Title: Oral History Interview with Peter Wick
Inclusive Dates: 1975 April 4

Creator:

• Wick, Peter E.

Call Number: Audio 556A

Quantity: 1 tape recording (60 minutes)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Tape-recorded interview with Wick, a Milwaukee businessman; concerning his youth in Russia, the Jewish communities in Marinette, Green Bay, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, changes in University life between 1915 and 1920, business as a jobber of electrical supplies and of sporting goods, Zionism, World War II, and his involvement in Reform Judaism; recorded by Historical Society staff member Peter Gordy, 1975.

Note:

Forms part of the Wisconsin Jewish Archives.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-audi00556a

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Audio 556A Tape/Side   1/1 Time   0:35	BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION Scope and Content Note: Date and place of birth, length of stay in Russia, father's occupation and economic circumstances, description of small town.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   2:10	PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF SHTETL, Scope and Content Note: Streets, weather, long trip to grandparents.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   3:30	SIBLINGS, HOME LIFE, Scope and Content Note: Number, age, mother's role in the home, servant.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   4:35	MEMORIES OF CHEDER (HEBREW SCHOOL), Scope and Content Note: Long hours, definition of cheder, courses.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   5:45	REASONS FOR LEAVING RUSSIA, Scope and Content Note: Pogroms and their reputation, mood in the villages.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   6:40	CONTACTS BETWEEN JEWISH COMMUNITIES,
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   6:50	THE FLIGHT FROM RUSSIA, Scope and Content Note: Port of departure, intermediate stops, recollection of arrival in New York, circuitous trip to Marinette, family members accompanying Wicks.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   8:35	REASONS FOR SETTLING IN MARINETTE Scope and Content Note: Relatives in Marinette and their reasons for settling.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   9:15	GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE MARINETTE JEWISH COMMUNITY, Scope and Content Note: Number of families, countries of origin, community institutions, synagogue (shul), location, description of shul building, size of Marinette (“The Queen City. We Do Things Here!”).
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   11:55	ECONOMIC LIFE OF MARINETTE, ETC., Scope and Content Note: Lumbering and paper mills. other businesses, Jews in economic life.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   12:30	FATHER'S FIRST JOB, Scope and Content Note: Kosher butchering, qualifications, learning the trade, keeping a kosher home, renting a house.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   14:10	EDUCATION IN AMERICA Scope and Content Note: Hiring of a Russian rabbi as tutor, cheder after public school, public school, difficulties in learning English, age differential between PW and first grade classmates, sympathetic fourth grade teacher, using the public library to learn English, mastery of the language, loss of accent.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   18:25	JEWS IN PW'S CIRCLE OF CHILDHOOD FRIENDS, Scope and Content Note: Closeness among Jewish children, clubs, close family ties.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   19:40	INTERLUDE IN GREEN BAY, Scope and Content Note: Differences between Jewish newcomer community in Marinette and “Americanized” Jewish community in Green Bay, high school in Green Bay, father's job, Norman Abram's father as the first Green Bay schochet, reasons for returning to Marinette, death of father's Green Bay partner.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   22:30	MARINETTE HIGH SCHOOL, Scope and Content Note: Size of high school, number of Jewish students.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   23:40	BEGINNING OF STUDENT LIFE AT MADISON, Scope and Content Note: Status as one of the first Russian Jews at U.W., Harry Hirsch, engineering, World War I and university life, job in engineering department at Allis Chalmers.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   25:40	WORLD WAR ONE, Scope and Content Note: Rejection for military service on physical grounds, work on war projects at Allis Chalmers, service in the National Guard, return to college after the Armistice.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   27:00	RETURN TO MADISON FOR ENGINEERING DEGREE, Scope and Content Note: Increase in the number of Eastern European Jews, Menorah Society, early Zionist activity, Zionism in Marinette, Milwaukee friends.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   28:45	WORK IN MILWAUKEE, Scope and Content Note: Job with The Milwaukee Electric Railroad and Light Company, limited possibilities for advancement, handicaps for Jews, striking out on his own.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   30:30	INDEPENDENT BUSINESS, Scope and Content Note: Went into business with two others, lack of business experience.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   31:05	END OF SIDE ONE
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   0:25	INDEPENDENT BUSINESS, CONTINUED Scope and Content Note: Training of partners in business, manufacturer's representation, initial difficulties, a stroke of luck in the form of a technological innovation in the electrical equipment field, description of the innovation, success in marketing this development, widening of the line into automobile electrical products, jobbing, name of the business.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   4:40	INITIAL ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES, , SUCCESS, Scope and Content Note: Buying out one married partner, living on a shoestring with relatives, travelling for the business, economic fortunes seen against personal developments such as marriage (1923) and birth of first child (1924), saving and prudence as defense against the Great Depression.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   7:35	EARLY CONTACTS WITH THE MILWAUKEE JEWISH COMMUNITY, Scope and Content Note: Earliest residences in Milwaukee, Jews in the circle of friends, relatives in Milwaukee, Gentile friends, more on locations, birth of children, Zionism (Z.O.A.?), B'nai B'rith Gilead Lodge, business limitation of time for Zionist activity, extent of PW's activities.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   11:30	KNOWLEDGE OF HAPPENINGS IN NAZI GERMANY, Scope and Content Note: Overweening interest in Palestinian developments, explanation of lack of consciousness of developing tragedy, intimation of semi-clandestine solicitation of funds for the Haganah and even the Stern Gang by others, increase in Hadassah activity in response to emergency in Germany in the mid to late 1930s, description of Hadassah fund-raising activities, increasing awareness.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   15:45	EFFECT OF WORLD WAR TWO, Scope and Content Note: Supply hardships due to war. and effect upon business, expansion into sporting goods field and its cancellation by the war, wartime toys and toy business, other ways of keeping business going during the war, returning to the sporting goods field in 1947, present state of the business, reasons for leaving the automotive supply business.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   20:45	BEGINNINGS OF INVOLVEMENT WITH REFORM JUDAISM, Scope and Content Note: Reasons for membership, children's religious training and education at Congregation Emanu-El B'ne Jeshurun, Bar Mitzvah training of son by PW's father, later Hebrew training of son, Rabbi Swarsensky.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   23:10	DEATH DATES OF PW'S PARENTS Scope and Content Note: Remarriage of father.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   23:40	MORE ON ACTIVITIES IN REFORM JUDAISM, Scope and Content Note: Men's Club and Board of Trustees of congregation, membership of Wisconsin Society for Jewish Learning, activities in the American Jewish Committee (board membership), friendship with the late Rabbi Jos. L. Baron.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   25:05	RETIREMENT AND AFTERWARD, Scope and Content Note: Date of retirement, Florida and the rigorous Milwaukee climate, residual involvement with his firm, Central Sales, Inc., poor health.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   27:00	END OF INTERVIEW