Banning DDT

How Citizen Activists in Wisconsin Led the Way 

by Bill Berry

On a December day in 1968, DDT went on trial in Madison, Wisconsin. In Banning DDT: How Citizen Activists in Wisconsin Led the Way, Bill Berry details how the citizens, scientists, reporters, and traditional conservationists drew attention to the harmful effects of "the miracle pesticide" DDT, which was being used to control Dutch elm disease.

Berry tells of the hunters and fishers, bird-watchers, and garden-club ladies like Lorrie Otto, who dropped off twenty-eight dead robins at the Bayside village offices. He tells of university professors and scientists like Joseph Hickey, a professor and researcher in the Department of Wildlife Management at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who, years after the fact, wept about the suppression of some of his early DDT research. And he tells of activists like Senator Gaylord Nelson and members of the state's Citizens Natural Resources Association who rallied others to the cause.

The six-month-long DDT hearing was one of the first chapters in citizen activism in the modern environmental era. Banning DDT is a compelling story of how citizen activism, science, and law merged in Wisconsin's DDT battles to forge a new way to accomplish public policy. These citizen activists were motivated by the belief that we all deserve a voice on the health of the land and water that sustain us.  

New Interactive 1890s Cycling Experience Opens June 2014

Residents of Wisconsin and the nation were crazy about cycling during the 1890s. Beginning this summer, Old World Wisconsin captures the excitement of this decade in its new Catch Wheel Fever! experience, which will debut the weekend of June 14-15, 2014. The new cycling experience will be open to all guests that visit Old World Wisconsin as one of the many interesting locations to visit there throughout the 2014 season and beyond. 

Children and adults can hop aboard replica tricycles and bicycles from the era and take a spin around the track; there is a size and style that allows everyone to join the fun.

Guests will get to tinker at the workbench in a simulated 1890s bicycle repair shop, explore copies of period road maps for cyclists, examine an original 1890s "safety bicycle" manufactured in Kenosha and hear late 19th century bicycle songs.  

Cyclists young and old can learn about the Badger Wheelmen, a Milwaukee cycling club, put on period apparel, climb aboard a replica high-wheel bike and take a one-of-a-kind photo to share with family and friends. Regular museum admission includes a stop at Catch Wheel Fever!; there is no additional charge to visit this new experience.

Catch Wheel Fever! was made possible in part by a generous lead grant from the Sally Mead Hands Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Old World Foundation.

Ride with The Wheelmen Saturday, July 19

A special ten-mile ride with this antique bicycling enthusiast group will take place in and around Old World Wisconsin, and will include lunch and a guided ride. Guests register ahead and should bring their own bicycles.