, 814 W. Wisconsin Ave., on Oct. 20 at 6:30 p.m. This event is being sponsored by Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee.
That is the first of three free events in next month featuring the book. The other two are on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 12:15 p.m. at the Wisconsin Historical Museum , 30 N Carroll St. in Madison. The program is titled “History Sandwiched in: Milwaukee Mayhem” and includes an informal lunch with book signing to follow, and Thursday, Oct. 29, 7 p.m. at Mystery to Me Books, 1863 Monroe St. in Madison, and will include a discussion with Doug Moe.
Here is a book description that’s included in the WHSP news release:
New Book Investigates Milwaukee’s Murders & Mysteries
Investigate the bizarre, blood-curdling crimes and rarely-told tales of a Midwestern metropolis in a new book from the Wisconsin Historical Society Press, “Milwaukee Mayhem: Murder and Mystery in the Cream City’s First Century.” From murder and matchstick men to all-consuming fires, painted women, and Great Lakes disasters, author Matthew J. Prigge explores the underside of Milwaukee history to offer a new perspective on Milwaukee’s early years.Prigge forgoes the major historical signposts found in traditional histories and focuses instead on the strange and brutal tales of mystery, vice, murder, and disaster that were born of the city’s transformation from lakeside settlement to American metropolis. He presents these stories as they were recounted to the public in the newspapers of the era, using the vivid and often grim language of the times to create an engaging and occasionally chilling narrative of a forgotten Milwaukee.
Through his thoughtful introduction, Prigge also gives the work context, eschewing assumptions about “simpler times” and highlighting the mayhem that the growth and rise of a city can bring about. These stories are the orphans of Milwaukee’s history, too unusual to register in broad historic narratives, too strange to qualify as nostalgia, but nevertheless essential to our understanding of this American city.
Learn more about the book and Prigge’s research into forgotten history of Milwaukee on the Milwaukee Mayhem website at www.mkemayhem.com or by contacting Kristin Gilpatrick, Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 816 State St., Madison, WI 53706; 608-264-6465; email: kristin.gilpatrick@wisconsinhistory.org.
For more information about the Council for Wisconsin Writers, please visit www.wiswriters.org.