Milwaukee, by Koss, Rud. A. [Rudolph Alexander]
Inventory #: 01882
Price: $350.00

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Milwaukee, by Koss, Rud. A. [Rudolph Alexander]. Schnellpressen-Druck des Herold: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1871. Edition: First edition. Hardcover, 6 by 8.75 inches, 473, [1] pages. Quarter bound in black leather with cloth tips on corners and patterened paper over boards. Illustrated with four plates, three original and one a facsimile, and a map.

Condition: Rebacked with new front end papers and facsimile frontispiece. Cover rubbed and worn at edges and corners; two inch closed tear on page 116; two of the original plates are heavily tanned. Text is clean and unmarked.

Contents: Cited in James S. Buck's Pioneer History of Milwaukee as the second book ever written about Milwaukee (Wheeler's Chronicles of Milwaukee was the first) this volume by Koss is prominent in most lists of early and important works on Milwaukee and Wisconsin. The text is in German.

According to Carl Heins Knoche in his dissertation The German Immigrant Press in Milwaukee (Ohio State University: 1969), Koss's Milwaukee has the distinction of being " the first history of the city written specifically for the Germans; Koss weaves a lengthy but fascinating sketch of the Milwaukee area pre-history, the beginnings of the settlement and the progressive development of industry and culture until the year 1855. Other historians have also written about this period, but none describes so well the formation and atmosphere of the early German community."

The author, Rudolph Alexander Koss (1823-1894), was born in Parchim, Germany, and came to the United States and to Wisconsin in 1851. In 1856, he moved to Milwaukee, where he operated a flour and feed store, and later joined the staff of the Herold Publishing Company, where he edited an agricultural weekly from 1868 to 1891.

A map of the city in 1840:

Please note that the entire text is in German: