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A Culture in Transition:
Vernacular Architecture of the Near-North Side

Kelly Noack













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Buildings are evidence of the cultures that made them. They are artefacts [sic] which
demonstrate the values informing their construction and their life in use. A buildings
organization, atmospheres and details embody the ideologies involved in its inhabitation,
construction, procurement and design. It offers clues to the thinking of the individuals who
participated in it, their relationships, and their involvement in the cultures where they lived and
worked.
1


In the search for clues to past cultures, architecture itself can be considered a primary
resource. As architect and professor Adam Sharr states, a building has the potential to reveal the
values of its inhabitants and the culture to which those inhabitants belong. It is not just the
buildings that can be revealing, however. In the broad, interdisciplinary field of cultural
landscape studies, the entirety of the built environment is subject to investigation, such as the
streets, yards, and spaces in the community both public and private. The importance of ordinary,
urban landscapes is stressed. To the scholars of cultural landscape studies, landscape denotes
the interaction of people and place: a social group and its spaces, particularly the spaces to
which the group belongs and from which its members derive some part of their shared identity
and meaning.
2
In this way, the landscape, or site in which a group builds its home and
community, can function as a primary resource in revealing the various meanings of culture in
any group.
Within the study of cultural landscapes, architectural analysis features prominently,
particularly the analysis of vernacular architecture. Vernacular architecture is a term used to
categorize architecture that embodies local building materials, methods, and traditions, with

!
Adam Sharr, ed., Reading Architecture and Culture: Researching Buildings, Spaces, and Documents (New York:
Routledge, 2012), Kindle edition.
2
Paul Groth, Frameworks for Cultural Landscape Study, in Understanding Ordinary Landscapes, ed. Paul Groth
and Todd W. Bressi (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 1.
$

primacy being given to function rather than design.
3
In this way, the study of vernacular
architecture fits well into the field of cultural landscape studiesboth stress the value of
ordinary, residential structures. Similarly, the growing discipline of vernacular architectural
studies seeks to create a new architectural field . . . which will exploit the power of
interdisciplinary thinking to analyze buildings within a social, cultural, historical, and aesthetic
context. Taken together, the cultural investigations of ordinary homes in ordinary spaces have
the potential to enhance the understanding of a groups cultural experiences. In this paper, the
German population of Milwaukee around the turn of the 19
th
century is the group chosen to
demonstrate the power of a cultural landscape study. The vernacular architecture and living
spaces of first and second generation German immigrants, through such a study, is found to
reflect the evolution of German culture in the city.
Background
German immigrant culture in Milwaukee has been well documented. Beginning in the
mid-19
th
century, immigration from the German lands to the United States took place in three
major waves. The third and largest of these waves ended in 1890, and at that time, a sizable
thirty-five percent of Wisconsins population had been born in Germany.
4
They settled
throughout the state, but particularly in Milwaukee, where a strong German community had been
nurtured since the 1840s. By 1910, first and second generation Germans made up 53.5 percent
of the city population.
5
Due to its heavily German population and cultural pride, Milwaukee
became known as a Deutsch-Athens. The city could boast of its numerous German-language

$
Vernacular Architecture, Wikipedia, accessed March 17, 2013,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernacular_architecture.
4
Richard H. Zeitlin, Germans in Wisconsin (Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 2000), 7.
5
John Gurda, The Making of Milwaukee, (Brookfield, WI: Burton and Mayer Inc., 1999), 170.
%

newspapers, an extensive German parochial school system, and a thriving German theater.
Even though the peak of the citys German-ness is considered by most historians to have
passed by 1900, the architecture of Milwaukee remains a lasting reflection of the citys German
influence.
6
Many of the citys most famous buildings were designed and constructed in German
styles by German citizens and architects, such as the Pabst Mansion, Pabst Theater, and City
Hall.
While the German influence of many of Milwaukees larger, famous buildings can be
easily traced, the much more common residential housing units built to shelter the majority of
Milwaukees inhabitantsnamely the lower and middle class workersmay also be indicative
of German culture. It is these dwellings that would be considered part of vernacular architecture.
There are several forms of vernacular architecture in Milwaukee that are distinct, among them
the Polish Flat on the South side, which is characterized as indicative of the Polish immigrant
experience in the city by historians Judith T. Kenny and Thomas C. Hubka.
7
However, there is
another ubiquitous housing form on Milwaukees near-North side that has yet to be characterized
and that, due to its high concentration of buildings in an area settled largely by a single ethnic
group, could be indicative of that groups cultural experience. Prior to World War I, this area
was built up almost exclusively of duplexes, otherwise known as the two-family flat.
8
Just as
the South side was inhabited largely by Polish immigrants, the near-North side was settled by an

