Madison is the capital
of the U.S. state of
Wisconsin
and the county seat of
Dane
County
. It is also home to the University of
Wisconsin–Madison
.
As of the 2000 census, Madison had a population of 208,054.
Its 2008
estimated population was 231,916, making it the second largest city
in Wisconsin, after Milwaukee
, and the 81st largest in
the United States. The city forms the core of the United States Census Bureau's
Madison Metropolitan
Statistical Area, which includes all of Dane County and
neighboring Iowa
and Columbia
counties. The Madison
MSA had a 2008 estimated
population of 561,505, and is one of the fastest-growing in
Wisconsin.
History
View of Madison.
From the Water Cure, South Side of Lake Monona, 1855.
Madison was created in 1836 when former federal judge
James Duane Doty purchased over a thousand
acres (4 km²) of swamp and forest land on the isthmus between
Lakes Mendota and Monona within the
Four Lakes region,
with the intention of building a city on the site.
The Wisconsin Territory had been created
earlier that year and the territorial legislature had convened in
Belmont,
Wisconsin
. One of the legislature's tasks was to
choose a permanent location for the territory's capital. Doty
lobbied aggressively for the legislature to select Madison as the
new capital, offering buffalo robes to the freezing legislators and
promising choice Madison lots at discount prices to undecided
voters . He had
James Slaughter
plat two cities in the area, Madison and "The
City of Four Lakes," near present-day Middleton. Doty named the
city Madison for James Madison, the 4th President of the U.S. who
had died on June 28, 1836 and he named the streets for the other
signers of the U.S. Constitution.
Despite the fact that Madison was still
only a city on paper, the territorial legislature voted on November 28 in favor of Madison as its capital,
largely because of its location halfway between the new and growing
cities around Milwaukee
in the east and the long established strategic post
of Prairie du
Chien
in the west, and because of its location between
the highly populated lead mining regions in the
southwest and Wisconsin's oldest city, Green
Bay
in the northeast. Being named for the
much-admired
founding father
James Madison, who had just died, and
having streets named for each of the
39 signers of the
Constitution, may have also
helped attract votes.
The cornerstone for the Wisconsin capitol was laid in 1837, and the
legislature first met there in 1838. Madison was incorporated as a
village in 1846, with a population of 626.
When Wisconsin became
a state in 1848, Madison remained the capital, and the following
year it became host to the University of
Wisconsin–Madison. The
Milwaukee
& Mississippi Railroad (a predecessor of what would become
known as the
Milwaukee
Road) connected to Madison in 1854.
Madison became a city
in 1856, with a population of 6,863, leaving the unincorporated
remainder as a separate Town of Madison
. The original capitol was replaced in 1863.
The second capitol burned in 1904, and the current capitol was
built between 1906 and 1917.
During the
American Civil War,
Madison served as a center of the
Union
Army in Wisconsin. The intersection of Milwaukee, East
Washington, Winnebago, and North Streets is known as Union Corners,
as a tavern located there was the last stop for Union soldiers
before heading to fight the Confederates. Camp Randall, on the west
side of Madison, was built and used as a training camp, a military
hospital, and a prison camp for captured
Confederate soldiers.
After the
war ended, the Camp Randall site was absorbed into the University
of Wisconsin—Camp
Randall Stadium
was built over the site in 1917. In 2004 the
last vestige of active military training on the site was removed
when the stadium renovation replaced a firing range used for ROTC
training.
The City of Madison continued annexations from the Town almost from
the date of the City's incorporation, leaving the latter (by the
end of the 20th century) a collection of discontinuous areas
subject to annexation.
In the wake of continued controversy and an
effort in the state legislature to simply abolish the Town, an
agreement was reached in 2003 to provide for the incorporation of
the remaining portions of the Town into the City of Madison and the
City of
Fitchburg
by October 30, 2022.
Geography and climate
View of Lake Monona from Monona
Terrace
Madison
is located in the center of Dane County in south-central Wisconsin,
west of Milwaukee and northwest of Chicago
. The city completely surrounds the smaller
Town of
Madison and the City of Monona
, as well as the villages of Maple
Bluff
and Shorewood Hills
. Madison shares borders with its largest
suburb, Sun
Prairie
, and three other communities, Middleton
, McFarland
, and Fitchburg. The city's boundaries also approach the
villages of Verona
, Cottage Grove, DeForest, and Waunakee
.
According to the
United
States Census Bureau, Madison has a total area of
84.7 square miles (219.3 km²), of which, 68.7 square
miles (177.9 km²) of it is land and 16.0 square miles
(41.5 km²) of it (18.91%) is water.
Wisconsin State Capitol by night
The city
is sometimes described as The City of Four Lakes,
comprising the four successive lakes of the Yahara River: Lake Mendota
("Fourth Lake"), Lake Monona
("Third Lake"), Lake Waubesa
("Second Lake") and Lake Kegonsa
("First Lake"), although Waubesa and Kegonsa are
not actually in Madison, but rather just south of it.
A fifth
smaller lake, Lake
Wingra
, is within the city as well, but not on the Yahara
River chain. The Yahara flows into the
Rock River, which in turn, flows into
the
Mississippi River.
Downtown
Madison is located on an isthmus
between Lakes Mendota and Monona. The city's
trademark of "Lake, City, Lake" reflects this geography.
