The Making of Milwaukee

The Making of Milwaukee is generally acknowledged as the standard history of Wisconsin’s largest city. Well-written, superbly organized, and lavishly illustrated, it tells the story of a Midwest metropolis that has been, at various times, the largest shipper of wheat on earth, America’s most “foreign” city, the nation’s beer capital, “The Machine Shop of the World,” and the epicenter of municipal Socialism. Renowned historian John Gurda chronicles the development of a human-scale metropolis, a community
whose past has produced one of the most livable big cities in America and, at the same time, created some daunting social and economic problems. This fourth edition of the book features a thoroughly updated text and an all-new chapter that brings Milwaukee’s story up to the present day.

John Gurda is a Milwaukee-born writer and historian who has been studying his hometown since 1972. He is the author of twenty-one books, including histories of Milwaukee-area neighborhoods, churches, and industries. He is also a photographer, lecturer, and local history columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Gurda is an eight-time winner of the Wisconsin Historical Society?s Award of Merit. The common thread in all his work is an understanding of history as why things are the way they are.