&
Ibid., 133.
7
Thomas C. Hubka and Judith T. Kenny, The Workers cottage in Milwaukees Polish Community: Housing and
the Process of Americanization, 1870-1920, in People, Power, Places: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture,
VIII, ed. Sally McMurry and Annmarie Adams, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2000), 47.
8
Landscape Research, Built in Milwaukee: An Architectural View of the City, ed. Randy Garber (Milwaukee: The
City of Milwaukee, 1981), 64.
'

overwhelmingly German population.
9
The largely German-inhabited built environment of
Milwaukees near-North side is the area of focus in this paper.
Around the turn of the century, the near-North sideas well as many other suburbs on
the fringes of Milwaukeewas expanding rapidly. Many German immigrants were moving
away from the inner city to the former farmlands of the northwest. Prior to this period of
expansion, ninety percent of the citys population lived within two miles of the central business
district, and fifty-eight percent lived within one mile.
10
This was due to the necessity of being
able to walk to work. The city was able to expand and its population to decentralize due to a
number of factors. First and foremost, the topography of Milwaukee allowed for the relocating
of Milwaukees industries to the outskirts of the city, while still remaining along major
distribution routes, namely north along the Milwaukee River and west into the Menomonee
River Valley. An increasing number of rail lines radiating outward from the city also allowed
for expansion. Workers were able to follow their places of employment to the residential
suburbs and still be within walking distance of their work. Reliance on foot-travel was further
diminished by the late 1890s, when the street car network in Milwaukee became a full-fledged
and effective transit system. Distance from work was no longer the deciding factor in where
many of Milwaukees immigrants lived. Many, like the German immigrants of the North side,
moved out of the cramped inner city to the newly-developing suburbs.
These developing suburbs are described by historian John Gurda as gradual extensions of
existing networks in the city. While there were differences in ethnicities, income, and

(
Roger D. Simon, The City-Building Process: Housing and Services in New Milwaukee Neighborhoods, 1880-1910
(Philadelphia: American Philsophical Society, 1996), 66.
10
Built in Milwaukee, 16.
&

employment, each new suburb generally took its cue from the older suburb adjacent.
11
This is
reflected by the new near-North suburbs of Milwaukee inheriting the German flavor of the citys
existing North and West sides. Expansion was fueled by rapid population growththe city grew
by 37 percent in the first half of the 1880swhich led to more land speculation and
construction.
12
An extremely useful view of the methods of city-expansion is provided by Roger
D. Simon in his seminal work The City-Building Process: Housing and Services in New
Milwaukee Neighborhoods, 1880-1910. In one chapter, Simon focuses on two specific wards, 20
and 22, to demonstrate the way the city was developed. First, the land was subdivided, following
the already established gridiron pattern of the city streets. The long and narrow blocks were
divided into lots for sale. The lots were bought and occupied gradually, both by homeowners
and business owners, at first primarily along the main commercial arteries such as North Avenue,
Fondulac Avenue and Teutonia Avenue. The timing of each stage of development varied, but as
a general rule, city services such as streetcars, water and sewer services, and graded streets were
provided as the population to support these services increased.
13
Some of the German population
was slowly moving into this area as these services were being provided.
In focusing on Wards 20 and 22, Simon is analyzing the very same area which I seek to
investigate. Wards have since been redistricted and renumbered, but the area investigated is very
roughly a square, bounded by Highway 43 on the East, Keefe Avenue on the North, Sherman
Boulevard on the West, and Lisbon Avenue on the South. The radial streets running through this
area are Fond Du Lac Avenue and Teutonia Avenue.

!!
Gurda, Making of Milwaukee, 188.
12
Simon, City-Building Process, 60.
13
Ibid., 54-63.
)

Through an examination of
the totality of the city-building
process in this developing region of
Milwaukee, Simon says that the
resultant neighborhood was
influenced by the needs, aspirations
and financial abilities of sub-dividers,
builders, the city and the new
residents.
14
In other words, the new
suburb was tailored in plan, services
and structure to fit the needs of the people moving in. Simon uses the 1905 State Census records
as well as building permits to determine the general demographic character of the in-coming
population. He concludes that the new north side neighborhoods were largely devoted to child-
raising families with a larger-than-average family size. These families were generally middle
class, with most heads of household working as proprietors or employed in white collar
industries. Ethnically, these people were not recent immigrants. However, while the population
of this neighborhood included many second-generation inhabitants, they were also mostly of
German descent.
15

Considering Simons impressive and exhaustive investigation into the German population
of this area, it would seem that he has already answered every question that can conceivably be
answered about these people with the resources available. However, more information can be
found through a close analysis of the built environment. Simons research shows that the

