The Wisconsin Project: Found: Toll Gate, Fond du Lac, WI

31.1.13

Found: Toll Gate, Fond du Lac, WI

Found: 5900. Toll Gate, Fond du Lac, Wis. postmarked 1914
Written in fountain pen on the back side:
"Dear Mother: Received curtains O.K. this A.M. and am very much pleased oer them. Many thanks.
I will send the postage when there is enough to write a letter about. Lizzie and Loda came the noon you left.
They came here then Esther took Loren and I wheeled Loda up to Chas. I just got there.
Mrs. K. phone and said Loren was crying so hard she couldn't do anything with him so had to come right home.
Mrs. Hayes was here for awhile this P.S. and now Mrs. Barrett and Mrs. Claffe just left.
Were here after Money for the preacher.
Am sending your card on that came today. Mabel. Write Soon.

1 comment:

Anonymous18:22
The Historical Marker Database (HMdb.org) contains notes of a marker on a Winnebago Drive wayside in Taycheedah, Wisconsin:
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=3650

Looks like they might've used the same postcard image to create the marker etching! If it's the same one, the marker notes the toll gate was around from 1835 to 10 January 1916.

I wonder what Mabel's new curtains looked like? Great find!

Joel
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THE WISCONSIN PROJECT

Our research-driven Wisconsin Project contemplates the rooted-ness and state-of-mind resulting from inhabiting a single place, our native Wisconsin, for a long time. Through critiquing postcard views both made and found, we learn a great deal about past and present Wisconsin. We began making postcard views of the places immediately around our studio and on our drives around Wisconsin in about 2008. We use the vintage postcard film format and print the cards in palladium and cyanotype. By communicating details of a specific place, seeming to register only marginally on the national radar, the project seeks to bring audiences into a Wisconsin mental space. Some in the art world would argue that the Midwest, particularly Wisconsin, makes for banal “fly over” subject matter. Our project challenges that by finding meaning in the ordinary and inviting audiences to examine, dialog, and reflect on the particular emotional quality of the idiosyncrasies of place and the perceptions of those both inside and outside of it. Sometimes distant memories are involved and a longing for a time now gone. Wisconsin’s glacier inflected landscape and proximity to the Great Lakes creates an exotic arena for living that informs our project. The life cycle plays out and rural and urban ruins serve as monuments to existences as people, places, and ideas surface then vanish. Ultimately, we aim to grapple with complex perceptions of Wisconsin ranging from nostalgic, romantic, and idealized--as depicted on myriad real photo postcard and standard tourist postcards--to mysterious, dark, and Gothic as conveyed in works of art and literature such as Michael Lesy's "Wisconsin Death Trip" book and Werner Herzog's "Stroszek" film. The project culminated in a residency with workshops and community collaborations and the installation "We Go From Where We Know" at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center 10.13.2013-3.7.2014 and later the Harvestore Bandshell for Fermentation Fest in 10.2014. The blog continues the exploration of postcards.