Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion, Milwaukee
In 1892, the Flemish Renaissance Revival mansion of Captain Frederick Pabst, world-famous beer baron, accomplished sea captain, real estate developer, philanthropist and patron of the arts, was completed. From the day the house was inhabited, it was considered the jewel of Milwaukee's street of lavish homes known as Grand Avenue and represented the epitome of American Gilded Age splendor in Milwaukee. The impressive array of artisans commissioned by the Pabsts to furnish their home included two major Milwaukee contributors: fine furniture makers and interior design specialists the Matthews Brothers and renowned metalworker Cyril Colnik.

Chippewa Valley Museum, Eau Claire
Since 1974, the Chippewa Valley Museum has operated as a regional history museum in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The Chippewa Valley is the watershed of the Chippewa River and is a territory that covers all or parts of 12 counties in north and west central Wisconsin. The museum includes a children's gallery, short-term exhibition space, a working 1950s ice cream parlor, a multimedia Object Theater, and three long-term exhibitions examining Ojibwe history and life, 19th century European immigration, and 20th century rural life. Among the artifacts documented here are furniture and metalwork associated with Herman Schlegelmilch, a German rifle maker and merchant who settled in Eau Claire in 1860; the Schlegelmilch House is now owned and operated by the museum.

Dodge County Historical Society, Beaver Dam
Established in 1938, the Dodge County Historical Society is dedicated to the preservation, advancement and dissemination of the knowledge and history of Dodge County, Wisconsin, specifically Beaver Dam. In 1985, the city of Beaver Dam leased the former Williams Free Library building to the Society. The library building houses three floors of local history exhibits, including the Harold Hempel Rock Collection, the Mary Swan Victorian Room, a one-room schoolhouse and a temporary exhibition space.

Douglas County Historical Society
In 1854 Douglas County was established at the western end of Lake Superior and the town of Superior was named the center of county government. A local historical society was founded that same year, operating under the name of the Superior Historical Society until 1934, when the group's name and mission was changed to include all of Douglas County. In 1963, the Douglas County Historical Society moved its collections to Fairlawn Mansion, the grand home built by lumber and mining baron Martin Pattison in 1890. In 2002, the Society relocated to another historic building in Superior - the 1925 Vasa Temple. One of the Society's most significant holdings is the David F. Barry Collection of photographs and related artifacts. Barry was a photographer who documented Native Americans, military forts and battles, and Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in the Dakota Territory in the 1880s and later settled in Superior.

Dunn County Historical Society
Formed in 1950, the Dunn County Historical Society now operates a county-wide network of historic sites: the Russell J. Rassbach Heritage Museum, the Fulton and Edna Holtby Science and Technology Museum, the Empire in Pine Museum, and the Caddie Woodlawn Historical Park. The Society is currently restoring the 1872 Hillkrest one-room school and the Tainter Playhouse. Many of the objects documented here are on view at the Rassbach Heritage Museum in Menomonie, including a hand carved cane and a painted tin plate, both relics from local soldiers who served in the Civil War.

Fort Winnebago Surgeons' Quarters, Portage
The Surgeons' Quarters is the only building left standing at the former site of Fort Winnebago. In fact, this structure of pine logs and hand-hewn tamarack joists predates the fort itself by several years and is an important surviving example of early French vernacular architecture in Wisconsin. It was built about 1826 by a French trader named Francois LeRoi, purchased by the Unites States government in 1829, and remodeled in 1834 to serve as the home for the fort's medical officer and his family. After Fort Winnebago closed in 1845, the building was home to a number of families. Then, in the 1930s, community members realized that the property was in grave need of preservation. The Wisconsin Society Daughters of the American Revolution undertook an extensive restoration project and opened the Surgeons' Quarters to the public in 1954.

Hazelwood Historic House Museum, Green Bay
Built overlooking the Fox River, Hazelwood was originally the home of the Morgan and Elizabeth Martin family--a political and cultural force in the city of Green Bay and the state of Wisconsin for almost one hundred years. The Brown County Historical Society purchased Hazelwood in 1989; principal restoration of this historic home was completed in 1995. Hazelwood is furnished with objects from the collections of the Brown County Historical Society and the Green Bay-De Pere Antiquarian Society , including the furniture and hand-painted porcelain documented in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database.

