Chapter 4

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West Allis
West Allis, a city adjacent to Milwaukee, had a large German-American population and was the site of numerous dust-ups between pro- and anti-Nazi crowds. The Friends of New Germany established a chapter there in 1933 which became the German American Bund in 1937. The group promoted Nazi ideology, including virulent antisemitism, and was met with intense opposition from both the Jewish community and the majority of German Americans in Wisconsin.

Baraboo
City in Wisconsin about 120 NW of Milwaukee. The city was a regional center with a variety of businesses, including the Ringling Brothers Circus which established Baraboo as its winter quarters and contributing to its identity as "Circus City."

Driftless Area
The Driftless Area is a region of Wisconsin and nearby states that escaped glaciation, characterized by its rugged topography of hills, valleys, and bluffs, unlike the surrounding flatter, glaciated terrain. Named for the absence of glacial deposits ("drift"), this region features unique geological formations such as karst topography with caves, sinkholes, and disappearing streams.

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Carl Hagenbeck zoo
Carl Hagenbeck (1844-1913) was a German merchant of wild animals who supplied many European zoos, as well as P. T. Barnum. He created the modern zoo with animal enclosures without bars that were closer to their natural habitat. He was also an ethnography showman and a pioneer in the display of members of "savage tribes" in Völkerschauen, known nowadays in English as "ethnic shows" or "human zoos". These racist displays were controversial at the time and are now widely considered unethical. The transformation of the zoo architecture initiated by him is known as the Hagenbeck revolution. Hagenbeck founded Germany's most successful privately owned zoo, the Tierpark Hagenbeck, which moved to its present location in Hamburg's Stellingen district in 1907. Wikipedia

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fists and saps
A sap is a short, weighted impact weapon, usually made of leather and filled with material like lead

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lead-filled Beavertail sap
"Beavertail sap" is slang for a type of close-quarters, weighted impact weapon, also known as a slapjack or blackjack. It's a leather-bound tool with a weighted end that resembles the tail of a beaver, hence the name. These non-lethal weapons are designed to deliver a concentrated, forceful strike and are known for their concealability and portability.

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peeled of a flash roll
In 1930s slang, to have a "flash roll" meant to carry and conspicuously display a thick wad of banknotes to show off wealth. The term was especially common in gambling and criminal circles, and the display was often used to project an image of power and financial success.

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Sheepshead marathon
Sheepshead is a trick-taking card game that originated in Germany and is popular in parts of the US, particularly Wisconsin, and is known for its strategy, math, and social aspects. Played with a 32-card deck (7s through Aces), the game involves players forming teams by "picking" a partner for a round, with the goal of winning "tricks" to score at least 61 of the 120 available points in the deck to win the hand. How to Play Sheepshead

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Cream City
The moniker has nothing to do with the dairy industry. Milwaukee is called Cream City because of its signature creamy-yellow bricks, produced from the 1830s to the 1920s using local clay with high lime and sulfur content. When fired, this clay turned a distinct cream color, and these bricks were used to build many 19th-century structures throughout the city, giving it the nickname.

Haymarket bomb frame-up
The Haymarket Affair is considered a watershed moment for American labor history, at a time when fears about the loyalties and activities of immigrants, anarchists, and laborers became linked in the minds of many Americans.

On May 3, 1886, unarmed strikers clashed with police at Chicago’s McCormick Reaper Works factory. The deaths of six workers became a call for direct action, and a public rally was called for the following day to be held in Haymarket Square. Again, the police and the strikers clashed, but this time a bomb was thrown, resulting in the death of seven policemen and many in the crowd were injured. The police, uncertain about the source of the bomb, fired into the crowd, killing four of the demonstrators. The identity of the bomb thrower is still a mystery, but eight men were indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit the act. All eight were convicted of the conspiracy charge even though it was understood none had made or thrown the bomb. Wikipedia

Rolling Mills Massacre
Aka, the Bay View massacre, was the result of a strike held on May 4, 1886, by 7,000 building-trades workers and 5,000 Polish laborers who had organized at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to strike against their employers, demanding the enforcement of an eight-hour work day. The strikers had shut down every business in the city except the North Chicago Rolling Mills in Bay View. The guardsmen's orders were that, if the strikers were to enter the Mills, they should shoot to kill. But when the captain received the order it had a different meaning: he ordered his men to pick out a man and shoot to kill when the order was given. Early the next day the crowd, which by this time contained children, approached the mill and were fired upon. Seven people died as a result, including a thirteen-year-old boy. Wikipedia

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Toy Building down on 2nd Street
The "Toy building" in Milwaukee refers to a distinctive, six-story, Chinese-style building at 736 North Second Street, built in 1913 by Moy Toy Ni (also known as Charlie Toy), and it housed the famous Toy's Shanghai Chinese Restaurant, as well as a ballroom on the second floor with live dance bands playing music nightly from 6 p.m. to midnight. It was demolished in 1939.

Nan King
There existed a Nan King Café at 606 W. Mitchell Street, on Milwaukee's south side in the 1930s. Source

On Leongs and Hip Sings
The "Hip Sing" (Cantonese: "Cooperating for success")and "On Leong" tongs (Cantonese: lit. "assembly halls"; fig. "organizations, gangs"), originally established in New York, were involved in violent "Tong wars" for control of Chinatown in Milwaukee, particularly in the 1920s. During the 1920s, there was a tong war that erupted between the Hip Sing and On Leong tongs. The conflict intensified when the On Leong Tong hired a gunman from Milwaukee, Angelo Lo Mantio, to fight against the Hip Sing Tong.

In New York, the two tongs competed for dominance. The On Leong Tong represented the interest of the elite in Chinatown. Its power lay in the social, economic and political status of its leaders. On Leong Tong President, Tom Lee, and other key members controlled the lucrative 'property rights' system associated with opium and gambling in Chinatown. The Hip Sing Tong was the power syndicate in Chinatown. Its power lay in the sizeable number of professional criminals within its ranks. More...

Thrill Box
The National "Thrill Box" was a series of high-performance shortwave radio receivers, beginning with the SW-2 in 1928 and evolving to models like the SW-3 and SW-5, noted for their advanced features like movable coil tuning units, which made shortwave listening more accessible to the public in the late 1920s and early 1930s. These receivers were a significant step forward in radio technology, providing a low-cost alternative to more complex models for receiving foreign shortwave broadcasts.

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brain-croakers
In the slang of the day, "croaker" primarily referred to a doctor or physician, especially one who treated injured criminals and was reliable enough not to inform the police. So a brain-croaker here is a psychiatrist or therapist.