Speaker: Amy Rosebrough, Wisconsin Historical Society
Description: In the mid to late 19th centuries, dozens of small communities sprang up along the eastern shores of Wisconsin, each with its own lake pier and general store. The owners of the piers shipped forest and farm products to Chicago, and supplied incoming settlers with the income and goods they needed to survive. A new Wisconsin Historical Society initiative to reveal the forgotten histories of Wisconsin’s lost ports is unearthing stories of catastrophic fires, dangerous shoals, runaway horses, gossip columnists, eavesdropping clerks, unwise ship captains, and lots and lots of cheese. Most importantly, the story of Wisconsin’s lost coastal communities is the story of how Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan’s shoreline was transformed from timberland to today’s farms and cities.
Bio: Dr. Amy Rosebrough is a Staff Archaeologist with the Office of the State Archaeologist at the Wisconsin Historical Society. A native of the Missouri Ozarks, she has long had an interest in burial monuments and archaeology. She is an alumni of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and she received her doctorate for region-wide re-analysis of Wisconsin’s effigy mounds and mound builders. She has worked as an archaeologist in the academic, private, and public sectors. In her current position at the Wisconsin Historical Society, she manages archaeological and burial sites data, assists Wisconsin’s citizens with archaeological questions, and serves as a subject matter expert.
More to Explore: http://www.wisconsinshipwrecks.org/