Madison, and all of southern Wisconsin, has a
temperate climate, or more specifically, a
humid continental climate
(
Köppen: Dfb),
characterized by variable weather patterns and a large seasonal
temperature variance—winters see temperatures well below freezing,
with moderate to occasionally very heavy snowfall; high
temperatures in summer often reach the upper 80s to 90s
°F (26 to 32
°C) and very
high humidity levels are not uncommon.
| Monthly average and record
temperatures and precipitation |
|
Month |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| Record
high °F (°C) |
56 (13.3) |
64 (17.7) |
82 (27.7) |
94 (34.4) |
93 (33.8) |
101 (38.3) |
104 (40) |
102 (38.8) |
99 (37.2) |
90 (32.2) |
76 (24.4) |
64 (17.7) |
|
Average high °F (°C) |
25.2 (-3.7) |
30.8 (-0.6) |
42.8 (6) |
56.6 (13.6) |
69.4 (20.7) |
78.3 (25.7) |
82.1 (27.8) |
79.4 (26.3) |
71.4 (21.8) |
59.6 (15.3) |
43.3 (6.3) |
30.2 (-1) |
|
Average low °F (°C) |
9.3 (-12.6) |
14.3 (-9.8) |
24.6 (-4.1) |
35.2 (1.7) |
46 (7.7) |
55.7 (13.2) |
61 (16.1) |
58.7 (14.8) |
49.9 (9.9) |
38.9 (3.8) |
27.7 (-2.4) |
15.8 (-9) |
| Record
low °F (°C) |
-37 (-38.3) |
-29 (-33.8) |
-29 (-33.8) |
0 (-17.7) |
19 (-7.2) |
31 (-0.5) |
36 (2.2) |
35 (1.6) |
25 (-3.8) |
13 (-10.5) |
-11 (-23.8) |
-25 (-31.6) |
|
Precipitation in (mm) |
1.25 (31.75) |
1.28 (32.5) |
2.28 (57.9) |
3.35 (85.1) |
3.25 (82.5) |
4.05 (102.9) |
3.93 (99.8) |
4.33 (110) |
3.08 (78.2) |
2.18 (55.4) |
2.31 (58.7) |
1.66 (42.2) |
|
Snowfall in (cm) |
10.9 (27.7) |
7.9 (20.1) |
8.1 (20.6) |
2.5 (6.4) |
0.1 (0.3) |
T |
T |
T |
T |
0.3 (0.8) |
3.6 (9.1) |
10.6 (26.9) |
|
Source: Weather By Day |
Demographics
| Madison and Wisconsin demographics |
| Wisconsin |
Madison |
Ethnicity |
| 91% |
83.96% |
White |
| 6.48% |
5.84% |
Black |
| 2.21% |
5.80% |
Asian |
| 1.3% |
0.36% |
Native
American |
| 0.09% |
0.04% |
Pacific
Islander |
| N/A |
4.09% |
Hispanic |
| N/A |
2.32% |
Two or more races |
| N/A |
1.67% |
Other race |
| Note: Hispanics may
be of any race. |
As of the
census of 2000, there were 208,054
people, 89,019 households, and 42,462 families residing in the
city. The
population density was
3,029.7 people per square mile (1,169.8/km²). There were 92,394
housing units at an average density of 1,345.4/sq mi
(519.5/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 83.96%
White, 5.84%
African American, 0.36%
Native American, 5.80%
Asian, 0.04%
Pacific Islander, 1.67% from
other races, and 2.32%
from two or more races. 4.09% of the population were
Hispanic or
Latino of any race.
There were 89,019 households out of which 22.1% had children under
the age of 18 living with them, 37.0% were
married couples living together, 7.8% had a female
householder with no husband present, and 52.3% were non-families.
35.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.1% had
someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The
average household size was 2.19 and the average family size was
2.87.
In the city the population was spread out with 17.9% under the age
of 18, 21.4% from 18 to 24, 32.2% from 25 to 44, 19.3% from 45 to
64, and 9.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age
was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 96.6 males. For
every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.0 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $41,941, and the
median income for a family was $59,840. Males had a median income
of $36,718 versus $30,551 for females. The
per capita income for the city was
$23,498. About 5.8% of families and 15.0% of the population were
below the
poverty line, including 11.4%
of those under age 18 and 4.5% of those age 65 or over.
Combined Statistical Area
[[Image:Madison-Baraboo CSA.png|thumb|left|200px|Location of the
Madison-Baraboo CSA and its components:]]
Madison
is the larger principal city of the Madison-Baraboo CSA, a Combined Statistical Area that
includes the Madison metropolitan area (Columbia, Dane, and Iowa
counties) and the Baraboo micropolitan area
(Sauk County), which had a combined population of 556,999 at the
2000 census.
Politics
Madison is associated with
"Fighting Bob" La Follette and
the
Progressive
movement. La Follette's Magazine,
The Progressive, founded in 1909, is
still published in Madison. City voting patterns have supported the
Democratic Party in
national elections in the last half-century, and a liberal and
progressive majority is generally elected to the city council.
Detractors refer to Madison as
The People's Republic
of Madison, the "Left Coast of Wisconsin," or as "78 square
miles surrounded by reality," although Wisconsin itself generally
trends liberal in elections. This latter phrase was coined by
former Wisconsin Republican governor
Lee
S. Dreyfus while campaigning in
1978, as recounted by campaign aide Bill Kraus.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Madison
counterculture was centered in the
neighborhood of Mifflin and Bassett streets, referred to as
Miffland. The area contained many three-story apartments
where students and counterculture youth lived, painted murals, and
operated the co-operative grocery store, the Mifflin Street Co-op.
The
neighborhood often came into conflict with authorities,
particularly then Republican mayor Bill
Dyke, a one-time personality on WISC-TV
who was later to run for vice president with
segregationist Lester Maddox.
Dyke was viewed by students as a direct antagonist in efforts to
protest the
Vietnam War, because of his
efforts to suppress local protests that had resulted in property
damage. The annual
Mifflin
Street Block Party became a focal point for protest, although
by the late 1970s it had become a mainstream community party.
