from Poisoning Paradise: An Environmental History of Madison
By Maria C. Powell, PhD
Madison Compromise is a success! “Socially and economically the city might be treated as two separate cities”
By the end of the 1930s, even with the Great Depression causing significant economic challenges throughout the country, Kipp, Oscar Mayer, and other Madison industries thrived. The city also flourished economically.
Concerns among city leaders just a few decades earlier that allowing industries into the city would bring “grimy workers” (low-income people, immigrants, etc.) along with them—when the city wanted to attract affluent professionals to settle here—had faded away. Per the Madison Compromise, more heavy industries were welcomed to the city, but city zoning was purposely created to keep industries and industrial workers on the east side and professionals on the west side, where industries were not allowed. By the 1930s it was clear that the Madison Compromise had worked as planned–it kept the upper professional classes (doctors, professors, lawyers, etc.) segregated from the lower working classes (Kipp and Oscar Mayer workers, and workers at other eastside industries).
In fact, an article in the 1939 Wisconsin State Journal Centennial Edition, interestingly titled “Smokestack in a Test Tube,” stated that according to a report by city planner Ladislas Segoe,[1] the geographic separation of economic and social classes in Madison is so pronounced that “socially and economically the city might be treated as two separate cities.” In line with the goals of the Madison Compromise, Segoe’s report found that “The east half with its industries is almost entirely inhabited by industrial workers, clerks, etc., with the possible exception of those areas bordering Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. The west half of the city, dominated as it is by the university, contains the homes of the large group of professional people, the higher paid state employes, the university employes and instructional staffs.”[i]
“UW Research Holds Keys to Future Industry”
The State Journal article said manufacturing was beneficial to Madison’s economy, while also taking pains to note that the industries here were not heavy industries. This was also in line with the Madison Compromise; the powers-that-be who crafted it specified that though Madison would welcome manufacturing, it didn’t want heavy industries.
“Madison never has been rated as a typically manufacturing city,” the State Journal article began, “but its industries are ranked fourth in economic importance among its wealth-producing sources.” The story stressed the beneficial partnerships between the university and city industries. “The Segoe report, which foresaw a manufacturing future for the city in the field of small, specialized industries, suggested that Madison interests be first to recognize the possibilities of new products and new processes developed by scientific research at the University of Wisconsin.”[2]
Oddly, the story did not recognize that several of the factories in the city—such as Madison-Kipp and Oscar Mayer, and others—were heavy industries. Oscar Mayer had developed a close relationship with University of Wisconsin researchers by this time, but Madison Kipp had not (and as far as we can tell, never did).
Madison’s leaders don’t want to be identified as a manufacturing city
Segoe’s report and the State Journal article illustrated the reluctance among city leaders about being identified in any way as a manufacturing city—an identity the powers-that-be here wanted to avoid from the city’s beginnings. Instead, they wanted to portray it as an educated, sophisticated university city—a leader in research and innovation.
Even while touting the economic benefits of manufacturing at that time, the report noted the decreasing importance of manufacturing to the city’s growth and economy. “Except during and immediately following the world war, when war materials were manufactured here, Madison has never been primarily dependent upon the manufacturing industry for its growth. Except for this short period, the relative importance of manufacturers has been steadily decreasing since 1910…”
The report then compared the number of people in manufacturing in Madison to cities of a similar size, like Racine, where the number of people employed in manufacturing were proportionally higher and increasing. “In Madison the manufacturing industry has never experienced the sudden large increases in industrial employment which is characteristic of the typical manufacturing cities,” it stated. But this was followed by somewhat confusing, contradictory statements: “Madison has experienced a slow but steady industrial growth…Since 1925, during the years for which data are available industrial activity has been declining in Madison. There is every reason to expect that improved economic conditions will find industry improving with the other activities in Madison.”
Again, the article highlighted that the industries here would not be heavy manufacturing and would be aided by university research. “It appears that the industrial future of Madison lies in the field of small, specialized industries which are common today. The scientific research which is being conducted at the university should discover new products and new processes.” Madison’s industries “should be the first to take advantage of these advances” and more inventions would “come from research workers at the university,” such as scientists at the Forest Products Laboratory. “Here lies the opportunity for many new industries of a most desirable type suitable for the conditions in Madison.”