!%
Ibid., 54.
15
Ibid., 66.
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German population in this area was clearly in a state of transition: inner-city to suburbs, lower
class to middle class status, and older generation to younger generation. Is this transition evident
in the physical structures of this new neighborhood? Can the structure of a house in the near-
North side of Milwaukee, for instance, reveal as Simon phrases it, the needs, aspirations, and
financial abilities of the Germans moving in? This project was driven by the desire to answer
the question: How is the changing cultural landscape for Germans reflected in the architectural
form?
Architectural Analysis
There are several pertinent examples of scholarship on Milwaukee which demonstrate the
legitimacy of using architecture as an interpretive tool, in addition to providing several modes of
inquiry when analyzing an architectural form. From the Wisconsin Magazine of History, Susan
Appel has investigated pre-Prohibition architecture of Milwaukee breweries, marking their
architectural responses to the industry-wide, post-Civil War boom as well as the technological
and scientific advancements of the brewing industry. She concludes that Milwaukee breweries
mirrored those of other major brewing cities in that their buildings grew grander and more style-
conscious as money allowed. The brewers first priorities were keeping up with new
technologies of the industry and remaining competitive. When possible, however, the
architecture reflected city flavor and ethnic pride. For example, the state-of-the-art refrigerated
building at Schlitz Brewing Company was constructed with Cream City brick in a vaguely
Romanesque Revival style that was popular in Germany in the 1820s.
16
Susan Appels study

!&
Cream City bricks are made from clay commonly found in Milwaukee, often used in the citys construction;
Susan Appel, Building Milwaukees Breweries: Pre-Prohibition Brewery Architecture in the Cream City,
Wisconsin Magazine of History 78:3 (1995): 162-199, accessed January 29, 2013,
http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/wmh/id/48560.171.
(

differs from this one in that the subject of her investigation is Milwaukees monumental
architecture. However, her study points to a question that may be answered by examining the
vernacular architecture of the citys near-North side. It suggests that those homeowners or
business owners of the German community who had the money to do so showcased their ethnic
pride through their architectural choices. The Pabst Mansion, for example, built by beer baron
Captain Frederick Pabst from 1890-1892, exemplifies the architectural style that was possible
with economic success. The mansions rooms feature many styles, but the very first a visitor
sees upon arrival is the entrance hall in the German Medieval style. Their emphasis on German
design is indicative of their ethnic pride. On the other hand, the first priority of the largely
middle-class Germans that moved into their new near-North side neighborhoods was building a
sound structure in which to live. Unlike the brewers of the city, spending money to design and
construct a more ethnically or stylistically conscious building was probably not possible.
Assuming that the German immigrants of the near-North side didnt have the money to showcase
their pride architecturally as the Pabsts did, the question that arises is: Were there other ways
that these houses reflected a uniquely German immigrant experience?
As stated in the introduction, the duplex, or the two-family flat, was a very popular
housing type in this emerging neighborhood. It should be stated that it is not the only housing
type in the area, nor is the duplex limited to only the near-North side. However, the area under
investigation has a very high concentration of duplexesthe area north of Vliet Street and west
of 7
th
Street led the trend of this housing form in the city.
17
This suggests that there may have
been a cultural significance behind this type of house for the new German homeowners.

17
Landscape Research, Built in Milwaukee, 64-65.
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First built in Milwaukee in the 1880s , the duplex reached its peak construction period in
the near-North side between 1904 and 1916.
18
It is unknown where the duplex originated as a
housing form; however, features of this form indicate the type of community created through its
use. It is also known as semi-detached housing because, while it is a multi-family residence, it is
distinguished from an apartment by its location on a private lot. Also unlike an apartment
building, a duplex has private entryways for both units as opposed to the shared entryways and
hallways of an apartment. The only thing that definitely distinguishes a duplex from a single
family residence is the dual entries. What this means for the neighborhoods of the near-North
side is that the suburban-like atmosphere of the area is generally uniformundisturbed by large
apartment buildings.
It has already been mentioned that the lots of this neighborhood were long and narrow,
but they were also slightly smaller than the average lot in the city. Generally speaking, lots were
plotted by developers according to the financial situations of prospective buyers.
19
This implies
that developers anticipated the working and middle class Germans that would be moving in. Lot
size did not change, however, in view of the housing type that was chosen. As indicated by the
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for the area, and confirmed by Building Inspector Premises
Records for Milwaukee County, the lot for each house was roughly the same size regardless of
whether the house constructed was a multi-family duplex or a single-family cottage. For
example, in a survey of structures scattered throughout the near-North side, it was found that
while the length of a house extending towards the back of the lot was highly variable, the width
of a house facing the street never exceeded 24 feet, presumably limited in its expansion due to

18
Ibid.
19
Ibid., 23.
!!

the narrow lot size.
20
What this means in an analysis of a duplex is that two families were often
living on a lot traditionally sized for one family, leading to a higher population density in this
area. Taken together, the uniformity of both the housing structures themselves as well as the
smaller average lot size indicates that the use of the duplex in the German near-North side
created a community that was both suburb-like as well as densely-settled.
The housing forms of this area are
characterized as vernacular because of their
residential use, and architectural styling should
therefore be minimal. However, what style is present
in the design and construction in the facades of the
near-North side houses could reflect the choices and
experiences of the German inhabitants. Note, for
instance, this duplex located at 2001-2003 N. 38
th

