What a Socialist Neighborhood Looks Like, Then and Now

Haleema Shah talks to Cheryl Blue, Executive Director of The Corridor, about the Garden Homes district’s socialist history.

Every week, producers at To The Best Of Our Knowledge assemble a newsletter of our best content from our most recent shows, as well as original stories and behind the scenes insights that give a peek behind the curtain of putting the show together. We’re re-publishing a few of these “Dear TTBOOKlings” notes here on Medium.

This week, producer Haleema Shah bids us farewell with a field piece from Milwaukee, which had three socialist mayors (!) over the course of 1/3 of the past century.

Two and a half years ago, I moved to the Dairy State for work. I’m from suburban Chicago, so my relationship with the neighbors to the north was limited to day trips and the occasional weekend retreat to visit quiet lakes and go apple picking.

That relationship changed when I became a journalist in the Badger State. Shortly after moving here, I started reading about a man named Emil Seidel, who became mayor of Milwaukee in 1910 and the first Socialist to lead a major U.S. city.

Up until recently, Wisconsin has been a laboratory for progressive politics, and its political experiments over the last 100 years have had resonance around the country. So as segments of the population demand, or toy with, the idea of infusing socialism into our government, Milwaukee felt like the perfect city to profile. Socialists led the city for a third of the 20th Century, and I visited the public housing and public park system they pioneered.

Despite modeling systems that cities around the country have adopted, the Milwaukee Socialists’ influence faded after 1960. And as the city, and the country, grapple with growing inequality, perhaps it is worth looking to history to understand why a massive working class population struggling to make ends meet turned to radical politics at the turn of the century.

This will be the last show I produce for TTBOOK before I move to the east coast. Exploring socialist history in the Midwest feels like a perfect note to end on, though. Because what TTBOOK does best is dive deep into the ideas that shape our world from America’s heartland.

To the team at the show that helped me find my voice as a journalist — thank you for all you have taught me about telling compelling stories. And to those who heard the shows I had the honor to work on — thank you for lending us your ears.

— Haleema Shah

You can hear Haleema’s new work on the Smithsonian’s Sidedoor podcast.

A Closer Look At Milwaukee’s Garden Homes District

We were really in debt to the Milwaukee County Historical Society, the City of Milwaukee’s historic preservationists, and especially the photo librarians at the Wisconsin Historical Society. They tracked down photos of the Garden Homes neighborhood from a few distinct timeframes—first, this pair from the Mayors of Milwaukee collection at the Milwaukee Public Library.

Left, an aerial shot from 1922 when the Garden Homes neighborhood was first built. Right, Mayor Emil Seidel in 1930 posing with family in the neighborhood, where he lived for 25 years.

A survey of the park and overall neighborhood taken by the city of Milwaukee in 1977.

We don’t see much from the neighborhood again until 1988 (other than the neighborhood survey image to the left), after most of the neighborhood had converted from a co-op model envisioned by Seidel to a private ownership model. These photos are from 1988, and were entered as part of the neighborhood’s status on the national register of historic places.

Images of individual homes taken in 1988 by city photographer Paul Jakubovich. The center image is of the same home Haleema tours in the radio piece.

Most of these images were submitted to the City of Milwaukee as part of the permitting for renovations, since alterations to the historic buildings had to be authorized by the city in keeping with original specifications. Today, that’s inadvertently led to the decline of some of the homes, since they cost more to maintain than they are worth.

For reference, the city has all the original specifications for the homes in the neighborhood in order to verify the historical accuracy of repairs and renovations.

My own images — taken mid-July 2018—paint a picture of a neighborhood that has clearly seen less investment than in it’s heyday, but also still has a lot of love from the community.

Mama Freeman — interviewed in the piece — has her own honorary street in the neighborhood.

Some homes need more repairs than they are worth given the current home prices in the area, which has led some owners to abandon them.

Mayor Emil Seidel’s house as it stands today. Uncertainty over its ownership has led to a decline in maintenance.

Cheryl Blue and Andrew Haug lead us around the neighborhood’s notable landmarks.

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