Since I started researching the history of Wisconsin to try and figure out why the badger was so big in Wisconsin. I found out a lot more about the history of Wisconsin then I thought would come about while researching this topic. I learned that the history of the badger didn’t just come about from being the UW Madison mascot. It goes deeper than that all the way back to the 1800’s when mining was brought in more revenue to the state of Wisconsin, then farming. Knowing so little about the history of Wisconsin, I haven gained so much more knowledge about the history just from looking at this one part of Wisconsin’s history.

Based on what I have learned about the history of the term “badger” in Wisconsin and how it got its importance. I have found that it isn’t so much about history as much as it is about tradition to call the miners, and now the people who live in Wisconsin “badgers.”  I found out that the term “badger” started when the Native American people would see white miners in the spring and they would dig out hole in the ground, and if they didn’t find anything in the holes they would move on to a different camp site. These holes that they would find looked like badger holes, so when the miners would come to the north they just started being called “badgers.”   

I have found another source that I want to do more research on and it is from the Wisconsin Miners Association. I think that it would help with my research, because even though most of the information is the same it will go into more detail about the lead mines and how important they were to Wisconsin’s people’s income, the whole state of Wisconsin’s revenue, and the money they made off of the lead.

My 3^rd source comes from the Wisconsin Historical society. It was written by Moses Meeker a miner in the lead region in the 1820’s, he writes about his time while working and living in the lead region. I think that this source has great importance, because it’s not directly related to the term “badger” it is a firsthand account about his life being. Looking at the everyday miners life will eventually tie into the badgers, because he took part in living the lifestyle of the other miners which they were eventually called “badgers.”

            Meeker creates an intimate relationship with his audience by talking about himself and his family. Using terms like “I” or “we” while writing his article, he gives his audience a firsthand look about what life was like living in the mining region. His audience is men in their mid-forty’s and older that are interested in the history of Wisconsin. It makes it easier for him to connect with his audience, because he writes about his family making it so that Meeker and his audience have something fairly in common.

            Meeker got into working in the lead industry, because when he visited St. Louis to buy some lead he saw an advertisement in the papers that the president was offering to lease one-half section of land to mine lead. While living on this land and mining for the lead they had to pay the government one tenth of the lead they mined. In October of 1822 Meeker and a man he met in St. Louis known as Colonel Cole. They arrived November 12^th, 1822 at their village in south eastern Wisconsin, shortly after they arrived and they had their shelters built Meeker had his family move up to the mining region to live with there.

            I think that this source shows how miners lived in Wisconsin during this time and it is important to my future research, because my last two sources weren’t about anyone specific and just about the badgers and the history about how they became the badgers. For my next source, I want to find out more about other miners who moved to the lead region, because I think that it will provide more of an understanding about the history of the Badger and more about the history of Wisconsin.

My second source comes from the Wisconsin Historical Society magazine Wisconsin magazine of history. It was written by Karel Bicha in the winter of 1992-1993 it is titled “From Where Come the Badgers.” I think that this source is important, because she goes into more detail then my last source about the history of the miners coming to Wisconsin and how badgers came about being the state animal.

            The way that Bicha creates her ethos when writing this article, because she makes herself seem as if she is a historian she writes it in a formal way creating a rhetorical distance from her audience.  Bicha uses visuals in her article which shows Wisconsin in 1829, mapped out on the map has all the lead mines that were around above the Mississippi river. Later in the article she includes another visual of when they were hauling the lead to another city in the 1830’s.

            Bicha is looking to find where the term “Badgers” originally comes from she finds that the term is more from tradition then actual “verifiable history.” Originally when the miners went to inspect new land for lead the miners would dig holes near where they would set up camp, and if they didn’t find anything in the holes they dug they would abandon them. These holes looked very similar to badger’s holes, which is when the miners started being called “badgers.” When this started, it started a tradition in Wisconsin by calling the miners badgers, it slowly picked to all the people who lived in the mining areas, and then was applied to all the residents of Wisconsin and eventually to the entire state.

            This Source ties in with my first source a lot. My first source was a good starting point to get some background information, but this source went into way more depth about the history of Wisconsin and about how the term “badger” became popular. This source has a lot of information that will be helpful when writing the research paper. Next, I want to find out what type of people came to Wisconsin to do the mining and what they did when they were not in Wisconsin if they had jobs in their home towns. I also want to find out what the badgers mean to UW Madison and background information about when they got the mascot the badger.