Madison is also home to the
Freedom from Religion
Foundation, which attempts to influence government in matters
relating to the separation of church and state. The foundation is
known for its lawsuits against religious displays on public
property, among other things. In recent years, they have made
removal of
In God We Trust from
American
currency a main focus.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, thousands of students and
other citizens took part in
anti-Vietnam
War marches and demonstrations, with more violent incidents
drawing national attention to the city and UW campus. These
include:
- the 1967 student protest of Dow
Chemical Company, with 74 injured;
- the 1969 strike to secure greater representation and rights for
African American students and faculty, which necessitated the
involvement of the Wisconsin Army National Guard;
- the 1970 fire that caused damage to the Army ROTC headquarters housed in
the Old Red Gym, also known as the Armory; and
- the 1970 late summer predawn ANFO bombing
of Sterling Hall which housed the Army Mathematics Research Center,
killing a postdoctoral student, Robert Fassnacht. Four bombers in
the "New Year's Gang" were linked to the bombing, one of whom
remains at large. (see Sterling Hall bombing)
These protests were the subject of the documentary
The War at Home Tom
Bates also wrote the book
Rads on the subject (ISBN
0-06-092428-4). Bates wrote that Dyke's attempt to suppress the
annual Mifflin Street block party "would take three days, require
hundreds of officers on overtime pay, and engulf the student
community from the nearby Southeast Dorms to Langdon Street's
fraternity row.
Tear gas hung like heavy
fog across the Isthmus." In the fracas, student activist
Paul Soglin, then a city
alderman, was arrested and taken to
jail. Soglin was later elected mayor of Madison,
serving from 1973 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1997, in his latter term
aligning himself as a moderate in the regional Democratic Party.
David Maraniss also wrote a book,
They Marched into
Sunlight, which incorporated the 1967 Dow protests into a
larger
Vietnam War narrative.
Madison city politics remain dominated by activists of liberal and
progressive ideologies. In 1992, a local third party
Progressive Dane was founded. Recently
enacted city policies supported in the Progressive Dane platform
have included an inclusionary zoning ordinance and a city minimum
wage. The party holds multiple seats on the Madison City Council
and Dane County Board of Supervisors, and is aligned variously with
the Democratic and Green parties.
The city's voters are also, as a whole, much more politically
liberal than voters in the rest of Wisconsin. For example, 76% of
Madison voters voted against a 2006 state
constitutional amendment to ban
gay marriage, even though the ban passed statewide with 59% of
the vote.
Mayor
Dave Cieslewicz is a member of
the
Mayors Against
Illegal Guns Coalition, a
bi-partisan group with a stated goal of "making
the public safer by getting illegal guns off the streets."
Religion
Madison is the
episcopal see for the
Roman Catholic Diocese
of Madison.
Saint Raphael's Cathedral
, damaged by arson in 2005 and demolished in 2008,
was the mother church of the diocese.
The
world's largest congregation of Unitarian Universalists, First
Unitarian Society of Madison
, makes its home in the historic Unitarian Meeting
House, designed by one of its members, Frank Lloyd Wright.
Madison also has a
Buddhist temple, a
Hindu mandir, three
mosques, and several
synagogues.
Economy
Wisconsin
state government and the University
of Wisconsin–Madison remain the top two Madison employers.
However, Madison's economy today is evolving from a
government-based economy to a consumer services and high-tech base,
particularly in the health, biotech and advertising sectors.
Beginning in the early 1990s, the city experienced a steady
economic boom and has been comparatively unaffected by recession.
Much of the expansion has occurred on the city's south and west
sides, but it has also affected the east side near the Interstate
39-90-94 interchange and along the northern shore of Lake Mendota.
Underpinning the boom is the development of high-tech companies,
many actively fostered by the UW–Madison working with local
businesses and entrepreneurs to transfer the results of academic
research into real-world applications, most notably bio-tech
applications.
Many businesses are attracted to Madison's skill base, taking
advantage of the area's high level of education. According to
city-data.com, 48.2% of Madison's population over the age of 25
holds at least a bachelor's degree.
Forbes magazine reported in 2004 that Madison
has the highest percentage of individuals holding Ph.D.s in the
United States. In 2005,
Forbes listed the city as having
the lowest unemployment in the nation: 2.5%, less than half the
U.S. 2004 average. In 2006, the same magazine listed Madison as
number 31 in the top 200 metro areas for "Best Places for
Business and Careers." However,
Forbes has named Madison
in the top ten several times within the past decade.
Business
The
largest employer in Madison is the Wisconsin state government, not
including the University of
Wisconsin–Madison (although UW, University System and UW
Hospital & Clinics employees are considered state
employees).
The University of Wisconsin Hospital & Clinics is an important
regional teaching hospital and regional trauma center, with notable
strengths in transplant medicine, oncology, digestive disorders,
and endocrinology. Other Madison hospitals include
St. Mary's Hospital,
Meriter Hospital and the
VA Medical Center.
Madison is also home to companies such as the North American
division of
Spectrum Brands
(formerly
Rayovac),
Alliant Energy,
American Family Insurance, the
Credit Union National
Association,
CUNA Mutual
Group,
University of Wisconsin
Credit Union, and
FSBO Madison.
Technology companies in the area include
Netconcepts,
Telephone and Data Systems,
TomoTherapy,
Broadjam,
Sonic
Foundry,
Raven Software,
Human Head Studios,
Renaissance Learning,
Epic Systems Corporation,
Berbee Information Networks, and
Wisconsin Realtors
Association.
Many biotech firms exist here as well,
including PanVera, now part of Invitrogen, Promega, and the Iceland
-based Nimblegen.
Oscar Mayer has been a Madison fixture
for decades, and was a family business for many years before being
sold to
Kraft Foods. The pizza chains
Rocky Rococo, Pizza Pit, and the
Glass Nickel Pizza
Company originated in Madison.
Education
According to
Forbes magazine,
Madison ranks second in the nation of top places in overall
education.