History Museum at the Castle, Appleton
The mission of the History Museum at the Castle is to inspire appreciation for the rich history of the communities of the Fox River Valley through collections, exhibits and education. Owned and operated by the Outagamie County Historical Society, the History Museum at the Castle holds collections representing the history of the Fox Valley dating back to the 1840s. The Outagamie County Historical Society also operates the Charles A. Grignon Mansion in Kaukauna, a Greek Revival-style home built by fur trader Augustin Grignon in 1837. The Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database features original furnishings from the Grignon Mansion as well as early Wisconsin quilts, samplers and furniture from the Museum's collections.

Kenosha Public Museum
Founded in 1936, the Kenosha Public Museum is a natural history and fine and decorative arts museum. Since 2001, the Museum has been located in Harbor Park, a reclaimed factory site on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Museum opened a new site in 2008--the Civil War Museum, which examines the role of the six states of the Upper Midwest (Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota) in the Civil War. From 1970 to 1976, the Kenosha Public Museum amassed what is probably the most representative collection of early Wisconsin pottery in the state. Primarily collected by then director Kenneth Dearolf, the collection numbers 320 examples of stoneware and earthenware produced in nineteenth-century Wisconsin. A total of 91 works by twelve documented potters are included in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database.

Marathon County Historical Society, Wausau
The Marathon County Historical Society operates two sites: the Yawkey House Museum, a Classical Revival home built in 1901, remodeled in the Arts and Crafts style in 1908, and fully restored in 2008; and the A. P. Woodson House, home to the Society's exhibition areas, administrative offices, research library, and artifact storage. The Society makes their artifact and archival holdings available for extensive educational programming in schools throughout Marathon County. The artifacts documented for the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database include quilts, needlework and metalwork as well as limited-edition books printed by the Philosopher Press, a noted Arts and Crafts-era press founded in Wausau in 1897.

Mayville Historical Society
Organized in 1968, the Mayville Historical Society maintains a complex of historic buildings. The Hollenstein Wagon and Carriage Factory was founded by John Hollenstein, who came to America in 1869 from Switzerland and settled in Mayville with his wife, Dominica Zuest, in 1873. The Hollenstein family lived in a home adjacent to the factory, now furnished with artifacts from the community and surrounding region. The Society moved two additional structures to the site in 1978: the original Mayville firehouse, constructed in 1874 and the Brunke Cigar Factory, established in 1881. Objects documented in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database include needlework by Hertha "Hattie" Hollenstein, wife of John Hollenstein Jr. as well as a spinning wheel built by Frank Fell, a local woodturner who carried Mayville's Civil War-era spinning wheel industry into the twentieth century.

Milwaukee Public Museum
The Milwaukee Public Museum has collected historical materials since the Museum's founding in 1882. Originally acquired as part of the Department of Ethnology, by the 1940s it was apparent that the MPM had enough material and curatorial expertise to form a separate History Section, which they did in 1945. Today, the History Section curates the cultures of Europe, United States and Asia with a focus on business technology, firearms, decorative arts, clothing and textiles, ancient history, numismatics, European folk life and American daily life. Truly a "public" museum, many of the MPM's collections have been donated by the people of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

Milwaukee County Historical Society
The Milwaukee County Historical Society was founded in 1935 to collect, preserve and make available materials relating to the history of the Milwaukee community. Through a broad range of activities, the Society seeks to promote a greater appreciation of the Milwaukee community's rich heritage and a better understanding of life today. The Society is housed in the Milwaukee County Historical Center in Pere Marquette Park on North Old World Third Street. The Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database includes objects from the Society's collections representing Milwaukee's manufacturing history (utilitarian stoneware by Charles Hermann and furniture by the Matthews Brothers) as well as its cultural history (a quilt made by local German families and hand-painted porcelain).

Mineral Point Historical Society
The Mineral Point Historical Society was established in 1939 to prevent the destruction of Orchard Lawn, the Italianate home built in 1868 by local entrepreneur Joseph Gundry. The Society is currently involved in a major restoration of the building's interior and grounds. Items from the Society's collection cataloged here include locally made furniture, hand painted china, an earthenware pot, and a Cornish needlework sampler.

Mount Horeb Area Historical Society
The Mt. Horeb Area Historical Society was founded in 1975 to document and preserve the history of southwestern Dane County. This region's Norwegian heritage is reflected in the many artifacts made by Norwegian immigrants featured in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database, including examples of furniture by cabinetmaker Aslak Lie and a violin in the traditional Norwegian Hardanger style. Locally-made textiles, including quilts, lace work, and woven blankets, are another significant part of the Society's holdings documented here. In addition to managing a collection of thousands of artifacts, photographs, and archival materials, the Society operates the Mt. Horeb Area Museum, featuring both permanent and changing exhibitions of regional history.