“Madison inhabitants” enjoy a “generally higher standard of living”
“Madison inhabitants,” according to the Segoe report “enjoy a higher average annual income than is received by inhabitants of cities of similar size, as reflected in the higher median value of homes, a greater number of automobiles and a generally higher standard of living than is found customarily in cities of comparable size.”
Segoe reported that in a 1930 survey of 28 non-metropolitan cities in the same population class with Madison, the city was ranked first in number of income tax returns, the per capita estimated property value, and the median value of homes. The report rated “the relative importance of the various income producing activities in the city’s economic life by their comparative shares in the total payroll” as follows (from highest to lowest): government, trade, education, industry, banking, hotels, insurance, newspapers, and service facilities.
Madison’s “supremacy” described in booklet to attract new residents
In 1941, just two years after the State Journal’s “Test Tube” piece, the paper published a piece titled “Leon Smith is Author of Booklet Lauding City as ‘Fine Place to Live.” The subtitle was “Free Copies Available; Quotes Surveys on Supremacy.” [ii],[3]
Leon Smith was the water department superintendent. The booklet was based on a presentation to the Rotary club and Madison Real Estate Board, and was a promotional piece meant to attract new residents to the city. Because so many people requested copies of the presentation, Smith arranged to have the pamphlet printed as a National Youth administration project through the Madison Vocational school; copies were placed at the city water department, city hall, the Madison and Wisconsin foundations, and at the real estate board office so people could pick them up at no cost.
Smith’s booklet, according to the State Journal summary, “calls attention to many surveys which show that Madison is first in numerous features and has a combination of natural beauty, educational and recreational facilities coupled with business advantages and ideal living conditions which make it a desirable place in which to live.”
The surveys showing Madison’s “supremacy,” echoed those brought up in the “Test Tube” piece a few years prior, but also included explicit comparisons on the racial makeup of Madison’s residents compared to other cities of similar sizes. Madison had more white people and far fewer Black people than other cities of similar sizes. Specifically, the article said that “Surveys of 38 non-metropolitan U.S. cities with populations between 50,000 and 100,000…showed that Madison was first in the number of income tax returns per capita, first in the median value of homes, first in per capita wealth, fifth in the percentage of native born white persons, 36th in the percentage of Negroes, and fourth in population density.” (italics added)
Smith’s pamphlet also called attention to Madison’s high consumption of gasoline, noting that the surveys found that “the per capita consumption of gasoline in Madison is 360 gallons per year as compared with 170 gallons per year in Racine, 150 gallons per year in Milwaukee, and 100 gallons per year in Kenosha.” With higher incomes than people in other cities, more Madisonians could afford to own cars and consume more gas.
Smith’s explanation of the city’s “financial stability and steady growth” centers on five factors: the University of Wisconsin (which he said had nearly tripled in size during the last 25 years), the state capitol, six class “A” hospitals, development of the city as a retail shopping center, and “the growth of industries in the city.”
Smith also gushed about the city’s public utilities, which he claimed provided excellent service at lower rates, as well as good police, fire, garbage, and sewage disposal services. He praised the city health department’s “excellent work,” along with the city’s parks and libraries.
Contradicting the hundreds of citizens protesting the polluted state of the lakes and the destruction of the fisheries by chemical treatments, the pamphlet described the “opportunities for skating, ice boating, fishing, swimming, sailing, motor boating, and canoeing…” in the lakes here. He included “a resort hotel on one of the lakes, catering to the summer tourist trade” as future development opportunities for the city. Further, he “declared that the fishing in Madison is just as good as in many northern lakes and other recreational facilities are generally as good if not better here.”
