Water Works
"Water Works: An Aquatic History of Milwaukee" is a production of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Department of History and the Milwaukee County Historical Society. In its first season, the show explored the the effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic and the current COVID-19 pandemic on Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In this second season, the show tells the aquatic history of Milwaukee.
Episodes
17 episodes
The River Keepers
Though we can tell a history of Milwaukee's environmental movement, the effort to clean up and preserve our waters is also a story of the present. In this episode of Water Works, our season's finale, historian Jonathon Stuever tel...
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Season 2
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Episode 8
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22:46
Cleaning Up Our Act
As we've seen, the history of Milwaukee's relationship with water has been in many ways defined by the damage Milwaukeeans have done to its rivers, lakes, and streams. In this episode of Water Works, we begin to focus on Milwaukee's co...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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26:14
The Battle for Blue Space
Milwaukee is widely known for its ample public beach space. But the lakefront was not always this accessible. In this episode of Water Works, produce Marisa Camacho explores how Milwaukee's abundance of blue spaces is in many ways...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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19:16
Under the Surface
Do you know where the water you drink comes from? And do you know where it goes when it flows down the drain? Well, on this episode of Water Works we not only explain how Milwaukee's water infrastructure works, we also explain how...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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21:23
Shipwrecks
The Lady Elgin often has an outsized presence in Milwaukee's maritime history. The boat's fateful voyage in 1860 took place in the midst of several local and national conflicts, while the ship's wreckage remains a destination for divers to this...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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25:53
Bridge War
Milwaukee is a city born of conflict. Though, it might not be the conflict you'd expect. The city's charter took shape over a fight over bridges, and the result of this fight is still visible on any map of Milwaukee today. Today's show is produ...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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22:01
Millennial Thinking
Last episode on Water Works, we looked at the ways Milwaukee's first peoples articulated their deep admiration for the waters of the area through the effigy mounds they constructed in the time before European contact. This episode, we explore h...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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24:49
Water Spirits
The first peoples who called the land we call Milwaukee home recognized the centrality of water to the region. Beyond relying on the rivers and lakes to survive, the area's Indigenous communities also revered water. In this episode of ...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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28:03
Water Works: A Preview
A preview of the new season of a podcast from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Department of History and the Milwaukee County Historical Society. Last season looked at the 1918-1919 Influenza outbreak in Milwaukee, and asked what that hi...
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Season 2
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Episode 0
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2:45
Episode 7: The Healthiest City
By the end of the epidemic, the United States had lost 0.6% of the population to the Spanish Flu, with around 675,000 deaths. Yet Milwaukee suffered a relatively low death rate. In 1918, Milwaukee was the thirteenth largest city in the US and o...
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20:37
Episode 6: The Healthiest City
Milwaukee's success at handling the influenza pandemic did not mean the going was easy. For the city's bars and restaurants, shut down orders and consumer fear made business difficult. On this week's episode of The Healthiest City, we explore h...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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24:12
Episode 5: The Healthiest City
While pandemics can seem to disrupt every facet of our daily lives, they are, at their core, medical crises. This week on The Healthiest City we talk about how doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals face these challenges. ...
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23:45
Episode 4: The Healthiest City
When a disease folks then called the "Spanish Flu" was first detected in Milwaukee, the city's public health officials faced a choice not unlike the one we've debated for most of this last year: whether to close the community's schools. This ep...
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24:36
Episode 3: The Healthiest City
As the 1918 influenza pandemic tore its way across the globe, the damage it caused went hand-in-hand with the ongoing combat of World War I. The massive mobilization of troops from around the world provided the perfect conditions for the diseas...
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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20:08
Episode 2: The Healthiest City
In episode two of The Healthiest City podcast, hosts Bailey Green and Roman Lulloff explore how the rise of the Socialist Party in Milwaukee helped build up the city’s public health programs in the years before the 1918 flu pandemic st...
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Season 1
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Episode 2
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21:48
Episode 1: The Healthiest City
In the years after its effective response to the 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic, Milwaukee became known as “the healthiest city.” But that reputation, and the public health preparedness that made it possible, wasn’t built up overnight: Milwaukee l...
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Season 1
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Episode 1
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16:43
The Healthiest City: A Preview
In the winter of 1918, the city of Milwaukee faced a crisis almost exactly like our own. A highly contagious and deadly virus found its way to the city. This disease was the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919; and like the coronavirus pa...
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Season 1
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Episode 0
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3:09