It is home to the University
of Wisconsin–Madison, as well as Edgewood
College, Madison Area
Technical College (aka Madison College), Globe University, Upper Iowa
University
and Madison
Media Institute, giving the city a student population of nearly
50,000. The University of Wisconsin contributes the vast
majority of these, with roughly 41,000 students enrolled, of which
30,750 are undergraduates. This makes it one of the largest public
universities in the United States. It is consistently rated among
the top public post-secondary schools in the country. In a
Forbes magazine city ranking from 2003, Madison had the
highest number of Ph.D.s per capita, and third highest college
graduates per capita, among ranked cities in the United States.
Sports make up a large part of the campus experience at the
university, both intramural and intercollegiate. The University's
athletic teams, nicknamed "The Badgers", are consistently among the
best in United States, drawing throngs of students, alumni, and
state residents to their contests.
Additional degree programs are available
through satellite campuses of Lakeland College, Upper Iowa
University the University of
Phoenix, Concordia
University-Wisconsin, and Cardinal Stritch University for
students who maintain full-time employment.
The
Madison
Metropolitan School District serves the city and surrounding
area. With an enrollment of approximately 25,000 students in 46
schools, it is the second largest school district in Wisconsin
behind the
Milwaukee School
District. Madison has more than six times the National Merit
Scholar Semifinalists than comparable school districts. The five
public high schools are:
James Madison Memorial,
Madison West,
Madison East,
Madison LaFollette, and
Malcolm Shabazz City
High School, an alternative school.Notable public elementary
schools include Aldo Leopold Elementary and
Randall Elementary, the first school
built in Madison over 100 years ago.
The most notable of
the private schools is Edgewood High School
, located on the Edgewood College campus and EAGLE School
and Wingra School which encompass
students in grades Kindergarten through 8th. St. Ambrose
Academy
is a Catholic school offering grades 6-12 on the
west side.
With the State-imposed property tax caps, the Madison School
District has found itself struggling as of late. In trying to find
new methods of funding and support, the School District has tried
to estimate the opinions of the public by holding public sessions
on their budget. Madison also has an especially strong non-credit
learning community with multiple programs and many private
businesses also offering classes. Examples include Wisconsin Union
Mini Courses, Madison School Community Recreation, St. Mary's
HealthWorks, and the University of Wisconsin's Continuing Education
program.
Transportation
Madison
is served by the Dane County Regional Airport
, which serves more than 100 commercial flights on
an average day, and nearly 1.6 million passengers
annually. Madison Metro
operates bus routes throughout the city and to some surrounding
towns. Madison has three taxicab companies, as well as several
companies that provide specialized transit for individuals with
disabilities.
Most major General Aviation operations take place at
Morey
Field
in Middleton
15 miles away from the city center.
A commuter
light rail system has been
proposed, particularly for a corridor passing through the isthmus
and alongside the university campus, but has remained on paper for
decades.
A high-speed
rail route from Chicago through Milwaukee and Madison to Minneapolis/St. Paul,
Minnesota
, has also been proposed as part of the Midwest Regional Rail
Initiative. The nearest passenger train station is in
Columbus,
Wisconsin
, from which the eastbound Empire Builder provides
daily service to Milwaukee and Chicago, while the westbound Empire
Builder provides daily service to the west. Regional buses
connect Madison to Milwaukee, Janesville
, Beloit
, La Crosse
, and in Illinois, Rockford
, O'Hare Airport
, and Chicago. Service is also available to St. Paul,
Minnesota
.
Railroad freight services are provided in Madison by
Wisconsin and Southern
Railroad (WSOR) and
Canadian Pacific Railway (CP).
Wisconsin & Southern has been operating since 1980, having
taken over trackage owned since the 19th century by the
Chicago and North Western
and the
Milwaukee
Road.
Some of the proposed light rail and commuter
routes would use existing WSOR rights-of-way, such as the line
between the Kohl
Center
and Middleton. Limited commuter trains were tested along
this line in the early 2000s as "football specials". The trains
took passengers from the Middleton depot to Camp Randall Stadium to
help alleviate parking issues on game days.
A number of bus lines connect Madison to nearby cities.
Badger Bus connects Madison to Milwaukee running
multiple buses a day.
Greyhound
Lines, a nationwide bus company, has a local stop and offers
routes through most of the country.
Van Galder Bus Company, a subsidiary
of
Coach USA, provides transportation
through Rockford to Chicago - Downtown at the Amtrak station,
O'Hare Airport and Midway Airport.
Jefferson Lines provides transportation to
the Twin Cities.
First Student offers
charter bus rental services to groups in the Madison and Milwaukee
area.
I-39, I-90, and I-94 expressways intersect at Madison, connecting the
city to Milwaukee; Chicago; Rockford, Illinois; Minneapolis-St. Paul
and Wausau
. U.S.
Routes US-12, US-14, US-18, US-51 and US-151 connect the
city with Dubuque,
Iowa
, the Wisconsin cities of La Crosse
and Janesville, and Lake Michigan
. The
Beltline
is a six-to-eight
lane freeway on the south and west sides of Madison and
is the main link from downtown to the southeast and western
suburbs. A
carsharing service is offered by
U-Haul subsidiary
U Car
Share.
Media
Madison is home to an extensive and varied number of print
publications for a city that reflect the city's role as the state
capital and diverse political, cultural and academic population.
The
Wisconsin State
Journal (weekday circulation: ~95,000; Sundays: ~155,000)
is published in the mornings, while its sister publication,
The Capital Times
(Thursday supplement to the Journal) is published online daily.
Though conjoined in a joint-operating agreement operated under the
name
Capital Newspapers, the
Journal is owned by the national chain
Lee Enterprises, while the
Times is
independently owned.
Wisconsin State Journal is the
descendant of the
Wisconsin Express, a paper founded in
the Wisconsin Territory in 1839.
