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.

My source comes from the Wisconsin Historical Society and was written by A.C. Jones. This article was published April 25^th, 1923. I selected this source because it goes back to the 1860’s when Jones was a child. I think that it may be an important source, because he is hearing about the origin of the term “badger” and he has interviews with the women who told him the stories.

            Jones creates an informal distance, while writing this article because he uses I and we which keeps the article intimate. Jones’ credibility is strengthen when he interviews a very old women who is from the Winnebago tribe and she talks about how she was young when the men were coming to the north to mine lead. She recalls from her youth how these white men would come from nowhere and set up camp and stay for around a week then leave the way they came, then they would never see them again. The men they saw would carry rifles and the Indians would think that they were soldiers and they would talk like English soldiers, but they were not they did not know who they were because they were not trappers, traders, soldiers, or farmers.

            These men were miners and they would come from the southern states, they wouldn’t come in the south because the conditions were too intense for them. They came in the spring and left before winter came to return to their homes. The other miners who came from the east stayed in the winter and had built for themselves cabins to stay warm in and would mine the lead mines all through the winter. The southern men who came to Wisconsin would run into badgers, in which they didn’t very much care for these animals. In the spring when the southerners were returning they were asked where they were heading to and they would reply “up among the Badgers.” The men who stayed in the lead region in Wisconsin later became known as the “Badgers.”

            While reading this source I thought was interesting, because Jones starts by arguing with an article that had been published earlier before this one. If he didn’t have and interview with the women from the Winnebago tribe, I don’t think that this would have been as much as a credible source. This source gave me a stronger understanding about how Wisconsin became the badger state. This source is from an Indian perspective I want to go towards next finding out about out about the history of how Wisconsin became the badger state from the white persons point of view and what more does the badger mean to the people of Wisconsin.

My research question is why is Wisconsin called the Badger state? I am interested in learning more about the history of Wisconsin, not being from Wisconsin I don’t know very much about this state’s history. The question is important because I don’t think that very many people know why Wisconsin is known as the Badger state, especially our generation.

At this time I do not know very much about the history of Wisconsin. I am looking to gain more knowledge about the history of Wisconsin. Hearing badger, I think of UW Madison and their mascot the Bucky the Badger. Going to college, and living for the most part in Wisconsin it is important to learn about the history.

I think that this source is important, because you see how what a city in Wisconsin is doing about cyberbullying. This source also shows what the state of Wisconsin does when it comes to dealing with cyberbullying, which is important because cyberbullying is becoming more and more popular with all the electronics that kids have access to. My source is from the “Wisconsin Law Journal” and is written by Jack Zemlicka.        

In Fort Atkins, Wisconsin the city council is pondering on making it so that the police can fine people who are threatening people via internet. The fine would only be fifty dollars, but then you could also press criminal charges which may never be able to make it to court because the district attorney’s office is too busy working on higher priority cases. The victim could possibly never get closure if they file criminal charges (Paragraph 2).The whole state of Wisconsin doesn’t have laws against cyberbullying, but they do penalize people who send messages via the internet to young adults trying to scare them; which gives the offender a misdemeanor which is a criminal charge. Although they are trying to crack down on cyberbullying with the laws they have, it is still hard because the fines the people would get are not nearly enough for how much time it would take to catch the offender.

I believe it is important for these people to get the fines even though it takes so much time; it is worth it for the victim. It would make them feel better; I think that if they make the fines bigger it would help a lot. Since many children have taken their own lives because of cyberbullying I think that it’s important for the police to make it a bigger offense so that if they catch someone doing it, it would set the curve so many others wouldn’t want to deal with it.

This source shaped my questioning next I want to look at some actual cases that have happened in Wisconsin and hopefully find more on how the offender was charged, to see how the victim and offenders life was change, but I want to try and find information on a specific case  that happened in Wisconsin.

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=2&sid=c88b4e49-dc1a-4c21-b321-0c1cac355d83%40sessionmgr4005&hid=4114&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVpZCZzaXRlPWVob3N0LWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=n5h&AN=L54775287WLJO

           I am researching cyberbullying and how it has had serious effects on the schools. I think that it is important to research it because it is a fairly new concept because of all the new technology. Schools are having a hard time trying to stop it because it is not necessarily happening on school grounds and they won’t know about it until it is too late. Recently many kids have committed suicide because they are being bullying relentlessly online and they can’t deal with it anymore.

            I am interested in learning more about this topic because of how popular it has become, because people can do it anonymously without ever facing the person whom they are bullying. They will keep going because they don’t even realize how much they are hurting the person, it is turning more popular in the schools because they can do it and usually get away with it because of it being anonymous.

            This question is very important because many young adults have been killing themselves over being bullied relentlessly, and they feel like it will never end.  Being that cyberbullying is newer many schools don’t know how to deal with it or punish it because of it happening off of school ground they can’t do anything until the student comes to them about it. The school officials can go to the police after they find out about it and track it down to find out who is doing it, but they often find out after it is too late.