Neville Public Museum of Brown County, Green Bay
Green Bay officially became a city in 1854, but its history as an inhabited region began long before. Archaeological findings establish the region as a seat of prehistoric cultures many centuries before the arrival of Europeans, documented by the landing of Jean Nicolet at Red Banks in 1634. Because of the community's location at the mouth of the Fox River, it was first a military stronghold and later became the important industrial center that it is today. The Neville Public Museum of Brown County traces its roots back to 1915 when a small display opened in the public library. Today the Neville Public Museum is a regional museum of art, history and science with collections representing Northeast Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Items from the museum's collection documented here include locally handcrafted iron ware, hand painted china, needlework samplers, a coverlet and a silver plated cup.

New Holstein Historical Society
Descendants of the early settlers of the community founded the New Holstein Historical Society in 1964. In 1974, members of the Timm family presented the Society with the Hermann C. Timm House and much of its contents. Built for Hermann Christian Timm and his wife, Augusta Muenster Timm, the home was erected in two sections. A Greek Revival-influenced residence was built in 1873. In 1892, a large Stick Style addition was constructed on the front of the house, and the earlier part of the house, now the rear, was updated. An extensive restoration of the building was completed in 2007. The Society also operates the Pioneer Corner Museum, which features space for rotating exhibitions as well as permanent displays of artifacts from the early history of the community.

Oconto County Historical Society, Oconto
The Oconto County Historical Society maintains three buildings: the historic Beyer Home Museum; the George E. Hall Annex, which contains permanent and temporary exhibitions, research files, photographs, and artifact storage; and an urban barn. Built in 1868 by Cyrus and Kitty Hart, the Beyer Home is believed to be one of the first brick homes in Oconto County. In the 1970s the Society restored the house's interior to the 1890s era, when it was the home of prominent local citizens George and Fannie Beyer. The Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database documents some of the furniture, porcelain and quilts that now furnish the Beyer Home.

Pendarvis, Mineral Point (Wisconsin Historical Society)
In 1935, Robert Neal and Edgar Hellum saw Mineral Point's history and heritage teetering on the brink of oblivion, and they decided to preserve what they could of its most tangible symbols--the stone cottages built by early 19th-century Cornish immigrants. Avid collectors, Neal and Hellum acquired the objects documented here-earthenware pots by local potter Bernard Klais and examples of early regional furniture-in conjunction with the Pendarvis restoration. In 1970, the Wisconsin Historical Society acquired the property and the next year began operating the restoration as a historic site interpreting the history of Cornish settlement and Wisconsin's lead-mining heyday.

Peshtigo Fire Museum
Operated by the Peshtigo Historical Society, the Peshtigo Fire Museum is located in the first church built in Peshtigo after much of the village was destroyed in the infamous fire of October 1871. The museum's collections consist of artifacts salvaged from the fire--including the tabernacle rescued from Father Peter Pernin's church--as well as artifacts of local history from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Rock County Historical Society, Janesville
The Rock County Historical Society owns and operates three sites: the Helen Jeffris Wood Museum, featuring a changing exhibition space as well as a permanent display of Edgerton art pottery; the Lincoln-Tallman House, a recently restored ca. 1857 Italianate mansion; and the Frances Willard School, which provides an immersive experience of a nineteenth-century one-room schoolhouse for area students. The Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database includes highlights from the Rock County Historical Society's large collection of Pauline Pottery and other art pottery made in Edgerton, furniture produced in Janesville factories and a number of well-preserved local quilts.

Rusk County Historical Society, Ladysmith
Gates County, Wisconsin was formed in 1901 from the northern portion of Chippewa County. It was named after Milwaukee land speculator James L. Gates who owned tracts of cutover land in northern Wisconsin. Construction of the Gates County courthouse began that same year. On the closing night of the 1905 legislative session, the name of the county was changed to Rusk in honor of Jeremiah M. Rusk, a respected local leader and three-term governor of the state. The Rusk County Historical Society was founded in 1955. The Society's museum complex consists of ten buildings, including two cabins, a schoolhouse, and several new structures for exhibition space, all found at the Rusk County Fairgrounds in Ladysmith, Wisconsin.

Sauk County Historical Society, Baraboo
The Sauk County Historical Society was founded in Baraboo in 1905. Beginning in 1907 the Society presented exhibitions in the Sauk County Courthouse. In 1938 the Society acquired the Jacob Van Orden Mansion, a Tudor Revival-style building constructed in 1902, as a new home for the ever-growing collection that had long since overcrowded the space in the courthouse. In December 2006 the Society obtained the former administrative building of the Island Woolen Mill and is currently in the process of converting it into the Sauk County History Center. When completed, the History Center will house research materials and museum space and the Orden Mansion will become a historic house museum.