Street.
21
Built in 1910, this structure contains many of the features of the typical duplexa
gable-roofed house of rectangular plan. Due to the length and narrowness of most lots in
Milwaukee and this neighborhood in particular, the gable end of the roof is facing the street. The
gable itself features a different treatment than the rest of the house, covered in shingles or
possibly stucco. The porches on the lower and upper units, like in most duplexes, are an
important feature allowing for the enjoyment of an outdoor space for the top-floor inhabitants as
well as the bottom. The pediment above the top-story window suggests a Stick or Queen Anne

#+
City of Milwaukee, Office of Building Inspection, Premises Records, 1888-1980, (Series 38, 39, 40). City
Archives, Milwaukee Public Library Special Collections.
21
2001-2003 N. 38
th
Street, Wisconsin Homes Real Estate Directory, accessed February 9, 2013,
http://wihomes.com/property/property.asp?PRM_MLSName=MetroMLSVOW&PRM_MLSNumber=1266164.
!#

style.
22
Houses such as this one may not be the monumental architecture that Susan Appel is
investigating in her article on the structures of the brewing industrybuilt with emphasis on
grandeur and ethnic pridebut from photos like this one, it is apparent that architectural style
could in fact be a consideration of the designers and builders, and perhaps also economically
achievable by the largely German buyers. What is particularly interesting is the fact that, if style
choices were possible for a German inhabitant, the style chosen was not a traditional German
style such as half-timbering, but a Victorian-American style like Queen Anne. This suggests that
what a working-class owner of a house such as this wanted was not a display of ethnic pride like
the Pabsts, but rather a style that demonstrated their acculturation to American society.
Adaptation, Owner-Built Housing, and Renting
The homeowners may also have had an effect on the design of their houses in other ways.
To shed light on this issue of agency in homebuilding, a previously mentioned study of
Milwaukees South side exists. In their important and impressive study, scholars Judith T.
Kenny and Thomas C. Hubka offer an analysis of the sometimes adaptive process of
homebuilding on Milwaukees South side. Seeking to draw cultural conclusions from the built
form, they investigate the evolution of the Polish Flat in the city. This commonly seen cottage
was usually one and a half stories in height and was widespread on the predominantly Polish
South side at the turn of the century. In order to achieve the American Dream of
homeownership, many Poles would raise their house to create a partially sunken basement below
which would serve as a rental unit, thereby contributing to the household finances. Kenny and
Hubka conclude that the Polish Flat can show in architectural form some of the processes of

##
Virginia McAlester and Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses (New York: Knopf, 1984), 263.
!$

assimilation and adaptation for Milwaukees Poles.
23
Their study provides a mode of inquiry for
the study of the houses in Wards 20 and 22, as evidence of this housing adaptation can be found
in this area as well. By again examining the Premises Records for Milwaukee County, it can be
shown that at least one of the twenty houses surveyed was raised in a way that was similar to the
Poles of the South side. In 1897, owner Fred Dauer applied for a permit to raise his two-story
house on 2518 N. 9
th
Street, just north of Wright Street. On the permit, the anticipated addition
was described as a basement built underneath the entire house.
24
Whether this was built for
storage or to create another living space is unclear; however, homeowners such as Fred Dauer
show that the Germans of the near-North side played a decisive role in the creation of their
homes.
Further evidence of the adaptive approaches that homeowners took to their houses can be
demonstrated with the case of the owner-builderpeople or families that built their own homes
with the help of published or perhaps no designs. Historian Richard Harris explores the footprint
left by the owner-builder with his use of the Sanborn Maps of Milwaukee for the year 1894.
These extremely detailed maps were drawn for the purpose of helping fire insurance companies
calculate rates on different dwellings, whether commercial or residential. As a result, these
colored maps document every single structure in all of Milwaukee in the years the maps were
drawn. As insurance documents, they largely describe the size and materials of the individual
buildings. For instance, the color of the buildings on the map denotes what they are made of:
yellow for a frame (ie. wooden) construction, red for brick, grey for iron, and orange for
completely fireproof. Roofing type, the number of openings in walls (presumably for doors and
windows), and the presence of skylights were all noted, as this would affect the amount of

