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February 14, 2005
BOOK REVIEW: ‘Irish Milwaukee,’ ‘Italian Milwaukee’ Capture Flavor of One of America’s Best Cities — And Best Kept Secrets
Reviewed by David M. Kinchen
Huntington News Network Book Critic
Hinton (HNN) — Milwaukee will always have a special place in my heart. For people who only know it as a running sitcom joke a la "Laverne & Shirley," it’s another borough of New York. Maybe that’s because the series was co-created by a New Yorker, Garry Marshall, with his sister Penny playing one of the title characters.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s Midwestern all the way, but with ethnic flavors that have remained distinct to this day. The "Melting Pot" stopped melting in this often frigid Midwestern metropolis. The town even has its own lingo and accent, often influenced by the rhythms of the German language.
Milwaukee’s German and Polish strains are the most familiar, but few people know about the Jewish (it was the childhood home of the late Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir and it’s the home town of baseball commissioner Allen "Bud" Selig), black, Mexican, Serbian and other ethnic influences in the Wisconsin metropolis.
I spent almost 10 years in Milwaukee – from the fall of 1967 to the late winter of 1975-6 – working at the Milwaukee Sentinel (now blended into the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). At the Sentinel, I matured as a newsman, learned how to be an editor and a manager of other reporters and made many friends.
One was Martin Hintz, who left the paper in 1975 at the age of 30 to pursue a career as a free-lancer. Hintz is the author of two books from Arcadia Publishing’s "Image of America" series: "Irish Milwaukee" and "Italian Milwaukee" (both $19.99, 128 pages, Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, S.C.).
Alert readers will recall – I hope – my recent reviews of Arcadia’s books on Huntington and Santa Cruz, Calif. The books have a uniform appearance, with sepia toned covers and about 200 black and white photos, brief articles and a list of books for further reference.
Milwaukee today is a prosperous manufacturing and financial center, the home of Miller Brewing, Manpower Inc., Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. (the Quiet Company), Johnson Controls, Koss Corporation, Harley-Davidson, Bucyrus-Erie, Allen-Bradley, Allis-Chalmers and many more. It has the nation’s only museum – actually an addition to an existing museum – by the marquee Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. It’s a diner’s paradise, with German restaurants that attract Lufthansa pilots and fine dining of all kinds.
It’s the home of the excellent Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, an outstanding opera company and one of the nation’s oldest repertory theatres (dating back to 1954), the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Recently, the city created a train stop at General Mitchell International Airport to allow Chicagoans to take the train to a less crowded alternative to O’Hare.
Enough of my chamber of commerce rantings (I just can’t help it, I love the place!).
Hintz has done an outstanding job capturing the essence of the Italian and Irish influence in Milwaukee. The Irish used their English language advantage (the greatest gift of the hated English to the tribes of Ireland) early on to establish a foothold on the police force and politics in a town settled by people from New York and New England (there’s a neighborhool near the lake called Yankee Hill).
Coming later and in relatively smaller numbers, the Italians often took the most unskilled and lowest paid manufacturing jobs in the booming city where the Milwaukee and Menomonee Rivers join to form Lake Michigan (a joke). Many of the Italian immigrants were skilled stoneworkers and carpenters who built homes for the Allis, Mitchell, Cudahy and MacArthur (it’s the ancestral home of Gen. Douglas MacArthur) families.
A personal interjection: Liz and I lived on Brady Street for several years. It’s where many Italian-Americans lived and worshiped at St. Rita’s Catholic Church. It’s more or less the center of Milwaukee’s equivalent of Greenwich Village/Little Italy. Hintz has pictures of people we met during our stay in an apartment above a store on Brady Street.
While Hintz covers virtually all aspects of Italian Milwaukee, he avoids the M-Word. I couldn’t find any negative reference to Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderiso or Frank Balestrieri, both reputed members of a branch of the Chicago Outfit, the Windy City’s multiethnic crime syndicate. The RICO law and prosecutors like Rudy Giuliani have put most if not all mafia and organized crime figures out of business and/or in jail.
He doesn’t delve into the corruption of the Irish political bosses who controlled the city’s West Side for many years. This is largely past history: The city has produced mostly law abiding political figures of both ethnic strains who have contributed to the culture of one of America’s most livable and human-scaled cities.
Among the Italian families in the book are the Gloriosos, the Anellos, the Balestrieris, the Sciortinos (we frequented their bakery on Brady), the Gloriosos and many more. Irish people profiled include the legendary Cudahy (meatpacking) family; the late Edmund Fitzgerald, a president of Northwestern Mutual Life who lent his name to a doomed ore boat that sank in a Lake Superior storm in 1975.
As in virtually every other North American city, the Irish quickly established their power in the Catholic Church in Milwaukee, including Catholic colleges and universities like Marquette University and Alverno and Mount Mary Colleges. Political figures like the Boyles and the Cannons are profiled. Hintz also reminds us that two legendary Irish-American actors – Pat O’Brien and Spencer Tracy – were born in Brew City.
Both books should satisfy the urge in all of us to gain entry into the lives of others, in a polite, discreet way, of course. Marty, you’ve done a great job in capturing the essence of ethnic Milwaukee.
(publisher’s web site: www.arcadiapublishing.com)
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More Book Reviews by David M. Kinchen
— 10/28/04 BOOK REVIEWS: Bill Kurtis on the Death Penalty; Ms. Moffett Becomes a Teacher
— 11/15/04 BOOK REVIEW: Roth Envisions a Frightening 'What If?' in 'The Plot Against America'
— 11/24/04 BOOK REVIEWS: Bush, Blair and Iraq; A Shrink at Nuremberg; Updike's Sexy Geek; Potomac Fever Smites an Academic
— 12/15/04 BOOK REVIEWS: 'Past Imperfect' Covers Complexities of History, Plagiarism Issues; 'His Excellency' Reveals George Washington's Accomplishments
— 12/29/04 BOOK REVIEWS: ‘de Kooning’ Chronicles Rise of American Art Supremacy; ‘Adams vs. Jefferson’ Shows That Controversial Presidential Elections are Nothing New
— 01/17/05 BOOK REVIEW: Max Hastings on Germany's 'Armageddon' as Allies from West,
East Conquer Third Reich
— 01/24/05 BOOK REVIEW: ‘Images of America: Huntington’ Displays Glorious Architecture of West Virginia’s First Planned City
— 01/29/05 BOOK REVIEW: ‘Auschwitz’ Personalizes Horror That Should Never Be Forgotten
— 01/31/05 BOOK REVIEWS: ‘Election 2004’ Shows How Bush Won; ‘Santa Cruz’ is Captivating Picture History of California’s Laid-Back Resort town
— 02/06/05 BOOK REVIEW: 'French Women Don't Get Fat' is a Delightful Way to Read Yourself Thin; Monsieurs: There's No Reason Why It Won't Work for You!
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