The Capital Times was
founded in 1917 by William T. Evjue, a business manager for the
State Journal who disagreed with that paper's editorial
criticisms of Wisconsin Republican Senator
Robert M. La Follette, Sr. for his
opposition to U.S. entry into
World War
I. Through Capital Newspapers, Lee also owns many other papers
in southwest Wisconsin and northeast Iowa.
The city is also home to the free weekly alternative newspaper
Isthmus (weekly
circulation: ~65,000), which was founded in 1976.
The Onion, a satirical weekly, was also
founded in Madison in 1988. Two student newspapers are published
during the academic year,
The
Daily Cardinal (Mon-Fri circulation: ~10,000) and
The Badger Herald
(Mon-Fri circulation: ~16,000). The
Herald began during
the tumultuous Vietnam War era as a conservative alternative to the
liberal
Cardinal. Madison is also home to numerous other
specialty print publications focusing on local music, politics, and
sports, including
The Madison
Times,
Wisconsin
Sports Weekly The
Mendota Beacon,
The
Madison Observer,
Madison
Magazine and
The Simpson Street Free
Press. There is also a strong community of local blogs
including Althouse, Dane101, and,
The Critical Badger.
Madison is also home to
The
Progressive, a left-wing periodical that may be best known
for the attempt of the US government in 1979 to suppress one of the
Progressive's articles before publication. However, the magazine
eventually prevailed in the landmark First Amendment case,
United States v.
The Progressive,
Inc. During the 1970s, there were two "radical" weeklies
published in Madison, known as
TakeOver and
Free for
All.
Madison hosts a vibrant local radio community, with two
volunteer-operated and community-oriented radio stations,
WORT and
WSUM.
WORT Community Radio was founded by
progressive Madisonians in 1975 and is one of the oldest
volunteer-powered radio stations in the United States. WORT 89.9 FM
is a listener-sponsored community radio station, broadcasting from
118 S. Bedford Street in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.WORT offers a host
of diverse music and talk programming made possible by donors and
volunteers.
WORT broadcasts a mix of music and talk programming. All of WORT's
music programs are locally produced by local DJs. WORT airs
34 hours of news and public affairs programming, 23 of which
are locally produced. All of the programmers at the station are
volunteers from the community, including DJs, hosts, producers,
reporters, and engineers.
WSUM 91.7 FM is a
student radio station whose programming and
operation are carried out almost entirely by students.
Madison's
Wisconsin Public
Radio station,
WHA, was one of the very
first radio stations in the nation to begin broadcasting, and
remains the longest continuously broadcasting station in the
country.
Widely heard public radio programs that originate in Madison
include
Michael
Feldman's Whad'Ya Know?' To the Best of Our
Knowledge, and
Calling All
Pets.
WXJ-87 is Madison's weather station.
Madison is the setting for the comic strip: Bear With Me.
See also:
Air America's Madison affiliate The Mic 92.1 FM,
WXXM announced on
November
10,
2006 it would switch to all sports
programming by the end of the year; a spokesperson for Clear
Channel in Madison later announced that the station would remain an
Air America affiliate after a massive public outcry against the
proposed change in format. The public protest included thousands
sending petitions, emails, and letters, and a public protest of 500
people along with elected officials Madison's Mayor Dave Cieslewicz
and U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison. Promising improved support
and advertising sales, a local investment group plans to make Air
America and The Mic more successful. Valerie Walasek, an organizer
of the protests stated, "It's evidence that as people stand up and
demand what they want and demand they are going to take back the
airwaves, somebody will listen." The station features the Air
America lineup and local programs with Matthew Rothchild's
Progressive Radio and
Free Thought Radio from
the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Culture
In 1996
Money magazine
identified Madison as the best place to live in the United States.
It has consistently ranked near the top of the best-places list in
subsequent years, with the city's low unemployment rate a major
contributor.
The main
downtown thoroughfare is State Street
, which links the University of Wisconsin campus
with the State Capitol Square, and is lined with restaurants,
espresso cafes, and shops. Only pedestrians, buses,
emergency vehicles, delivery vehicles and bikes are allowed on
State Street.
Continuing on the other side of Capitol Square is King Street,
which is now developing along the lines that State Street has, but
with less of a student character, and more appeal to the growing
young white-collar high-tech population in Madison. Thus, King
Street has more upper-end restaurants and cafes than are found on
the more student-budget State Street.
In the summer, on Saturday mornings, the
Dane County Farmers' Market is
held around the Capitol Square, while on Wednesday evenings, the
Wisconsin Chamber
Orchestra performs free concerts on the Capitol's lawn. The
Great Taste of the Midwest craft beer festival, established in 1987
and the second longest running such event in North America, is the
second Saturday in August and the highly coveted tickets sell out
within an hour of going on sale in May.
Madison is host to
Rhythm and
Booms, a massive fireworks celebration (coordinated to music)
that begins with a fly-over by several
F-16s
from the local
Wisconsin
Air National Guard. This celebration is the largest fireworks
display in the Midwest in terms of the length of the show, number
of shells fired and the size of its annual budget.
the winter months, sports enthusiasts enjoy ice-boating,
ice-skating,
ice
fishing,
cross country
skiing, playing
ice hockey and
snowkiting. During the rest of the year,
recreation includes sailing on the local lakes, bicycling, and
hiking.
In 2004 Madison was named the healthiest city in America by
Men's Journal magazine. Many
major streets in Madison have designated bike lanes and the city
has one of the most extensive bike trail systems in the nation. Due
to this, Madison has a very active cyclist culture and it is
commonplace to see groups of friends bicycling together throughout
the city on nice days. Bicycle tourism is an $800 million
industry in Wisconsin, which has 20 percent of the nation's
bicycling industry manufacturing capacity.