#$
Hubka and Kenny, Workers Cottage, 47.
24
2518 N. 9
th
Street, Premises Records.
!%

damage a building could sustain in a fire. While these maps can provide clues as to the living
conditions experienced by the inhabitants, Harris also suggests using them to identify the
influence of the owner-builder. Such a structure can reveal, like the Polish Flat, the needs and
aspirations of the inhabitant. Harris claims in his search that men who both owned and built their
own homes left an identifiable mark on the urban landscape.
25
He describes the owner-builder
process and the potential forms of the finished product. Often, building ones own home was a
financial necessity, not a choice. The majority of builders were untrained in the building trades,
and so used the simplest construction methods, that of the balloon frame. Harris claims that
owner-built structures were more common in the earlier years of a suburbs development, and
that the best clue to determining if a house was built by the owner is identifying scattered
housing development with various setbacks from the street. For example, an owner-builder
would often build a modest structure at the far back of the lot with the intention of building a
more substantial one in the front once finances allowed.
26
Using Harriss guidelines, it may be
possible to identify from the Sanborn Maps of 1894the maps for the earliest period of
development in the near-North sidewhether or not any houses may have been owner-built. For
instance, a sheet from 1894 depicts the development on 17
th
Street north of Burleigh. This is one
of the most northerly and westerly areas of development, as evidenced by the scattered structures

#'
Richard Harris, Reading Sanborns for the Spoor of the Owner-Builder, 1890s-1950s, in Exploring Everyday
Landscapes: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, VII, ed. Annemarie Adams and Sally McMurry (Knoxville:
University of Tennessee Press, 1997), 251.
26
Harris, Reading Sanborns, 252-253.
!'

and in some areas, a lack of clear lot lines. Three
dwellings, their addresses 1428, 1432, and 1434 N.
17
th
Street, stand apart. Their setbacks from the street
varythey do not line up with each other, and they
do not line up with other structures in the area. In
addition, two of the three houses have smaller, one-
story buildings at the back of their lots, potentially
serving, as Harris suggests, as the smaller house
preceding the larger house.
27
All three of the houses also have varied heightsone-story
structures adjacent to one and a half story structuressuggesting that the houses were built in
stages as finances allowed. These characteristics imply that these three dwellings could very
well have been owner-built.
Ideally, the suggestion of owner-building will be verifiable through building permits from
the time period as well. The building permits contained in the Premises Records for this area
suggest that many of the houses, whether or not they matched Harris guidelines for identifying
the owner builder, were in fact owner-built. The permits provide information regarding both the
owner and the structure that would be built. Of the records surveyed, only one permit names an
architect for the building, implying that the buildings on permits that do not list an architect
would be built from widespread, published designs. In addition, only three permits name a
contractor for the project that is different from the owner; on most, the space is left blank. The
two-story house of Anton G. Jennerich, however, actually lists the owner as the contractor. For
Jennerichs house it is certain that the structure was owner-built, and for permits that do not list a

#)
Milwaukee 1894, vol. 4, sheet 452, New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1910. From the American Geographical
Society Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries. Digital Sanborn Maps of Milwaukee, 1894 and
1910. http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/san/id/451/rec/107. Accessed Feb. 10, 2013.
!&

separate contractor, it may be assumed that these structures were owner-built, perhaps with the
help of friends and neighbors.
The skill or capabilities of each owner-builder is impossible to know, but the existence of
construction manuals for the amateur-builder of this time period suggests that an owner-builder
wouldnt actually need much construction experience in order to build his own home. One such
manual written in 1852 by Edward Shaw specifically states that the manual is directed towards
workmen, rather than the elite architect or contractor. In it, Shaw gives some theoretical
knowledge of architecture, but the bulk of the manual is concerned with practical knowledge:
geometry, ideal heights and widths for door and windows, and recommended thicknesses of
foundation walls. The manuals also provide the floor plans and elevations of different types of
buildings, and very specific measurements and diagrams for the framing of walls and floors.
28

Contemporary resources such as these make it clear that building ones own home was an
achievable goal for a German of the near-North side, regardless of his construction experience,
and this fact is further proven by the abundance of presumably owner-built homes in this area.
As has been shown, there were many ways for a working or middle-class German to
afford his own home in the new neighborhoods of the near-North side. Another common trait of
the community was the existence of rental properties. One of the permits for Fred Dauers
property, for example, includes an application to build another structure at the back of his lot,
measuring 8 feet high by 22 feet by 12 feet wide. This small, one-story building is labeled as a
dwelling on the Sanborn Maps; it was perhaps built to accommodate newly arrived family

#*
Edward Shaw, The Modern Architect, or, Every Carpenter His Own Master; Embracing Plans, Elevations,
Specifications, Framing, etc., for Private Houses, Classic Dwellings, Churches, &c., to Which is Added the New
System of Stair-Building ; Illustrated by Sixty-five Engravings (Boston: Dayton and Wentworth, 1855), University of
Wisconsin Milwaukee Library, Microfilm collection, Reel 82 no. 1156; This date may seem too early for the
purposes of this study, but this manual and others like it would have been brought from the old world or bought in
America, and passed from builder to builder as the need surfaced.
!)