Madison’s east side workers did not enjoy a “generally higher standard of living”
Segoe’s and Smith’s glowing statistics illustrating the “generally higher standard of living” enjoyed by Madison inhabitants neglected the residents who did not enjoy high incomes and high home values. As Segoe’s report illustrated, most (if not all) of the people driving these statistics—doctors, lawyers, professionals–lived on the west side of the city. Those living on the east side of the city, largely working class people, including many recent immigrants and/or people of color, had a much lower standard of living than those on the west side. Most lived right next to stinky and polluting industries. These stark class, race, and quality of life differences were purposely created by the Madison Compromise.
As Oscar Mayer and other eastside industries thrived and profited in the 1920s and 1930s, city leaders were in denial about, or purposely ignoring, the negative consequences of its growing industries—especially the health and quality of life impacts on low income people and factory workers who didn’t have the power and political capital to fight the pollution or move away to less polluted neighborhoods.
A 1928 article in The Capital Times, “1927 Smiled on Madison,” (with the subtitle “55 million in City’s 15 Banks”) reflected this purposeful ignorance, with a large aerial photo of the Isthmus, inlay photos of some eastside factories, and this caption: “Madison is an example of the fact that the direction of the wind has a direct influence on the growth of a city. The north and south winds which usually prevail keep the smoke of the industrial section of the city away from the residential sections.” [iii]
Apparently, people living right next to these smoke-spewing industries, many of whom also worked at them, weren’t considered residents.
Oscar Mayer workers lived next to rubbish dumps, sewage plant, and piggery garbage farm
Even while proudly touting their quality workplace environment, and living far away from the factory themselves, Oscar Mayer leaders decided it was fine for their workers to live next to train tracks delivering screaming hogs to the factory, where they were held in stockyards until butchered (also creating noise and stench in the neighborhood). Oscar Mayer funded the construction of as many as 50 houses in the 1920s for its workers on former farmland east of the plant (now the Eken Park neighborhood). In 1927, this neighborhood was annexed by the City of Madison.[4]
While these workers were likely grateful to have jobs and homes nearby, the quality of their air at work and at home was increasingly degraded and unpleasant[iv], Oscar Mayer grew rapidly, and as more residential development occurred in the 1920s, the odors in the neighborhoods worsened.[5] Making matters worse, local industries and residents filled areas east of the plant, part of a large wetland area along Starkweather Creek with garbage. As early as 1920, newspapers reported “bog fires” there that burned for several days—which the fire department said were caused by “burning rubbish.”[v]
City locates garbage piggery next to Oscar Mayer and worker neighborhoods
Oscar Mayer was next to the new city sewage plant–another obnoxious, stinky neighbor for anyone living nearby. In 1921, the city also had entered into a ten-year a garbage contract with a veterinarian named Dr. West, president of the state board of veterinary examiners, who operated a pig farm just north of the sewage plant. At West’s “piggery,” hogs were fattened by eating city garbage—a common practice in growing U.S. cities in the 1800s and into the early 1900s.
The combination of animal slaughtering, sewage and hog odors eventually generated complaints from residents—especially the area’s more privileged residents. (Oscar Mayer workers probably wouldn’t dare complain, lest they lose their jobs). In 1923, a petition by Senator Robert M. La Follette and other residents of Maple Bluff about odors emanating from Oscar Mayer, the sewage plant and West’s piggery was referred to the city’s board of health.[vi] A few months later, however, the city council voted to continue the eight years remaining on West’s city contract to take city garbage and also to providing funding so he could hire state penitentiary parolees to “unwrap” the garbage.[vii], [6]
Controversies about the hog farm went on for years as the city, knowing it should move toward incineration but claiming to be unable to afford it, continued to defy state demands that it shut the farm down.In June 1927, state Governor Zimmerman personally toured the piggery and following this a top state official ordered reformatory parolees to be removed. In July that year, the State Board of Health declared Dr. West’s “so-called piggery garbage farm” a “public nuisance” and “menace to public health…a cause of discomfort and suffering of citizens of the state, especially of those residing in the vicinity of said piggery garbage farm.” He said this method of garbage disposal belonged to a “past age” and that the city should expand its incinerator to take care of its garbage.
