the presidents, politics, policies and legacies, you're watching tv.ican history ll weekend, every weekend, on c-span three. >> we're on the banks of lake michigan in milwaukee, wisconsin. we're learning about the city's history. up next, we take you inside the public museum. streets of an old milwaukee exhibit for a closer look at the city's early years. >> the streets of old milwaukee and takes he 1890s you to about 1917. outtime when america breaks on the world scene. it's a wonderful look, immerse sieve, a look at the way people 19th and 20th te century. a set of building blocks, they give you an idea of the kinds of people that were here, kinds of business that is were going on

nd a little bit about what was going on in each and every neighborhood. milwaukeees depicted, itself had almost 290,000 290,000, , and of that german heritage or direct german immigration. we also experienced immigration southeastern europe and southern europe as well as canada and parts of mexico and asia. in the city of milwaukee itself, scores of small slavic, oods that were polish, german, you name it, they were here. 35 different ethnic groups in milwaukee around 1900. vestibule of our time traveling streetcar. in this area, what you will find is, you look at the photographs, on the side coming across, it's times, and as we progress through the streetcar, the cars get get older,

older, people change costume, and all of a sudden, when we get to the opposite vestibule, you find yourself here on the you ts of old milwaukee, step into a time when milwaukee anufacturing was just blossoming. behind us is a company that as a brewery and actual over time into an transferring facility. bits and gearing, pieces for streetcars and industry, very heavy foundry-based industry and they here ill available today in milwaukee. manufacturing in milwaukee has a long, long history. way back to the 1880s and by the 1890s the technology was so theng, steam technology and burgeoning knowledge of electricity, motors, that kind really may heavy

manufacturing truly possible and like many american cities, you these massive plants that start developing in milwaukee, like alice chalmers, which came back in 1901, and has an interesting relationship to alk, because -- falk became chalmers president in 1912 and took that company over. a lot of s interconnectivity between the companies. they grew quickly. we were a large railroad hub. we had the chicago, a thwestern, milwaukee, couple of smaller roads, a lot of facility here but what was important thing for milwaukee was the milwaukee port. 1840s, andack to the when they had 1,200 foot long way out t went all the into the lake, milwaukee grew, especially the grain industry. grain coming from the hinterland of wisconsin. grain coming from minnesota.

would all come here. as a matter of fact, into the a bigger waukee was grain shipment point than chicago. and because of all of that grain of the german influence, we had a lot of beer here, too. >> the tavern or sal loon as we like to call it is a major of the old streets of milwaukee as it was also a major feature of many of the neighborhoods. like he years, saloons this became what were called tied houses. it lasted until prohibition hit 1920. local a was, that the brewery would supply a place, and all of the necessary materials to run a tavern. actually ese were owned by the breweries themselves. some were leased units and some independent entrepreneurs the taverns in their

local neighborhoods. on good, always rely clean beer because the taverns ere held to a very high standard of quality and service by the breweries themselves. that said, there milwaukee where the quality was high, but could also be very low and could have some questionable people about, like many places we had our troubled districts here that were kind of an interesting story in and of themselves as well. we are in front of a police box. milwaukee police took this idea from various american cities and ot the idea from europe. they instituted this in about 1886, complete with telephonic communication. by 1895, there were over 900 of these around the city.

they were used by the police officers as a way station they had to make the tour around the neighborhood, and they had to come and check in for they would have to pick up the phone and call dispatch to see if there was anything they needed to do. they used it as a place to keep extra clothing or lunch. sometimes they would put people inside of it while they were holding them in custody, waiting for the paddy wagon to come pick them up. this is the watson unit. it is a depiction of the house owned by the watsons. they came here in 1850 from ohio after gaining their freedom in virginia in 1834. it was a hopscotch kind of emigration that came here. what is interesting, again it was family driven.

their oldest daughter, she moved here, mother and daughter longed for each other so much, and they were letters talking about how much they miss each other and how the family should be together. after the 1849 cholera breakout, they said we are moving, and they came here by wagon in 1850, settling here. the african-american community here was a tightknit community, very religious. many who came here had skills. these people were trained masons. her daughters were trained

seamstresses. many others here in the early part were working as barbers, as cooks, also as farriers and blacksmiths. over the course of the time in the end of the civil war into the time of about world war i, there was a good size influx of african-americans from other parts of the country, from the deep south, some from the southeast, some from the southwest. people came from missouri. they came here with limited skills and quite often they were forced to take some of the poorest jobs here. many people worked their way up, but otherwise there was a little bit of underclass that went with that. this is the honor cabin.

it is a cabin that was made by a german immigrant, as the representation of what it was like to be here. small cabins became frame houses, and then, especially if you were a beer aaron, you wound up with a mansion. many people had wonderful homes, ran their own businesses, and worked hard. many of the industries were created by germans, migrants to milwaukee, so there was a pool of talent and high energy people interested in building milwaukee. >> on cities tour staff recently traveled to milwaukee to learn about its rich history. to watch more video from milwaukee and other stops on our tour, visit c span.org/citiestour.

>> sharon withycombe talks about pregnancy in the 19th century. she describes the experience of childbirth, which often occured at home, and the varied perceptions of miscarriages. this 15 minute interview was recorded at the annual american historical association meeting. steve: shannon, a professor at the university of new mexico, 'm intrigued by the topic, buying better babies: popular health advice in the early 20th century. hy this topic? sharon: i became really interested in the history of regnancy probably 10 years ago when i first got to graduate school. i started looking at the history of miscarriage because i was becoming of that age where many people around me were having children. every woman i knew who had a miscarriage said i did not know how common it was until i had my own. that is what started my