THE VAPIDITY OF CULTURE STUDIES.

Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, I give you "Making an Old-world Milwaukee: German Heritage, Nostalgia, and the Reshaping of the Twentieth Century City," a doctoral dissertation submitted by one Joseph B. Walzer to the history faculty at Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  The opening paragraphs of the abstract spell out The Narrative, while ticking all the Proper Boxes.

This dissertation examines the importance of white ethnicity, and especially Germanness, in the “civic branding” and urban restructuring efforts of city officials, civic boosters, and business leaders in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the mid-to-late twentieth century. Scholars have increasingly identified the significant roles the “revival” of European ethnic identities played in maintaining white racial privilege in response to the Civil Rights Movement since the 1960s. I contribute to these new veins of scholarship by tracing the continued and evolving prominence of Germanness in the Midwestern city of Milwaukee, long after common assumptions of ethnic assimilation might have expected such nineteenth century German ethnic identities to have “melted” into American society. My research in civic and community organization records, as well as local newspaper stories, reveals the active, yet often-uncoordinated efforts of various cultural agents and power brokers to maintain white ethnic, German hegemony in Milwaukee between the 1920s and 1980s. The combined crises of World War, National Prohibition, and a perceived weakening of German influence in the diversifying city prompted civic boosters and business interests who relied on the privileged place of Germanness in Milwaukee’s social order to secure German hegemony in nostalgic memories of “Old Milwaukee” in the 1920s through 1940s. These narratives offered carefully crafted visions of Milwaukee’s Germanness as productive, pragmatic, yet fun, and characterized German cultural contributions—especially the festivity and hospitality associated with gemütlichkeit—as essential to the city’s nineteenth century development and charming Old World character. As working class politics, growing racial inequality, and civil rights movements challenged Milwaukee’s prevailing social order in the decades following the Second World War, business leaders, developers, and pro-business public officials deployed these narratives of heritage and nostalgia in their efforts to reimagine the city as a post-industrial tourist and entertainment destination. In the process, such constructions effectively secured white ethnic claims to power and privilege in urban space.

That's not what the ensuing analysis of public records shows: there's a bit of discussion about whether all of North Third Street should be renamed for Martin Luther King, or whether the section just north of downtown with Usinger's and Mader's and the remnants of the railyards for loading beer could be Old World Third Street.  (It's now King Drive from Wisconsin Avenue north.)  The business efforts to create entertainment space along Brady Street (once a hang-out for the counterculture) and in Walker's Point (now that the foundries and coke works have closed, there are taverns to repurpose) are more or less standard case studies in the tussle between existing residents and gentrifiers, and at best tangentially about any "privileged place of Germanness."

But fine, the Culture Studies Narrative must be maintained.

As this dissertation has demonstrated, white ethnicity, and particularly Germanness, was central to Milwaukee’s civic identity through the twentieth century. This carried over into the twenty-first century as many residents maintain claims to German heritage, bratwurst and sauerkraut remain staples of festivals and picnics, fans sing the “Roll Out the Barrel” polka during the seventh inning stretch of the city’s Major League Milwaukee Brewers Baseball games, and the names of Milwaukee’s historic German brewing giants—Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, and Miller—still adorn key city spaces. Germanness also remains important to Milwaukee’s collective memory, as many local historians and other writers celebrate the uniqueness of Milwaukee’s German cultural traditions and institutions, and the city’s historic reputation as the “German Athens” of America. Historian George Lipsitz argues that these “spatial imaginaries” often inscribe “social warrants” of racial privilege and belonging into urban landscapes. Narratives that emphasize white ethnic productivity, deserving, and righteousness over what commonly portrayed as lazy, undeserving, and criminal people of color have historically informed discriminatory policing, lending, land use, and employment policies and practices, as well as governed access to education, housing, and public services.

Such perpetually miserable company these woke historians must be.  I can't help but wonder whether the scorn is filtering through to attendees at the German-themed festivals.  Last weekend, Das Fest took place at the Walworth County Fair grounds, and, coming the same weekend as the opening of Wisconsin's State Fair and a weekend after German Fest, it was drawing large crowds.

Das Spätzle and Babushka's Polish Foods collaborating to make pizza for sale to show-goers.  I am pleased to report that there was not a drop of any Budweiser product on offer on the grounds.

Contemplate, though, dear reader, that the sort of mildly transgressive humor on Babushka's team tees (You can beat our prices, but you can't beat our meat) is generally about as envelope-pushing as you get, e.g. "Schnitzel happens" or "I'm at my wurst at German Fest and I don't give a schnitzel."  I noticed, both weekends, more in your-face tee shirts, of the Militant Normal version more commonly on offer at the county fairs.

The county fair season is soon to conclude, and my purpose in attending is to chow down on corn and cream puffs (not together) and keep an eye on what's on sale in those flag tents.

But OK, culture studies types, keep privilege-shaming the people who go to German themed festivals.