So true-and for most in the entire country. While Wisconsin Death Trip-and this video about it-do focus on small-town/rural life in the North Woods, I believe that if a similar trove of photographs were paired with newspaper articles from any other part of the country in this time period, a similarly “gothic” story could be told. We were blessed that Van Schaick carefully saved all his negatives, an archivist painstakingly preserved a selection of them, and then Michael Lesy gave us a fraction of that selection in his wonderful book. Love all the stories in this comment section!
@@cmmm-p1b yeah if you escaped the winters up there without a buffalo coat or something & avoided the backfotoot & Comanche & evil outlaw types etc etc we are so &oddamn soft these days but all people suffer in their own ways so who knows, ok take my wool blend underoos, Down parka &/or shearling coat just in case. It is nice to find food anywhere basically. Yeah they had it a weee rougher.
I have been living in Northern Wisconsin near Lake Superior for 17 years. The neighbors flanking us had a long standing feud going. One Mother's day a few years ago, the wife of one, full of Irish courage, went over to try and talk some sense into the other neighbor and end the silly feud. In answer to her, he came at her with a shovel. When her husband found out, he went over with his shotgun. One neighbor is dead and the other is in prison. This happened in the very small community of Bayfield. A few years before that, my hairdresser was killed in a murder suicide. It's crazy. Oh yeah, and one of the richest ladies in the area was a huge hoarder. She owned land and properties, completely packed with stuff. She refused all help at the end of her life and died, essentially "homeless" in the back of her truck even though she owned so much.
"She uses cocaine liberally on such occasions"... Well, I think we may have discovered the root of the problem, lol! Also, "it quiets her nerves"?! What kinda cocaine was SHE using?!
My father bought this book when I was 13 years old, it had just been released. I used to look at it fascinated, sometimes for hours pondering the stories it told, its grimness, the sadness underlying the whole project. Lives from eight decades before the then-present, lives wasted or lost, people who fell through the cracks. Sad, but real stories, without a happy ending, the kind no-one tells. It had a huge effect on me, made me more aware of the things at the edges, or just behind the curtain, or in the back room behind the kitchen. I bought a copy of it twenty years ago and still page through it. I treasure what it revealed to me without my knowing it.
Every town, family, group of people in general always have secrets and a dark side. Thats why i hate when people say they miss back when things were innocent and simple, because they really never were lol
For years, this book has been my go-to refutation of "oh, today was are so godless and decadent." People are people and there can be such loneliness in the human heart.
Fun fact: This book inspired Static X's album by the same name. From Wiki: When interviewed about the source of the title, Wayne Static explained, "[It's] actually a book title that we stole. It's been out of print for about 20 years. It's a historical book about life in this small town in Wisconsin from 1890 to 1900. And it's about everything that happened, but it focuses on people dying and how they died. And there are pictures of dead people as well as stuff about natural disasters and fires and stuff like that."
My mother had this on the bookshelf when we were kids. I remember staring at the pictures of dead children in their open coffins. It's good for kids to understand mortality, I guess.
Yeah, thought that would be a bit much for YT-it was a thing people did back then, though, and probably a pretty common subject for the town photographer
Me too. Weird. Don’t know why or if I like it yet. Love books though … misfit and otherwise. She’s a 1:28 hot one. If she doesn’t ever find out where you live of course.
Thanks for the reminder. This book was published while I was in college but, somehow, I never got around to reading it. I now have it on hold at my public library.
It’s a document of the dark side of American capitalism during one of the bleakest periods of US history; the height of the Gilded Age and its negative effects, pre-any kind of economic social safety net, on the working people of US society and the intersection of so-called “mental health” issues, lawlessness, and vicious class conflict that is U.S. capitalism. The Great Depression produced a kind of lawlessness and misery documented by photographers and newspaper reporters too. Our own experiences since 2008 have produced a similar kind of misery and sorrow that we self-document on social media. Thanks for the video about this excellent book! New sub.
Thank you! This video--the images and stories, which are just a fraction of those contained in the book--really seems to have touched a nerve, and has really generated a lot of views and comments. Which is great, and I think is a testament to the book's power, but also a testament to what you're saying about the parallels between then and now, as we seem to have entered a new Gilded Age. Which is not so great.