Sheboygan County Historical Society, Sheboygan
The Sheboygan County Historical Museum complex includes four historic buildings: the Taylor House, built for Judge David Taylor in the early 1850s; the 1864 Weinhold family log home; the 1867 Bodenstab Cheese Factory; and the 1890s-era Schuchardt Barn. In addition, two modern buildings provide space for permanent and changing exhibitions of county history. In the late 19th century, Sheboygan's successful furniture industry earned it the nickname "Chair City," and the museum's collection includes examples of furniture from the Phoenix Chair Company, the Northern Furniture Company, and manufacturer George Spratt. Other examples of Sheboygan's industrial production featured here include a Puritan phonograph, a piano from the S.W. Miller Piano Company, a cast-iron bench from the Kohler Company, and a blanket produced in the Brickner Woolen Mills of Sheboygan Falls.

Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, Decorah, Iowa
Just as Norwegian immigration to America began to peak in 1877, Norwegian Americans at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa started to collect and preserve objects documenting their chapter of the immigrant story, making them pioneers in the preservation of cultural diversity in America. Today that early collection has grown into the Vesterheim ("Western Home") Norwegian-American Museum, the largest and most comprehensive museum in the United States dedicated to a single immigrant group. The museum houses over 24,000 artifacts, which include large samplings from the fine, decorative, and folk arts, and the tools and machinery of early agriculture, lumbering, and other immigrant industries. The Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database features examples of furniture, woodcarving, rosemaling, and other traditional crafts produced by Norwegian immigrants in Wisconsin.

Villa Louis, Prairie du Chien (Wisconsin Historical Society)
In 1843, fur trade agent Hercules Dousman established a home on the banks of the Mississippi River in the city of Prairie du Chien. Following Dousman's death in 1868, his son Louis Dousman planned the construction of a more stylish residence to replace his childhood home. In 1885, Louis and his wife Nina set about a top-to-bottom renovation of the Villa Louis to make its rooms a showplace of British Arts and Crafts design. The Wisconsin Historical Society acquired the Villa as its first historic site in 1952. A meticulous restoration of the site was completed in 2005, supported by major evidence of the circa 1885 interiors found in family photographs, letters, and business records. Ninety percent of the furnishings at the Villa are original to the home, including the examples of furniture and silver from St. Louis and Milwaukee cataloged here.

Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, Milwaukee
The Villa Terrace, designed and built by architect David Adler in 1923, was originally the residence of Lloyd Smith of the A.O. Smith Corporation and his family. In partnership with the Charles Allis Art Museum, the Villa is now part of the Milwaukee County War Memorial Corporation. A highlight of the Villa's collection is the Cyril Colnik Collection, made available online for the first time through the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database. In 1991, Gretchen Colnik donated to the Villa over 200 works by her father, Cyril Colnik (1871-1958), considered one of the foremost metal craftsmen of his time. The museum installed a major permanent exhibition of this collection, including photographs, drawings and blueprints from the museum's Colnik Archive, in 2007.

Wisconsin Historical Museum, MadisonThe collections of the Wisconsin Historical Museum contain 110,000 historical objects and nearly 400,000 archaeological artifacts. They are used by staff, academic scholars, collectors, local historians, authors and the general public to document the history of what is now Wisconsin from pre-historic times to the present. A wide selection of objects from the Museum's collections, including paintings, quilts, samplers, children's clothing, moccasins, dolls, and ceramic art, can be viewed online. The Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database includes a sampling from the Museum's collection of nineteenth-century utilitarian ceramics as well as examples of work by the Pauline Pottery and other Edgerton art potteries. The Database also features nearly 30 beaded bandolier bags made by Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Menominee and HoChunk women in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Wisconsin.

Wrightstown Historical Society
In 1833, Hoel S. Wright left Vermont for the Wisconsin Territory, where he established a settlement southwest of Green Bay that he called Bridgeport (later renamed Wrightstown in honor of its founder). Wright built a home on the east side of the Fox River in 1843 and lived there with his family until 1865. In 1871, German immigrant Carl G. Mueller acquired and rebuilt the Wright house, adding the two wings of the present structure. Mueller and his descendants lived in the house until the late 1930s. In 1974, the Village of Wrightstown purchased the property and the Wrightstown Historical Society restored the building, now known as the Mueller-Wright House, with the help of a grant from the Fort Howard Paper Foundation. Many objects associated with the Wright and Mueller families are among the house's current furnishings, including the furniture and needlework documented here.