10 notes &
Armistice Day in Madison (1918)
In Madison, when the news came over the wires at 1:45 a.m., crowds of students and citizens gathered at the Capitol and paraded through the streets until 7 a.m. The bell from the city hall bell tower was taken down and rung through the streets in the back of a transfer truck. Classes were cancelled, and all schools and businesses in Madison were closed at the request of Mayor G.C. Sayle.
The celebration, while energetic, was generally trouble-free. However, two cars - a Studebaker from East Mifflin Street and a Maxwell from the front of the Elks club - and a gray horse went missing during the festivities. The Cardinal jokingly writes, “The police are on the search for a lonesome looking gray animal to reunite with a lonesome master. The guess is that the kaiser must have ridden it away.” (The Daily Cardinal, 11/11/1918)
For more information about these photos or UW-Madison campus history, visit http://archives.library.wisc.edu.
From a female undergraduate student’s scrapbook - Armistice Day, 1918, marking the end of World War I. Posted by Molly Temple for UW Archives.