There are quite a few cooperative organizations in the Madison
area, ranging from grocery stores (such as the
Willy Street Cooperative) to
housing co-ops (such as
Madison Community Cooperative
and
Nottingham Housing
Cooperative) to engineering firms and cab companies. In
addition, there are a number of credit unions.
In 2005, Madison was included in Gregory A. Kompes' book,
50
Fabulous Gay-Friendly Places to Live. The Madison Metro area
is also credited as the most liberal in the state, and has a higher
percentage of gay couples than any other city in the area outside
of Chicago and Minneapolis. The city was also named the number one
college sports town by
Sports
Illustrated in 2003.
Madison
has also gotten publicity in conjunction with the University
of Wisconsin–Madison and its consistent ranking as one of the top "party
schools." Among the city's various neighborhood fairs and
celebrations are two large student-driven gatherings, the
Mifflin Street Block Party and
the
State Street Halloween
Party. Rioting and vandalism at the State Street gathering in
2004 and 2005 led the city to institute a cover charge for the 2006
celebration.
[9198] In an attempt to give the event more
structure (and to eliminate opportunity for vandalism), the city
and student organizations worked together to schedule performances
by bands, and to organize activities. The event has been named
"Freakfest On State Street." Events such as these have helped
contribute to the city's nickname of "Madtown."
Madison has a thriving population of insects and, in a study
completed in 2008, was discovered to have the highest density of
arachnids in the entire US.
In 2009, the Madison Common Council voted to name the plastic pink
flamingo as the official city bird.
Music
Madison's vibrant music scene covers a wide spectrum of living
musical culture.
Several venues offer live music every night of the week, spreading
from the historic Barrymore Theatre on the eastside to the Annex on
the west side. Several small coffee houses and wine bars offer live
music every night in all formats. Closer to downtown, the
High Noon Saloon is developing a national
reputation for developing and breaking indie rock and local acts.
The biggest headliners generally perform at the 1,800 capacity
Orpheum Theatre or at the UW Theatre on campus.
The city's live music scene received a considerable bump with the
purchase and renovation of the historic Majestic Theatre, located
off Capitol Square on King Street. The theatre, built in 1906, thus
making it the oldest in Madison had previous incarnations as a
movie theatre and burlesque house. Until its reopening, it was
being run as a hip hop dance club until violence forced the city to
revoke its liquor license. The Majestic reopened on
September 29,
2007 and in
its first six months has hosted various acts such as Against Me!,
Cowboy Junkies, Galactic, Editors, Leon Russell, and the Bill
Frisell Trio. The venue also shows movies in its Brew n' View
series.
The
Madison Opera presents a full
season of offerings providing at least two full productions and the
incredibly popular
Opera in the Park (which reached over
10,000 music lovers in the summer of 2005). In addition, the
nationally recognized company produces recitals and its late series
Opera Up Close.
The
Madison Scouts
Drum and Bugle Corps has provided youth aged 16–22
opportunities to perform across North America every summer since
1938. The corps is hailed worldwide for its energetic and
entertaining shows.
Further, the UW–Madison
Marching Band is one of the most popular marching
bands in the nation, with an extensive and eclectic
repertoire.
Popular bands and musicians
Garbage is the city's most recognized
contemporary contribution to popular music.
The multi-million
album selling alternative-rock band has been based out of Madison
since formation in 1994 by producer-musician Butch Vig of Viroqua
. Vig is well-known for producing albums for
such highly regarded bands as
Bongzilla,
The Smashing Pumpkins,
Nirvana and
Fall Out Boy.
Madison
has a lively independent rock scene, and local independent record labels include
Crustacean Records, and Art Paul
Schlosser Inc which is the label for Art Paul Schlosser who has been on the
WGN-TV
news in
Chicago and has had his songs played on the Dr Demento radio show. Another Dr. Demento
and weekly live karaoke favorite is The Gomers, who have a Madison Mayoral
Proclamation named after them and have performed with fellow
Wisconsin residents Les Paul and
Steve Miller
Madison is also home to
Clyde
Stubblefield of
Funky Drummer
fame, and musicians
Roscoe Mitchell,
Richard Davis,
Ben Sidran,
Reptile Palace Orchestra,
Killdozer,
metalcore band
Misery Signals and
Harmonious Wail.
In 2008,
The Go-Go's rhythm guitarist
Jane Wiedlin moved to the Madison
suburb of Maple Bluff to live with Travis Kasperbauer. She has been
performing in several local bands since moving to the area.
Music festivals
The summer months reveal the city's many excellent
music festivals, most notably
Forward Music Festival, the
Waterfront Festival, the Willy St. Fair, Atwood Summerfest, Madison
Area Music Awards Show, Isthmus Jazz Festival, The Orton Park
Festival, 94.1 WJJO's Band Camp, Greekfest, Madison Pop Festival,
the WORT Block Party and the
Sugar Maple Traditional Music Festival, with
more being added all the time. One of the latest additions is the
Fête de Marquette, taking place near or on Bastille Day (7/14), at
Central Park. This new festival celebrates French music, with a
focus on Cajun influences. Madison also hosts an annual
electronic music festival,
Reverence and Folkball, a
world music and
Folk dance festival held annually in
January.
After years of debate over Madison being able to sustain a
city-wide music festival the
Forward Music Festival was launched
over the weekend of September 18 and 19, 2008. It was founded by
Jesse Russell,
Kyle Pfister,
Wyndham Manning,
Jamie Hanson, and
Bessie Cherry. The inaugural year hosted 78
bands at eight venues and included such artists as
Neko Case,
Dan Deacon,
Monotonix, and
Killdozer. The festival is expanding to 108 bands
in 2009 with
Andrew Bird scheduled as
headliner.
