Posted 3 years ago
Militarist
(295 items)
Milwaukee Aldermanic Badges
Ever notice how one thing leads to another and before you know it you have a full blown collection going? I bought my first Milwaukee Alderman’s badge forty some years ago. It caught my eye because it was gold and named. I bought a few more badges over the years and thought it would be neat to get one from every Milwaukee ward . That meant I would need to find twenty-seven badges in all; not including the “Alderman-At-Large” types. I do not expect to live long enough to be able to complete that goal. To complicate matters even more there is the time span from the first wards being established with the city in 1846 to the newest wards starting in 1932. The system of Aldermanic Wards ended in 1956. Badge designs have changed over the last one hundred and ten years. I know of at least four design types:
A1) Five point gold faced star 1887- 1902
A2) Six point silver star 1887- ?
A3) Six point solid gold (10k) star 1914-1946
A4) Eagle top shield with gold face 1950’s
Excellent collection ! Waukesha Strong <3
Thanks Manikin; sorry to see Waukesha is in the news again.
Nice. And so true about one thing leads to another
Militarist, Wow. A solid gold badge for an alderman?
I had to look up the 13th ward of Milwaukee:
This is from 1872:
https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM117162
From 1940:
https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/neighborhoods/
Current aldermanic districts:
https://city.milwaukee.gov/election/HowtoRunforPublicOffice/District-Maps/Map-City-of-Milwaukee-Alderman
Welcome to Milwaukee History Keramikos! Gold (solid gold = 10k ) alderman badges are not uncommon for the larger old cities since most were private purchase items; authorized by the cities but not provided. Ward locations were subject to jerrymandering (sic?) so one would need to know what years the named alderman served to know the ward boundaries of his time. While they still have alderman they are now elected by districts and not wards.
Militarist, Thank you. :-)
Yeah, I was mostly curious as to which well-heeled ward bought solid-gold badges for their alderman. };-)
My bad on that one link, as it turns out the numbering refers not to wards, but rather neighborhoods.
Here's a 1934 ward map:
https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/maps/id/4652
In 1934, Ward 13 was relatively small, and bounded on the east by the Milwaukee River.
I can't quite read most of those street names, but in comparing the 1934 ward map with Google Maps, it looks like the southern border might have been North Avenue.
In 1931 the 13th ward would have been the river on the east, North ave on the south up to Locust on the north and 5th st on the west
Militarist, Aha, you've already researched this pretty thoroughly. :-)
It looks as though the 1934 Ward 13 encompassed parts of about three different modern neighborhoods (Harambee, Riverwest, and Riverside West?).
Here's where that 1940 neighborhood map might actually be useful (to me, anyway).
*snip*
But being a “city of neighborhoods” does not mean that all Milwaukeeans agree on what the neighborhoods within the city are—or even where they are. Nor does it mean that the neighborhoods that are recognized today would have been familiar to Milwaukeeans in the past.
*snip*
That's probably true of any large-ish city.
That Wooden Shoe neighborhood designation (roughly modern Riverwest) caught my eye, because it sounds Dutch.
I found an explanation in a Google Book preview, using the search criteria of "milwaukee wooden shoe":
(From the publication Milwaukee in the 1930s: A Federal Writers Project City Guide by John D. Buenker Wisconsin Historical Society, Apr 15, 2016 - History - 273 pages)
*snip*
Milwaukee's north side, once almost solidly German, is still known as the "Wooden Shoe District" because a lazy colloquialism translated Deutsch as Dutch.
*snip*
https://books.google.com/books?id=kSr9CwAAQBAJ
So it's kind of like "Pennsylvania Dutch," huh?
In my opinion those neighborhood names are all modern concoctions to give the people living there a sense of belonging. I was born and raised in Milw on the North side and lived for 25 years. All we had back then was north, west, east and south sides. The sides where mostly thought of in terms of being German, Polish, Italian and Spanish speaking. As a kid I remember hearing lots of those languages being spoken in public. The Black area on the north side was the "inner core" in my day and old timers called it Bronze or Brown ville. South side was Polish and the near south side was Spanish speaking Mexican and Puerto Rican. The east side was mostly Italian and English. The west side was German and Jewish. In time the west side expanded and became mostly refugees from the north and the old near west side. I have probably over simplified the subject when compared to the UW-M study but I lived it.
Militarist, as to the modern neighborhood names: sounds about right. };-)
Milwaukee is probably like a lot of medium to large cities in that the various neighborhoods are ever-changing.