Research Catalog

Title

Milwaukee mayhem : murder and mystery in the Cream City's first century / Matthew J. Prigge.

Author

Prigge, Matthew J.

Publication

Madison, Wisconsin : Wisconsin Historical Society Press, [2015]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 207 pages : illustrations; 22 cm

Summary

Milwaukee Mayhem offers a new perspective on Milwaukee s early years, forgoing the major historical signposts found in traditional histories and focusing instead on the strange and brutal tales of mystery, vice, murder, and disaster that that were born of the city s transformation from lakeside settlement to American metropolis. Author Matthew J. Prigge 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 often chilling narrative of a forgotten Milwaukee. From murder and suicide to all-consuming fires and Great Lakes disasters to painted women, matchstick men, dirty books, and the wide-eyed public who could not help but gawk at it all, Milwaukee Mayhem paints a history of the underbelly of the city that is little-remembered and rarely told. Through his thoughtful introduction, Prigge 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 of the orphans of Milwaukee s history, not important enough individually to register in broad historic narratives, too gruesome and weird to qualify as nostalgia, but nevertheless essential to our understanding of this American city.

Subjects

• Murder
• Wisconsin > Milwaukee
• True crime stories
• Murder > Wisconsin > Milwaukee

Genre/Form

True crime stories.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Prologue: The orphans of history -- Murder -- Vice -- Secrets.

ISBN

• 9780870207167
• 0870207164
• 9780870207174 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2015007718

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library