Art
Museums
include the UW–Madison's Chazen Museum of Art
(formerly the Elvehjem Museum), the Wisconsin Historical Museum (run
by the Wisconsin Historical
Society), the Wisconsin Veterans Museum
, the Madison Children's Museum, and the
Madison Museum of
Contemporary Art. Madison is also the home of many
independent art studios and galleries. It hosts the annual
Art Fair on the Square, a juried
exhibition, and the complementary
Art Fair Off the Square.
Performing arts
The
Madison Opera, the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the
Madison Repertory Theatre,
the Wisconsin Chamber
Orchestra, the Madison Ballet,
and the Children's Theater of Madison are some the professional
resident companies of the Overture Center for the Arts
. The city is also home to a number of
smaller performing arts organizations, including a group of theater
companies that present in the
Bartell
Theatre, a former movie palace that was renovated into live
theater spaces, and
Opera for the
Young, an opera company that performs for elementary school
students across the Midwest. The Wisconsin Union Theater (a 1300
seat theater) is home to many seasonal attractions and is the main
stage for
Four Seasons Theatre,
a professional theater company specializing in musical theater.
Madison is also home to the
Young Shakespeare Players, a
theater group for young people that performs uncut
Shakespeare and
George Bernard Shaw plays.
Community-based theater groups abound in many neighborhoods of
Madison including the
Broom Street
Theater which is not on Broom Street as one might expect.
Past
productions have included comic-style riffs on regional and local
news stories such as Audrey Seiler, a University
of Wisconsin–Madison student who faked her own kidnapping, causing a
county-wide search that gained national attention for several
weeks.
Madison offers one comedy club, the Comedy Club on State, and has
other options for more alternative humor. Featuring several improv
groups, such as The Prom Committee, Spin Cycle Improv, Atlas
Improv, The Monkey Business Institute,the now defunct ARC Improv
and Comedy Sportz, as well as sketch comedy groups The Public
Drunkards and The Rabid Badger Theatre Company, the city's comedy
scene is in revival. A spearheading organization called
the WiSUC Project has led the way in
recent years for this revival and annually hosts the "Funniest
Comic in Madison" contest at the High Noon Saloon.
Several films have been at least partially made in Madison. One of
the most noted was the documentary
The War at Home, which
chronicled the anti-
Vietnam War movement
in Madison. Another film that made extensive use of the city as a
backdrop was the 1986 comedy
Back to
School, starring
Rodney
Dangerfield. The University's Bascom Hill was used extensively,
as was the University Bookstore.
The film also showed many campus
dormitories, and various outdoor locales, including the Union
terrace
and Library Mall. More recently, the 2006
film
The Last Kiss used
Madison and the university as a back-drop. One early scene in the
film was also shot on the Union terrace. In 2008, scenes were shot
at the state capitol and surrounding area for use in the 2009 film
Public Enemies
featuring
Christian Bale and
Johnny Depp.
Madison is also home to one of the largest film archives in the
nation at the
Wisconsin
Historical Society.
Architecture
Wisconsin State Capitol
The
Wisconsin
State Capitol dome, closely based on the dome of the U.S.
Capitol, is the jewel of the Madison skyline, and is
visible throughout the Madison area due to its position on the
ridgeline of the isthmus (and a state law that limits building
heights within one mile (1.6 km) of the structure).
Because of its location in the urban core, Capitol Square is well
integrated with everyday pedestrian traffic and commerce, and the
spoke streets—especially State Street and E. Washington—offer
dramatic views of the Capitol.
Architect
Frank Lloyd Wright
spent much of his childhood in Madison and studied briefly at the
University, and is responsible for several Madison buildings.
Monona
Terrace
, a meeting and convention center overlooking Lake
Monona, designed by Taliesin Architect Anthony Puttnam, was based
loosely on a 1938 Wright design. Wright did design the
seminal
Usonian House, which is located here.
(Another
key Wright building, the Unitarian
Meeting House, is in the adjacent suburb of Shorewood Hills.)The Harold C.
Bradley House, designed collaboratively by
Louis H. Sullivan and
George Grant Elmslie in 1908-1910 now
serves as the Sigma Phi Fraternity in the University Heights
neighborhood, along with many well-maintained early 20th-century
residences.
Harold C.
The Overture
Center for the Arts, designed
by Argentina
-born architect César
Pelli, also stands on State Street near the Capitol.
Since opening in 2004, the center has already presented shows and
concerts in its Overture Hall, Capitol Theater and The Playhouse
(home of the
Madison Repertory
Theatre). The center, also including smaller performance
spaces, also houses the
Madison Museum of
Contemporary Art.
The style, unlike Pelli's Petronas
Towers
, leans toward sleek modernism, with simple expanses of glass framed by
stone that are intended to complement the historic building facades
preserved as part of the building's State Street
exposure.
Many of
the over 175 Madison buildings designed by the architectural firm
of Claude and Starck are still
standing, including Breese Stevens Field
, Doty School (now converted to condominiums), and
many private residences.
The UW–Madison campus includes many buildings designed or
supervised by architects
J.T.W.
Jennings (the Dairy Barn,
Agricultural Hall) and
Arthur Peabody
(the Memorial Union and the Carillon Tower). The UW administration
building Bascom Hall sits atop a high hill overlooking Lake
Mendota, and has been the site of many demonstrations and events.
The density of the campus has grown to include 8 to 10 story
high-rises including dormitories, research
facilities, and classrooms. Several campus buildings erected in the
1960s exhibit
brutalist
architecture, which is now unpopular. In 2005 the University of
Wisconsin embarked on a major redevelopment initiative that will
transform the east end of its campus. The plan calls for the razing
of a nearly a dozen 1950s to 1970s vintage buildings and the
construction of new dormitories, administration, and classroom
buildings, as well as the development of a new pedestrian mall
extending to Lake Mendota.
The downtown and near east side is currently experiencing a
building boom, with dozens of new condominium and apartment
buildings being constructed.