I once found old photographs in an old abondoned house near my grandparent's in rural SE Texas. They were of the same family through several generations. There was one photo of the photographer who took many of them. I suspect it's one of the first selfies ever taken, with help i assume. His name was AJ Pearl.
Great review! Thanks for providing this. I chanced upon a copy of this book in an excellent independent airport bookstore in St. Paul. I was on my way to Madison from there, and read WDT cover to cover on the way there… It definitely colored the experience of my own Wisconsin Trip! It’s a great book, however. Very readable and the contents are well curated, making it an American Gothic milestone.
@@leonhayes188 I read it years ago, and I remember the staggering amount of suicides, murder, and insanity. Definitely not a good place to live for many.
7:00 There were even custom headrests that photographers made / purchased that could be firmly clamped to the back of chairs to keep the subjects’ heads very very still to allow for sharp clear focus and exposure of the paying customer’s and his family members’ or associates’ faces while the photographer was focusing on his ground glass under the dark curtain, then swapping out the focusing screen ground glass for the photographic plate holder, removing its dark slide, and then opening the lens shutter for what could be long multi-second exposures. It was an elaborate multi-step process, and from the time the subject sat and “struck” the pose and facial expression desired until the shutter was opened and closed again could be up to a minute. To be sure the subjects’ faces didn’t move out of the depth of field of field once the photographer had focused the lens using the ground glass focusing screen such a head rest device was very helpful indeed! Studio photographers had special chairs where these headrests were permanent components! This was particularly important for kids who were apt to move unbidden from lack of discipline, and for the weak and for old subjects’ heads and allowed a measure of extra comfort and stillness especially for those who really needed it. The photographer couldn’t afford to lose the focus and have to explain to a paying client why one or more faces were out of focus. As cameras became quicker to set up and use and as emulsions and bacame faster and more light sensitive these headrests became less and less important.
Excellent! I didn't know about the headrests, but it makes total sense. I was hoping someone with actual photographic knowledge would participate--thanks for clarifying! :)
I remember seeing this book at bookstores in the 70s. It was reprinted a few years ago. Nearly everyone raised in the US has had a pretty sanitized view of life in the country in the past.
So much more realistic than today's photos in which everyone is so fake. I can't smile on command for a picture; it's just not in me. I hate it. Life has been hard. When I was a toddler, my mother beat me before getting a professional photographer to take "picture perfect" photos of me. All because I wouldn't smile because I felt awkward. She's a raging narcissistic anyway. These days people are all about faking things. I feel bad for the woman whose father whipped her. There's so much more behind a photo. Pictures of happy families have always freaked me out. Is that weird? I know I'm not the only one.
7:35 they where also trying quite hard not to blink especially bc that many people, the dramatic flash Blinking efforts on the forced pie eyes in my opinion
You didn't mention the death photos. People who often didn't have any other photos of a particular family member, would sometimes prop the dead body of that family member up, sometimes sitting next to their living brothers and sisters, and have Lesy photograph them. Those are some pretty eerie and disturbing looking photos. I used to date a women who was a professional photographer and she had this book and a couple other books that featured Victorian age photos. The first time I opened this book a couple of photos really grabbed my attention. One was a women holding her newborn child in her lap. Even though she wasn't smiling or barely smiling, she had a look of pure love and joy on her face. Her happiness in that moment was captured perfectly for all to see. The second photo was of another women who also was holding her baby in her lap, except her baby was dead. The despair in that photo was just devastating to look upon. Wisconsin Death Trip is a very interesting book, but it's not the kind of book you want to go through just before you go to bed. Some of it is real nightmare fuel.
I like that, “nightmare fuel”-absolutely. I didn’t feel including the photos of dead people (babies or otherwise) would be appropriate for a YT video, I didn’t want it to be too disturbing-but you’re absolutely right, it was a big part of the photographer’s job in that era. Yeesh
I've owned this book since it came out in 1973, bought soon after I moved to Wisconsin. I must have thought it was some kind of guidebook, this Northern Appalachian kid found the sky too damn big out there. My favorite takeaway from the book was the phrase, "deranged by religion", given as the reason in a few of the articles as why some folks ran amok, acting out their shack wackitude.