members or a renter. The Sanborn Maps also show that many other properties surrounding the
Dauer house had similar structures at the back of their lots.
29
Instead of letting those large spaces
at the backs of their long, narrow lots sit empty, many homeowners used that space to create
another source of rental income. In addition, historian John Gurda directly associates the
building of duplexes in the northwestern wards with the German community. Renting out the
second level of a north-side duplex would have provided the extra money necessary for a
German immigrant to own his own home.
What the preceding paragraphs regarding housing adaptations, owner-built homes and
rental units suggest is that the Germans of the near-north side were careful with their money.
Gurda equates the building of duplexes, for example, with stereotypical German thrift.
However, whether out of habit or financial necessity, it is clear that this thrift is partly
responsible for creating the architecture in the German community. Structures were built and
adapted according to the needs of their owners.
Developer-built Houses
Not every house was designed and built by the owner himself. Quite often, houses on the
near-North side of Milwaukee would have been built by residential developers working from the
published designs of architects, and the property would have been bought move-in ready by the
owner. The time period of the 1880s and 1890s in Milwaukee saw a great period of speculative
construction in what were then the suburbs of the north-west side. Advertisements for the lots
and homes of this area were ubiquitous in all newspapers of this time period, most notably the

#(
2518 N. 9
th
Street, Premises Records; Milwaukee 1910, vol. 2, sheet 154. New York: Sanborn Map Company,
1910. From the American Geographical Society Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries. Digital
Sanborn Maps of Milwaukee, 1894 and 1910.
http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/san/id/619/rec/53, Accessed May 13, 2013,
!*

German-language papers. For instance, real-estate agent and money-lender Gilbert S. Joyce ran
numerous advertisements in the Germania in the decade prior to the turn of the century, some
consuming a full quarter of a newsprint page, that tout the availability of both lots and houses in
near-North side suburbs.
30
Along with advertisements for properties, architects and general
contractors also ran ads in the German press, including Crane and Barkhausen, residential
architects known to have designed duplexes during this time period.
31
A house designed by an
architectural firm like Crane and Barkhausen could be one of a series, based on the design for a
larger home, but re-scaled to appeal to buyers of different financial means. The writers of Built
in Milwaukee: an Architectural View of the City point out that many of the high-styled,
expensive homes designed and built for wealthy clients on streets such as Prospect Avenue or
Wisconsin Avenue had their counterparts in the lower-income parts of the city. These smaller
scale, companion houses were built by contracted carpenters with the aid of published plans of
the larger house. Therefore, the Queen Anne details of a mansion on Lake Shore Drive may re-
emerge on a speculatively-built duplex in the near-North side.
32
These options show that the
owners were not always responsible for the stylistic details that their new home possessed;
however, their decision to purchase these ready-made properties shows their acceptance of both
modern building practices and styles.
Furthermore, the very fact of the advertisement of these properties in a German-language
newspaper like the Germania is indicative of a change in status for a large portion of
Milwaukees German residents. Around the turn of the century, Germans no longer comprised
the largest number of immigrants coming to the city each year. These new groups, largely from

$+
Saturday, Oct. 17, 1891. Lots to buy in Walnut Hill, Logan Park and Columbia Park. Germania, page 4,
Microfilm Collection, Milwaukee Central Public Library.
31
March 19, 1892. Germania, page 3, Microfilm Collection, Milwaukee Central Public Library; Landscape
Research, Built in Milwaukee, 65.
32
Landscape Research, Built in Milwaukee, 38.
!(

eastern and southern Europe, were supplanting Germans in the lowest-paid, hardest-labor jobs.
The Germans being courted away by the advertisements to the near-North side suburbs were
skilled-workers, artisans, and white-collar employees. The advertisements were included in
German newspapers because the readers were considered a receptive audience, likely to buy and
with the income to do so.
The advertisements themselves give a clear picture of what the potential German
homeowner was looking for. An example can be found in a quarter-page advertisement in
Germania from September 20, 1891, placed by Hackett and Hoff, real estate agents and money-
lenders. The ad is promoting the new subdivisions being planned and built on Milwaukees
near-North side. Among them, the lots of Irving Park, located on the northern border of the city,
are in the vicinity of schools, churches of all denominations, with a fast-growing commercial
district. The area called Nashs Subdivision, lying just west of Irving Park along Teutonia
Avenue, boasts of finished streets, with the track-laying for the streetcar completed and trees
planted in front of every lot.
33
These advertisements, tailored to their German-language readers,
identify the amenities that the Germans were seeking in their living environment. They sought a
beautiful, nature-filled neighborhood in which to raise their families, the convenience of close
places to worship and shop, and the ability to reach the inner-city easily by the streetcar. These
new subdivisions were able to provide those amenities for a German population that was
changing and adapting to their places in society.
Evidence of the developer-built houses touted by these advertisements can be found by
examining the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps from 1910. A single sheet in the 1910 atlas can