Nicknames
Over the years, Madison has acquired a number of nicknames and
slogans, including:
- Mad City
- Mad
Town or MadTown (not to be confused with the small nearby Town of
Madison)
- The
Berkeley
of the Midwest
- 78 square miles surrounded by reality
- The Athens of the Midwest
- The People's Republic of Madison
- The left coast of Wisconsin
- Four Lakes City
In popular culture
Films shot in Madison
Violent crime
Madison is known as a safe city. Between 2004 and 2007, 17 murders
were reported. In 1996, Madison was rated #3 in "Safest of Nation's
100 Largest Cities" by Morgan Quinto Press and #9 in "America's
Safest Cities" by
Money.In
2008,
Men's Health magazine ranked Madison as the "Least
Armed and Dangerous" city in an article about "Where Men Are
Targets" throughout the US.
Sports
Inside the Kohl Center during a men's
ice hockey game
Madison is known as a sports city primarily because of the
University of Wisconsin. In 2004
Sports Illustrated on
Campus named Madison the #1 college sports town in the nation.
This sentiment was echoed by
Scott Van
Pelt in July 2007 on
Dan Patrick's
ESPN radio show when he proclaimed Madison the best college sports
town in America.
The
UW–Madison teams play their home-field sporting events in
venues in and around Madison. The football team
plays at Camp Randall
Stadium. In 2005 a renovation was completed that
added 72 luxury suites and increased the stadium's total capacity
to 80,321, although crowds of as many as 83,000 have attended
games.
The basketball and hockey teams play at the
Kohl
Center. Construction on the $76 million arena
was completed in 1997. In 2006, both the men's and women's Badger
hockey teams won NCAA Division I championships, and the women
repeated with a second consecutive national championship in 2007.
Some
events are played at the county-owned Alliant
Energy Center
(formerly Dane County Memorial Coliseum) and the
University-owned Wisconsin Field House
.
Despite Madison's strong support for college sports, it has proven
to be an inhospitable home for professional baseball. The
Madison Muskies, a Class A,
Midwest League affiliate of the
Oakland A's, left town in 1993 after 11 seasons.
The
Madison Hatters, another Class
A, Midwest League team, played in Madison for only the 1994 season.
The
Madison Black Wolf, an
independent Northern League
franchise lasted five seasons, (1996-2000,) before decamping for
Lincoln,
Nebraska
. Madison is currently home to the
Madison Mallards, a college wood-bat summer
baseball league team in the
Northwoods League (not to be confused with
the
Minor League Baseball).
They play
in Warner
Park
on the city's North side from June to
August.
The now defunct Indoor Football League's
Madison Mad Dogs were once located in the
city. In 2009 indoor football returned to Madison in the form of
the
Continental
Indoor Football League's
Wisconsin Wolfpack, who call the Alliant
Energy Center home.
Madison is now home to a new football team called the
Madison Mustangs, a semi-pro football team
that is part of the
Ironman
Football League that originated in Milwaukee in the late 1990s.
Games are typically played on Saturday during the summer months,
with the home field being Middleton High School.
The
Wisconsin Wolves is a women's
semi-pro football team based in Madison that plays in the IWFL
Independent Women's
Football League. The Wolves home field is located at Middleton
High School.
The
Princeton 56ers is a Madison
amateur soccer team in the
National Premier Soccer
League.
They play in Breese Stevens Field on East Washington Avenue.
Madison is home to the
Wisconsin
Rugby Club, the 1998 USA Rugby Division II National Champions,
and the
Wisconsin
Women's Rugby Football Club, the state's only Division I
women's rugby team. The city also has men's and women's rugby clubs
at UW–Madison, in addition to four high school boy's teams and one
high school girl's team. The most recent addition to the Madison
rugby community,
Madison
Minotaurs Rugby Club, is composed largely of gay players and is
Wisconsin's first and only
IGRAB team, but is
open to any player with any experience level. All ten teams play
within the Wisconsin Rugby Football Union, the Midwest Rugby Union
and USA Rugby.
Nearly 100 women participate in the adult women's ice hockey teams
that are based in Madison (Thunder, Lightning, Freeze, UW–B and C
teams), all of which play in the Women's Central Hockey League. The
active and popular
Madison Gay Hockey
Association is also in Madison. Starting in fall 2009, a
professional minor league ice hockey team, the
Madison Ice Muskies of the
All American Hockey
League will hit the ice, playing at the
Hartmeyer Ice Arena.
Madison is also one of the growing number of cities in the country
with a
hurling team organized as
The Hurling Club of
Madison.
The All-Girl Roller Derby League,
Mad
Rollin' Dolls, was formed in Madison in 2004. Mad Rollin' Dolls
LLC, is a member of the
Women's Flat Track Derby
Association.
Madison is home to a number of endurance sports racing events, such
as the
Crazylegs Classic, Paddle
and Portage, the
Mad City
Marathon, and
Ironman
Wisconsin.
Madison was part of Chicago's 2016 Olympics bid. If the Chicago
2016 bid had been successful, 80,000-seat Camp Randall Stadium
would have served as one of Chicago's stadiums during the
Games.
Current professional teams
Points of interest
The Thai pavilion at Olbrich Botanical Gardens
Sister cities
Notable Madisonians
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
- Bates, Tom, Rads: The 1970 Bombing of the Army Math
Research Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Its
Aftermath (1993) ISBN 0-06-092428-4
- Maraniss, David, They Marched
Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967
(2003) ISBN 0-7432-1780-2 ISBN 0-7432-6104-6 (about the Dow
Chemical protest, and a battle in Vietnam that occurred on the
previous day)
- Mollenhoff, David V., Madison : A History of the Formative
Years (1982, revised 2003) ISBN 0-8403-2728-5 ISBN
0-299-19980-0
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