Yes! I so wanted to include that phrase somehow, but getting into the intake records was a whole other can of worms, and the video was already getting so long! Great point tho
@AisleofMisfitBooks thank you the more obscure the better and in my opinion there's nothing like the smell and feel of an old physical book looking forward to more content great job on this one! I subscribed immediately 💖
I lived In Madison in the 80s. I read this book during that time. Wow. This video just now shown up in my feed, so of course I had to subscribe. 😊 By the way, I LOVE your channel name! Former B&N bookseller here.
You ended up on my recommendation list, which is creepy because it means "they" know I like odd, macabre things. Good guess. Subbed...looking forward to further videos. Much luck to you.
you have unlocked the skill: strange attractor your reward: HELVETICA (2007) edit: there are no such things as misfit books. they prefer the term oversized
That's a great book. I think I've given away a few copies as gifts-I know for sure I sent one to a friend in Geelong.…My partner was acquainted with the author, back in Madison, in the early '70s.
In a way, though I bet they were posing, she just jumped up for some reason when she shouldn’t have. You can see she’s kind of blurry. There are some in the book that are more casual like this, less posed-I’m just saying most photos back then were posed. Good catch!
@@TroubleToby3040 The one that looks most to me like a snap is the one where the two guys are in the office, and one is sitting on his head--that one cracks me up :)
Almost all of them, I’d say-the subject or someone in the subject’s family (or group) paid the photographer, Van Schaick, to take them, for the most part. He might’ve had the only camera in town, which is funny to think of, now that we all have cameras in our pockets and record everything
life was quite hard for most back then.
So true-and for most in the entire country. While Wisconsin Death Trip-and this video about it-do focus on small-town/rural life in the North Woods, I believe that if a similar trove of photographs were paired with newspaper articles from any other part of the country in this time period, a similarly “gothic” story could be told. We were blessed that Van Schaick carefully saved all his negatives, an archivist painstakingly preserved a selection of them, and then Michael Lesy gave us a fraction of that selection in his wonderful book. Love all the stories in this comment section!
@@cmmm-p1b yeah if you escaped the winters up there without a buffalo coat or something & avoided the backfotoot & Comanche & evil outlaw types etc etc we are so &oddamn soft these days but all people suffer in their own ways so who knows, ok take my wool blend underoos, Down parka &/or shearling coat just in case. It is nice to find food anywhere basically. Yeah they had it a weee rougher.
I have been living in Northern Wisconsin near Lake Superior for 17 years. The neighbors flanking us had a long standing feud going. One Mother's day a few years ago, the wife of one, full of Irish courage, went over to try and talk some sense into the other neighbor and end the silly feud. In answer to her, he came at her with a shovel. When her husband found out, he went over with his shotgun. One neighbor is dead and the other is in prison. This happened in the very small community of Bayfield.
A few years before that, my hairdresser was killed in a murder suicide. It's crazy.
Oh yeah, and one of the richest ladies in the area was a huge hoarder. She owned land and properties, completely packed with stuff. She refused all help at the end of her life and died, essentially "homeless" in the back of her truck even though she owned so much.
Wow-amazing! Thanks for sharing!
"She uses cocaine liberally on such occasions"...
Well, I think we may have discovered the root of the problem, lol!
Also, "it quiets her nerves"?! What kinda cocaine was SHE using?!
Haha! Yeah I love that line :)
My father bought this book when I was 13 years old, it had just been released. I used to look at it fascinated, sometimes for hours pondering the stories it told, its grimness, the sadness underlying the whole project. Lives from eight decades before the then-present, lives wasted or lost, people who fell through the cracks. Sad, but real stories, without a happy ending, the kind no-one tells. It had a huge effect on me, made me more aware of the things at the edges, or just behind the curtain, or in the back room behind the kitchen. I bought a copy of it twenty years ago and still page through it. I treasure what it revealed to me without my knowing it.
Excellent testimonial to the power of this book-sounds like you found it at just the right time :)
The term "shack wacky" has profoundly altered my thinking in the most beneficial manner.
Haha, it’s a great term-I just hope it doesn’t return to widespread use! :)
Sounds like a Disney movie from the 70s.
