Author: Wisconsin Public Radio

In 1861 at the start of the Civil War, Wisconsin Historical Society secretary Lyman Draper passed out diaries and pencils to soldiers stationed at Camp Randall in Madison and asked them to document their wartime experiences. After the war, the records returned to the Historical Society helped to establish one of the greatest archives of Civil War soldier diaries in the Unites States, said Christian Overland, the current Ruth and Hartley Barker director and CEO of the Wisconsin Historical Society. With the continued goal of archiving historical events, the Historical Society is asking the state’s residents to keep track...

An economic downturn might lead to budget shortfalls at all levels of government, but among Wisconsin’s local governments, it is counties that could be the hardest hit. That is the finding of a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum, which notes counties face revenue shortfalls because they rely more on sales taxes than cities or villages do. Consumer spending has fallen steeply since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning sales tax collections are way down. And counties are also directly responsible for some of the services that are strained in the response to the virus, including health...

As more Wisconsinites lose jobs or have their hours cut back amid the coronavirus, many are turning to the state and to local nonprofits for help putting food on the table. Applications for FoodShare, the state Department of Health Services-administered program that provides families with money for groceries, has seen applications jump by about 5,000 per week — more than double the usual amount — over the last several weeks. Rebecca McAtee, who helps administer the program for DHS, said it can take up to 30 days to confirm eligibility and get applicants enrolled in the program, so the...

When Governor Tony Evers announced four weeks ago that schools would close to avoid spreading the coronavirus, districts around Wisconsin started scrambling to prepare students to learn from home, and to prepare schools to continue to provide food and other resources in new ways. Even school districts with robust online learning programs hadn’t intended for those to replace in-person classroom instruction. And without being able to go to the schools and now-shuttered public libraries, many students didn’t have regular access to the internet or electronic devices they’d need to tune in to Google Classroom or Class Dojo. Most districts...

Every spring, about 5,000 migrant workers make their way to Wisconsin to work in agriculture. Many come from Texas and Florida and work on farms across the state helping farmers harvest crops and process food during the peak season from late April through the fall. But this year is different. As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the country, the crowded conditions migrant farm workers — the majority of whom are Hispanic or Latino — live and work in leave them uniquely vulnerable to contracting and spreading the virus. They are essential workers, but advocates fear the very nature of their...

State Assembly lawmakers approved a bill on April 14 aimed at tackling some of the social and economic problems spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic in Wisconsin. The wide-ranging bill was approved on a vote of 97-2. Two Democrats, Representatives Jonathan Brostoff and Marisabel Cabrera, both from Milwaukee, voted against the plan. “While AB 1038 does include some important and helpful measures, they amount to little more than scraps for the thousands of Wisconsinites who have already been forced to wait while Republicans dragged their feet on providing relief to our citizens,” said Representative Brostoff. “Working people in Wisconsin had...