Our discussion at last month’s meeting led to new questions about how the La Crosse area has historically been described—and marketed—as a place to move to or visit. So let’s use August Activity #1 to investigate the “sales pitch” used to attract immigrants and tourists to La Crosse, ca. the 1840s – 2020s. We’ve assembled primary sources from three distinct points in time that illustrate how La Crosse has been described to outside audiences: an immigrant recruitment guide from 1854, a tourist brochure from the decade of the 1930s, and the present-day website for the La Crosse Chamber of Commerce.
Details about each primary source can be found below. Here are a few overarching discussion questions to consider as you examine them:
- What aspects of La Crosse’s environment, culture, and commerce are being used to promote our city and county?
- According to each primary source: what is the story of La Crosse? What arguments are being made about why people should come here permanently (immigrants) or temporarily (tourists)?
- What do you think La Crosse has to offer an immigrant or tourist? Do these primary sources reinforce your opinion?
- Do these primary sources challenge or change your assumptions about how La Crosse was, or is, marketed to the outside world?
The Primary Sources
1: Spencer Carr, A Brief Sketch of La Crosse, Wisc’n…, 1854
In the mid-late nineteenth century, Wisconsin was rapidly transformed by Manifest Destiny-era westward migrations of Euro-Americans and African-Americans seeking natural resources and employment. As it looked towards the start of its second decade, the settlement of La Crosse, Wisconsin (est. ca. 1841-1846) produced a 28-page pamphlet designed to recruit additional migrants. A recently-arrived immigrant from Pennsylvania, Baptist Minister Spencer Carr, compiled A Brief Sketch.
View A Brief Sketch here, through UWL Murphy Library’s Digital Collections.
Carr describes the settlement of La Crosse and its environment on pp. 3-6 in the drop-down menu. Pp. 8-15 might also be of interest: what other kinds of information is he using to advertise La Crosse?
2: La Crosse County tourism brochure, ca. 1930s, possibly published by La Crosse Chamber of Commerce
Seeking to entice regional tourists during the first few decades of mass-produced automobiles, someone in La Crosse–likely the La Crosse Chamber of Commerce–created this brochure sometime in the decade of the 1930s. Much shorter than A Brief Sketch…, this pamphlet takes advantage of improved twentieth century printing technology by using color illustrations and maps, along with black and white photography to visually support their case for La Crosse as a “Scenic Wonderland.”
As you examine the brochure, you will notice some racist Native American imagery and descriptions. As you process the words and pictures used in this brochure, consider ways in which this kind of representation of Indigious peoples still pops up in our community’s narrative. Look below to find two resources to help you process this.
View the brochure here, through the La Crosse Public Library Archives’ Digital Collections.
3: La Crosse Chamber of Commerce, “Choose La Crosse.com” website, 2021
We thought we’d bring our investigation up to the present-day by including the La Crosse Chamber of Commerce’s twenty-first century means of advertising our city and region: their website. How does the homepage compare to the two other primary sources in terms of the kind of information presented?
To go to Choose La Crosse.com website, click here
Because the homepage talks about the present, we thought that maybe you’d also be interested in the “Our Story” section, which gives some historical background on La Crosse. Compare this section to how Carr and the 1930s pamphlet present our history.
To go to the “Our Story” section of their website, click here
In Activity #2, we’ll challenge you to come up with your own promotional materials for La Crosse.
We are providing these two additional secondary sources for two reasons.
- They will help you process the racist depictions of our Indigenous community members in the 1930s brochure and
- We’re hoping that these two sources will help you transition from August’s activities to September’s activities. This September, we plan to look at the forced removals of the Ho-Chunk from their homelands here in La Crosse, and how those forced removals are evident and talked about in primary and secondary sources.
Source 1:
Dan Green’s Lecture on Racism and Native American Statuary, which you can watch and listen to on the LPL’s Youtube page, here: https://youtu.be/k70-xc811Po
Source 2:
This New York Times article that is incredibly relevant to this activity and just happened to come out this week called “Is Travel Next in the Fight Over Who Profits from Native American Culture?”
[La Crosse] History Club 
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