One of my favorite books of all time. Makes me wonder about the darker aspects of my own family.
Me too!
Every town, family, group of people in general always have secrets and a dark side. Thats why i hate when people say they miss back when things were innocent and simple, because they really never were lol
For years, this book has been my go-to refutation of "oh, today was are so godless and decadent." People are people and there can be such loneliness in the human heart.
So true, and well said!
Fun fact: This book inspired Static X's album by the same name. From Wiki: When interviewed about the source of the title, Wayne Static explained, "[It's] actually a book title that we stole. It's been out of print for about 20 years. It's a historical book about life in this small town in Wisconsin from 1890 to 1900. And it's about everything that happened, but it focuses on people dying and how they died. And there are pictures of dead people as well as stuff about natural disasters and fires and stuff like that."
The title track is in my rotation since making this video :) Hadn’t seen the quote before tho, that’s great!
My mother had this on the bookshelf when we were kids. I remember staring at the pictures of dead children in their open coffins. It's good for kids to understand mortality, I guess.
Yeah, thought that would be a bit much for YT-it was a thing people did back then, though, and probably a pretty common subject for the town photographer
Freaking random ass UA-cam recommendation but I dig it. lol
Hey, thank you! I’m glad you liked it
Me too. Weird. Don’t know why or if I like it yet. Love books though … misfit and otherwise.
She’s a 1:28 hot one. If she doesn’t ever find out where you live of course.
Thanks for the reminder. This book was published while I was in college but, somehow, I never got around to reading it. I now have it on hold at my public library.
Then I’ve done my job :)
Wisconsin, especially WI north of the 45th parallel, is a strange strange state. And the winters get very long.
I’m shivering just thinking about it! :)
I love this. There are so many books and so little time. Instant subscriber and looking forward to more.
@@gutterpeach3145 Glad to hear it-more on the way! :)
It’s a document of the dark side of American capitalism during one of the bleakest periods of US history; the height of the Gilded Age and its negative effects, pre-any kind of economic social safety net, on the working people of US society and the intersection of so-called “mental health” issues, lawlessness, and vicious class conflict that is U.S. capitalism. The Great Depression produced a kind of lawlessness and misery documented by photographers and newspaper reporters too.
Our own experiences since 2008 have produced a similar kind of misery and sorrow that we self-document on social media.
Thanks for the video about this excellent book! New sub.
Thank you! This video--the images and stories, which are just a fraction of those contained in the book--really seems to have touched a nerve, and has really generated a lot of views and comments. Which is great, and I think is a testament to the book's power, but also a testament to what you're saying about the parallels between then and now, as we seem to have entered a new Gilded Age. Which is not so great.
I once found old photographs in an old abondoned house near my grandparent's in rural SE Texas. They were of the same family through several generations. There was one photo of the photographer who took many of them. I suspect it's one of the first selfies ever taken, with help i assume. His name was AJ Pearl.
Very nice!
Great review! Thanks for providing this.
I chanced upon a copy of this book in an excellent independent airport bookstore in St. Paul. I was on my way to Madison from there, and read WDT cover to cover on the way there… It definitely colored the experience of my own Wisconsin Trip!
It’s a great book, however. Very readable and the contents are well curated, making it an American Gothic milestone.
Thank you! Couldn’t agree more.
Welp. All of a sudden I have a new favorite you tube channel
Wow, thank you! Stay tuned… :)
I've had a copy of this book for years! Once read the Midwest will never seem the same again.
Nice! And you know I left some of the more extreme stuff out
@@leonhayes188 I read it years ago, and I remember the staggering amount of suicides, murder, and insanity. Definitely not a good place to live for many.
This IS the Midwest.
7:00 There were even custom headrests that photographers made / purchased that could be firmly clamped to the back of chairs to keep the subjects’ heads very very still to allow for sharp clear focus and exposure of the paying customer’s and his family members’ or associates’ faces while the photographer was focusing on his ground glass under the dark curtain, then swapping out the focusing screen ground glass for the photographic plate holder, removing its dark slide, and then opening the lens shutter for what could be long multi-second exposures. It was an elaborate multi-step process, and from the time the subject sat and “struck” the pose and facial expression desired until the shutter was opened and closed again could be up to a minute. To be sure the subjects’ faces didn’t move out of the depth of field of field once the photographer had focused the lens using the ground glass focusing screen such a head rest device was very helpful indeed!