$$
September, 20, 1891, Hackett and Hoff, Real-estate agents and Money-Lenders, Germania, page 6. Microfilm
Collection, Milwaukee Central Public Library.
#+

demonstrate what could be described as the footprint of the developer. The roughly six-block
area lay just south of Burleigh and east of 28
th
Street. What is especially interesting is the row of
eight houses on the east side of 27
th
Street. These two-story houses, all labeled D for dwelling,
are identical in every respect, from their size and shape to their window openings to their roofing
materials. This suggests that this string of houses was constructed by the same person, most
likely a small-scale developer, in speculation that the neighborhood would continue to grow.
Indeed, the general emptiness of the northern plots on this sheet demonstrates that the city was in
the process of growing outward, and that the developer felt confident that the properties he was
constructing would soon have owners.
34



$%
Milwaukee 1910, vol. 2, sheet 109. New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1910. From the American Geographical
Society Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries. Digital Sanborn Maps of Milwaukee, 1894 and
1910. http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/san/id/574/rec/8. (Accessed February 10, 2013).
#!

This Sanborn map has more to say about the process of neighborhood building
experienced by the citys Germans. The developers footprint of these eight properties is
obvious, but they represent just a small fraction of the houses in Wards 20 and 22. They are
distinctive because they are identical, but surely there are other developer-built properties that
are not so clearly identifiable, not to mention properties that were built by owners. These houses
might mimic the more standardized developer-built homes, but may just as likely be distinct and
different from their neighbors. A built environment such as this one is therefore a patchwork of
styles, size and influences. Whats more, the Germans that moved into the area were also
necessarily a patchwork, likely coming from different areas of Milwaukee in which their German
communities had been well-established. Former neighborhoods in the inner city were described
as being mini, self-sustaining communities. Yet in their newly-built neighborhoods, inhabitants
had to forge new connections with their surroundings and neighbors. It could be said that the
piecemeal housing development depicted on the Sanborn maps mirrors the process of community
development that took place in the new near-North side of Milwaukee.
The adoption of balloon-frame construction methods for dwellings, both by the owner-
builders and also by residential developers, also indicates the ways in which the German
newcomers to Wards 20 and 22 defined their cultural needs. Balloon-frame construction
methods were developed in the United States in the mid-19
th
century, due to the availability of
standardized lumber and mass-produced nails, as well as the necessity of rapidity in construction
due to growth. The lightweight and sturdy frames that were built by this method were relatively
easy to construct and, if needed, expand upon. Inexperienced owner-builders preferred this
method for its ease, and the use of this construction method was seen in the Sanborn map of the
owner-builder properties. Large-scale developers liked it for its comparably low cost, as was
##

shown with the string of eight developer-built houses from the 1910 Sanborn map.
35
The fact
that this housing form was accepted by the German population is very revealing. It might be
expected that a proud German would try to build his new home like those in the Old Country
the heavy half-timbered form known as Fachwerkbau, requiring complex mortise and tenon
joints. However, this expectation does not bear out in the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps.
Balloon-frame houses, marked in yellow, are clearly predominant throughout. Generally
speaking, only churches, businesses, and some retail spaces are made of stone or brick. This
suggests that, with the availability of cheap materials, the new homeowners were willing to set
tradition aside in order to obtain the American dream of homeownership. It furthermore is an
example of the quality of German thrift that Gurda points out, as well as a general
acculturation to modern building norms that German home builders and owners adopted. It
should be noted, however, that there are some dwellings which show stone or brick facades on
just the street-facing side of their homes, suggesting that, wherever possible, a stone house was a
symbol of economic prosperity.
Architecture and Cultural Theory
What this analysis of turn of the century architecture has shown is that German culture
can indeed be deduced from the built environment. Yet, how can this culture be characterized
and explained, particularly in relation to the more common vision that exists of German culture
in Milwaukee? This can perhaps be done by referencing Raymond Williams theoretical
framework of the dominant, residual, and emergent elements of the cultural process. The
dominant culture being discussed in this community would be the traditional German culture that

$'
Fred W. Peterson, Anglo-American Wooden Frame Farmhouses in the Midwest, 1830-1900: Origins of Balloon
Frame Construction, in People, Power, Places: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, VIII, ed. Sally McMurry
and Annmarie Adams (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2000), 3.
#$

most people are familiar with when they think about Germans in Milwaukee. As has been
mentioned earlier in this paper, however, Germans at this time were in a period of cultural
transition. In order to better understand the state of the dominant German culture at the turn of
the 19
th
century, Williams suggests that we pay attention to the residual and emergent
characteristics within that culture. Residual characteristics are defined as having been formed in
the past, but still effective elements of the present, while emergent characteristics suggest that
new values and relationships are being created.
36

The architectural features of the near-North side can be interpreted using this framework,
particularly the question that has driven this study. To put it bluntly, what is really so German
about the architecture of the near-North side? When it comes to architectural style, the answer is
simple: nothing. The one thing that was definitely not found in this study was a traditionally
German ethnic housing form. However, Williams further explains the elusiveness of residual
cultural traits. There are some experiences or meanings that cannot be explained as direct
elements of the past, he says, but did in fact develop from past cultural or social institutions.
37

Therefore, while an example of the traditional German half-timbering style does not exist in the
near-North side, what does exist are housing forms that reflect the dominant traits of German
society. For example, the traditional German thrift described by John Gurda helped to produce
the adaptively-built houses and duplexes of this neighborhood. In other words, these are not
visually German structures what is characterized as residual in this case are the social,
economic, and community values that created these structures.