After an all-day meeting, the Board issued a resolution demanding that the piggery be shut down and served notice to Dr. West and the city clerk. According to the story, city officials “saw the necessity of doing away with the present method of garbage disposal,” but said the city could not afford the costs to improve the incinerator at West’s farm to handle extra garbage it would need to handle without the pigs.[viii],[7]
In June 1927, Governor Zimmerman personally toured the piggery, and following this a top state official issued an order that reformatory parolees no longer do this work. The State Board of Health declared Dr. West’s “so-called piggery garbage farm” a “menace to public health…a cause of discomfort and suffering of citizens of the state, especially of those residing in the vicinity of said piggery garbage farm.” (Italics added) This method of garbage disposal, he said, belonged to a “past age” and the city should expand the incinerator already at the site to take care of its garbage.
After an all-day meeting, the Board issued a resolution demanding that the piggery be shut down and served notice to Dr. West. It wasn’t shut down. According to the Wisconsin State Journal, city officials “saw the necessity of doing away with the present method of garbage disposal,” but said the city could not afford the costs to improve the incinerator at West’s farm to handle extra garbage it would need to handle without the pigs.[ix]
West’s piggery was licensed by the city through the 1940s, when the U.S. Department of Defense took over the Burke plant to handle Truax Field military base wastes during World War II. It isn’t clear whether West’s piggery remained next to the Burke plant during and after the war, but the city continued to send garbage to another West piggery on his land near Cherokee Marsh (where Cherokee condominiums and golf course are today) through at least 1953.[x]
Slums develop around Oscar Mayer
By the 1930s, with the depression raging, some areas around the Oscar Mayer plant where its workers were living were deemed slums. A 1933 Capital Times article titled “Socialists Criticize Housing Conditions of Needy in City,” noted that areas of Madison that “are in special need of attention today” included “near the Oscar Mayer plant where there are several hundred families needing homes convenient to the plant but unable to afford homes of their own…” Slum districts, the article continued, follow “along the railroad rights-of-way for varying distances” and “have developed in many cases through no fault of the people living there. There is usually some undesirable factor such as railroad smoke which makes people who can afford higher rentals move elsewhere.”[xi], [8]In another article a couple years later, a social activist told the State Journal, “Madison has no business to permit the existence of slums that reflect on its citizenry.”[xii] (Reflecting Madison’s glaring class disparities, an article below this one discussed the need to create a breakwater on Lake Mendota for the yacht club.)
More workers’ homes built on garbage-filled marshes
In the 1930s, as places to dump the city’s refuse were diminishing, the city decided to fill in a 100-acre marshy area east of Oscar Mayer to build more housing for workers—and dump more city garbage. The homes built there, many of which still exist today, were tiny homes built with very inexpensive materials on very small lots.
A State Journal article that year titled “Headache to Civic Asset—Plan for Marsh Development” described how “a vast expanse of unsightly cattail marsh on Madison’s east side will be transformed into a civic asset.” Mayor Law termed the existing marsh “a ridiculous situation” that the city hoped to transform into “an area of working men’s homes and industrial sites.” “With the rapid growth of the Oscar Mayer Packing co., need for residential facilities is increasing…” The mayor also said, “the city is gradually filling in other low land areas and is in need of more close-in dumping grounds for rubbish to avoid the expense of long hauls.” Further, he said, developing this area would add to the city’s tax revenue.[xiii]
Workers at other east side factories also did not enjoy the “high standard of living” that professionals on the west side experienced. In 1939, the Madison Housing Authority did a survey of wards in the city. In wards between Ingersoll and Brearly Street and the Yahara River, where many industrial workers lived (they worked at Gisholt and other industries along the E. Washington corridor), except for areas right along Lake Monona and Mendota many houses and rental units were in poor condition.[9] According to the news story, the survey found that overcrowding or “semi-crowding” were problems in a significant number of the rental units because rental prices were too high. “In an industrial area such as the sixth ward where incomes are rarely this high, standards of living must be curtained to meet high rents,” the report concluded.[xiv]
What about my family?
