>> american history tv products are available at the new c-span online store. what's new for american history tv and check out all of the c-span product. >> we are on the banks of lake michigan, where c-span is learning about the city's history. we take you for a closer look at the city's early years. the streets of old milwaukee starts in the 1890's and takes you to about 1917. the time when america breaks out on the world scene. , immersiveerful look and emotive at the way people lived in the 20th century. blocks, itbuilding

gives you an idea of the kind of people who were here, the kind of businesses that were going on , and a little bit about what was going on in each and every neighborhood. milwaukee itself had almost 290,000 residents. that, 60% claimed german heritage or direct german immigration. we also experience fast immigration from southeastern europe and southern europe, as well as canada and parts of mexico and asia. there were scores of small , they were all here. over 35 different ethnic groups in milwaukee around 1900. this is a vestibule of our time traveling streetcar. what you will find as you look at the photographs coming

across, it is modern times. as we progress through the streetcar, the buildings and cars get older. people change costume. when we get to the opposite vestibule, you find yourself here in the streets of old milwaukee, you stepped into a time when my -- when milwaukee manufacturing was just blossoming. actually started here as a brewery and evolve over time into an actual manufacturing facility. they made bits and pieces for .treetcars they are still available today. manufacturing in milwaukee has a long history. the 1840's. to by the 1880's and 1890's the technology was so strong.

really made heavy manufacturing truly possible. cities, youerican have these massive plans that ,tart developing in milwaukee which came about in 1901 and had an interesting relationship because faulk became the president in 2012. there is a lot of interconnectivity between the companies, they grew quickly, we had a large railroad, we had chicago, northwestern, several other smaller railroads. will was always the most important thing for milwaukee was the milwaukee pork. when they had 1200 foot long peers that went all the way out the the lake, especially

green industry, green coming from the land of wisconsin, green coming from minnesota. into the 1870's milwaukee was a bigger shipment point in chicago. influence the german we had a lot going on here too. the tavern or saloon is a major feature in the old streets of milwaukee, as well as a major feature of many of the neighborhoods. thisthe years saloons like -- last mental prohibition hit in 1920. the idea was a local brewery would supply a place, all the product, and all the necessary materials to run a tavern.

somewhere independent entrepreneurs that ran taverns in local neighborhoods. you can always rely on a good clean beer out of these types of establishments. there are many independent taverns around milwaukee, where the quality was very high but it could also be very low. we have a troubled bit -- a troubled district here in milwaukee. we are standing in front of a milwaukee police sentry box. milwaukee police took the idea from various cities that got the idea from european cities.

by 18 95 900 of these boxes were around the city. officers ass police a waste station. -- wait station. they would have to pick up the call to pick up the phone and call central dispatch to see if there was anything they needed to do or know about. toy also used it as a place keep their extra clothing or their lunch. sometimes they would actually put people inside of it while they were holding them in custody, waiting for the black mariah, known as the paddy wagon, to pick them up. this is a depiction of the house --ed by sully and susie susanna watson. in 1852 ohio.

kind of immigration. virginia to ohio to milwaukee. what was interesting was it was a family driven in immigration. their oldest daughter, she moved here. mother and daughter longed for each other so much. there were letters back and forth about how the family should be together. they the cholera breakout said we are moving, and they came here by wagon in june of 1850, settling among the earliest milwaukee african-american community, which was only about 100 people. the african-american community a closedilwaukee was tightknit community, religiously centered in the early years. people who came here had wonderful skills. daughteratson and her

were trained seamstresses. african-americans that were here were working as barbers. farriers working as and blacksmiths. they were a growing and vibrant community. tom the end of the civil war thered of world war i, was a fairly good sized influx of african-americans from other parts of the country, from the deep south, from the southeast. them came from missouri. they came here with limited skills and they were forced in some ways to take the poorest jobs in milwaukee. way people did work their up, but there was a little bit of an underclass that went with all of that. cabin, an honor

vintage cabin made by a german immigrant as a representation of what it was like to be an early german-american here in milwaukee. small cabins became frame houses, frame houses -- you wound up with a mansion. hard. worked very many of the industries were created by german-american migrants in milwaukee. talent,s a vast pool of a vast pool of high-energy people interested in building milwaukee. it corrects our 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, visits he spent.org/cities tour. you are watching american

history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span three. tv,ext on american history historian henry louis gates talks about reconstruction, which lasted from the end of the civil war until 1877. the amendments passed during this time to promote equality for african-americans and the kroll -- jim crow laws. the national constitution center hosted this event. you heard the passion of professor gates downstairs and all of our colleagues, so we are just going to jump into this conversation. i think you can tell, it is urgently important to bring