$&
Raymond Williams, Residual, Dominant, and Emergent, in Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1977), 121-127.
37
Ibid., 122.
#%

For a culture in a state of transition, elements that can be characterized as indicative of
the emergent are easily found. Americanized stylistic choices, adoption of balloon-frame
construction, and participation in an American system of buying and selling houses all signal that
the first-and second-generation Germans of the near-North side were beginning to shed some of
their ethnic traditions. The emergent strain of acculturation within the dominant German culture
is evident in many of the processes of neighborhood-building in this area. Thanks to Raymond
Williams theoretical framework, the housing structures and building practices found in this
study can be categorized in terms of the larger German culture in Milwaukee at this time.
From this study, it can be concluded that new trends were emerging within Milwaukees
German community around the turn of the century, but also that traditional traits were still very
much in evidence. Architecture has been treated as a primary resource here, one capable of
revealing the many facets of a culture through analysis of both the structures themselves as well
as the processes and practices that led to them. The houses created by and for Milwaukees
Germans on the near-North side still remain today as proof of a culture in transition.







#'

Bibliography
Appel, Susan. Building Milwaukees Breweries: Pre-Prohibition Brewery Architecture in the
Cream City. Wisconsin Magazine of History 78:3 (1995): 162-199. Accessed January 29,
2013. http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/wmh/id/48560.
Groth, Paul. Frameworks for Cultural Landscape Study. In Understanding Ordinary
Landscapes, edited by Paul Groth and Todd Bressi, 1-21. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1997.
Gurda, John. The Making of Milwaukee. Brookfield, WI: Burton and Mayer Inc., 1999.
Harris, Richard. Reading Sanborns for the Spoor of the Owner-Builder, 1890s-1950s. In
Exploring Everyday Landscapes: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, VII, edited by
Annmarie Adams and Sally McMurry, 251-267. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,
1997.
Hubka, Thomas C. and Judith T. Kenny. The Workers Cottage in Milwaukees Polish
Community: Housing and the Process of Americanization, 1870-1920. In People, Power,
Places: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, VIII, edited by Sally McMurry and Annmarie
Adams, 31-52. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2000.
Landscape Research. Built in Milwaukee: An Architectural View of the City, edited by Randy
Garber. Milwaukee: The City of Milwaukee, 1981.
McAlester, Virginia and Lee McAlester. A Field Guide to American Houses. New York:
Knopf, 1984.
Peterson, Fred W. Anglo-American Wooden Frame Farmhouses in the Midwest, 1830-1900:
Origins of Balloon Frame Construction. In People, Power, Places: Perspectives in Vernacular
Architecture, VIII, edited by Sally McMurry and Annmarie Adams, 31-52. Knoxville:
University of Tennessee Press, 2000.
Sharr, Adam, ed. Reading Architecture and Culture: Researching Buildings, Spaces and
Documents. New York: Routledge, 2012. Kindle edition.
Simon, Roger D. The City-Building Process: Housing and Services in New Milwaukee
Neighborhoods, 1880-1910. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1996.
Wikipedia. Vernacular Architecture. Accessed March 17, 2013.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernacular_architecture.
Williams, Raymond. Residual, Dominant, and Emergent. In Marxism and Literature. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1977.
Zeitlin, Richard H. Germans in Wisconsin. Madison: The State Historical Society of
Wisconsin, 2000.

#&

Primary Sources and Databases
City of Milwaukee. Office of Building Inspector. Premises Records, 1888-1980. Series 38, 39,
40. City Archives, Milwaukee Public Library Special Collections.
Digital Sanborn Maps of Milwaukee for 1894 and 1910. American Geographical Society
Library. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries.
Germania. 1873-1897. Germania Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Microfilm
Collection, Milwaukee Central Public Library.
Shaw, Edward. The Modern Architect, or, Every Carpenter His Own Master; Embracing Plans,
Elevations, Specifications, Framing, etc., for Private Houses, Classic Dwellings, Churches, &c.,
to Which is Added the New System of Stair-Building ; Illustrated by Sixty-five Engravings.
Boston: Dayton and Wentworth, 1855. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Library, Microfilm
collection, Reel 82 no. 1156.