My dad lived in a house in Madison’s 4th ward (downtown) built in 1881, well before the Madison Compromise was crafted. His grandfather Charles F. Slightam raised his family there, including my grandfather. When my grandfather Francis Slightam married my grandmother, Marjorie Brinkoff, they moved into the house with his parents and raised my dad and his three siblings there, along with two of his sisters (my father’s aunts). In other words, three generations of the family lived in the same house together.
My grandfather was a singer who performed with the now infamous lake advocate Alexius Baas, a very popular local singer; the two were featured together in local newspaper reviews of opera performances in the 1930s. My grandmother, a professional pianist, was also regularly featured in the paper, and my grandparents performed together on local radio. While my dad was growing up, my grandmother performed jazz piano and Hammond organ in Madison nightclubs (like the Esquire on Madison’s north side) and Hotel Lorraine on W. Washington. Eventually, as my grandmother was a more successful musician, my grandfather became her manager and the pair traveled around the Midwest performing at large hotels, leaving my dad and his siblings in Madison in the care of the two aunts living with them.
With struggling, traveling musicians as its main breadwinners, my dad’s family was far from wealthy, and the Depression was probably not an easy time for them. But with many family members living in the home, and several adults likely contributing to household needs, they got through it.
[1] From Segoe’s “report on Madison’s economic base, submitted to the trustees of the planning trust created by the Madison and Wisconsin foundation.”
[2] Though university professionals were among those opposed to inviting any industries to the city at the time the Madison Compromise was crafted, by the 1930s university research was seen as a partner to industrial development.
[3] This is the same year (1941) that the house I live in now was built on Madison’s north side. At that time, our neighborhood had covenants in property deeds that banned non-white people from buying or living in homes unless they were servants. Many Madison neighborhoods adopted such covenants. The “racial covenants” in our neighborhood said “only members of the Caucasian race shall use or occupy any dwellings, excepting that this shall not prevent the occupancy by domestic servants of a different race employed by an owner or a tenant”. The Supreme Court ruled the covenants unenforceable in 1948 and the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act outlawed them, many are still embedded in historical deed contracts. See more here.
[4] More homes were constructed there after World War II for returning veterans who were employed by Oscar Mayer and other companies on Madison’s east side.
[5] Oscar Mayer “modified its rendering process for lard and other greases to reduce undesirable smells.” (Winterhalter, 28 Great Strides in 1924 Made By Mayer Co.,” The Capital Times, December 31, 1924).
[6] Within the next few years, Dr. West constructed a facility to produce “hog cholera serum” but it burned down in 1927 before any serum was produced (1927.2.10)
[7] Dr. West later bought the Ford mansion on Spaight Street.
[8] Echoing arguments made to this day, these “socialists” called for a “unified” approach to developing affordable housing in Madison. “Apartment buildings put up in Madison have been built so that they would be convenient to the university or to the capitol—the two locations which offer the prospect of tenants able to pay high rentals. None have been built in a location or at a cost such that they can be rented to workers at a reasonable rental.” Ironically—also echoing public discussions currently—those advocating for public housing near factories in the 1930s seemed oblivious to the fact that this puts low income people in the most polluted places. This is far more excusable in the 1930s, when there was much less knowledge of the pollutants emitted from these factories and their health effects—as compared to now, when there are thousands of scientific papers on these exposures and health effects.
[9] Since these industries closed many decades ago, this area slowly became gentrified. While many properties in the area are still rentals, values of the homes are high, as are rents.
[i] 1939.9.24 WSJ
[ii] 1941.8.17 CT
[iii] 1928.1.1. CT
[iv] Mollenhoff, 256
[v] 1920.10.9
[vi] 1923.8.25 WSJ
[vii] 1923.12.19 WSJ
[viii] 1927.7.15 CT
[ix] 1927.7.9. WSJ
[x] 2007.4.22. CT
[xi] 1933.7.9, CT
[xii] 1935.4.5 WSJ—
[xiii] 1939.3.26 WSJ
[xiv] 1939.9.10 WSJ
© 2023 Maria C. Powell. All rights reserved.