Studio photographers had special chairs where these headrests were permanent components!
This was particularly important for kids who were apt to move unbidden from lack of discipline, and for the weak and for old subjects’ heads and allowed a measure of extra comfort and stillness especially for those who really needed it. The photographer couldn’t afford to lose the focus and have to explain to a paying client why one or more faces were out of focus. As cameras became quicker to set up and use and as emulsions and bacame faster and more light sensitive these headrests became less and less important.
Excellent! I didn't know about the headrests, but it makes total sense. I was hoping someone with actual photographic knowledge would participate--thanks for clarifying! :)
I read this brilliant book 50 years ago.
It’s been a while! Still feels very modern, at least to me :)
I remember seeing this book at bookstores in the 70s. It was reprinted a few years ago. Nearly everyone raised in the US has had a pretty sanitized view of life in the country in the past.
Agreed! And I’m glad it’s still in print :)
Great video 😃
Thank you! :)
So much more realistic than today's photos in which everyone is so fake. I can't smile on command for a picture; it's just not in me. I hate it. Life has been hard. When I was a toddler, my mother beat me before getting a professional photographer to take "picture perfect" photos of me. All because I wouldn't smile because I felt awkward.
She's a raging narcissistic anyway.
These days people are all about faking things. I feel bad for the woman whose father whipped her.
There's so much more behind a photo. Pictures of happy families have always freaked me out.
Is that weird?
I know I'm not the only one.
You aren’t the only one! “Fakebook”
So happy to find this channel ❤ My family is from Minnesota originally, so definitely get the weirdness.
Happy you found it too! :)
7:35 they where also trying quite hard not to blink especially bc that many people, the dramatic flash Blinking efforts on the forced pie eyes in my opinion
Yep, also true--and no way to immediately confirm whether the eyes were closed or not.
You didn't mention the death photos. People who often didn't have any other photos of a particular family member, would sometimes prop the dead body of that family member up, sometimes sitting next to their living brothers and sisters, and have Lesy photograph them. Those are some pretty eerie and disturbing looking photos.
I used to date a women who was a professional photographer and she had this book and a couple other books that featured Victorian age photos. The first time I opened this book a couple of photos really grabbed my attention. One was a women holding her newborn child in her lap. Even though she wasn't smiling or barely smiling, she had a look of pure love and joy on her face. Her happiness in that moment was captured perfectly for all to see. The second photo was of another women who also was holding her baby in her lap, except her baby was dead. The despair in that photo was just devastating to look upon.
Wisconsin Death Trip is a very interesting book, but it's not the kind of book you want to go through just before you go to bed. Some of it is real nightmare fuel.
I like that, “nightmare fuel”-absolutely. I didn’t feel including the photos of dead people (babies or otherwise) would be appropriate for a YT video, I didn’t want it to be too disturbing-but you’re absolutely right, it was a big part of the photographer’s job in that era. Yeesh
Really glad to have discovered this channel!
Glad you discovered it too! Welcome :)
Amazing and interesting video. keep goin'!
Hey, thank you! Appreciate the encouragement!
I've owned this book since it came out in 1973, bought soon after I moved to Wisconsin. I must have thought it was some kind of guidebook, this Northern Appalachian kid found the sky too damn big out there. My favorite takeaway from the book was the phrase, "deranged by religion", given as the reason in a few of the articles as why some folks ran amok, acting out their shack wackitude.
Yes! I so wanted to include that phrase somehow, but getting into the intake records was a whole other can of worms, and the video was already getting so long! Great point tho
Is the rock thrower related to Ernest T. Bass?
Haha-I think he’s a direct descendant!
Without a doubt
The book and the documentary are fantastic. I highly suggest the documentary. The atmosphere is absolutely gripping.
Agreed! The movie also adds color footage from Black River Falls from the 1990s, which adds yet another layer.
The photo alone those crazy eyes !
I know! Haunting... :)
Lets go Wisco!
I’ve spent time 3 summers recently at a friend’s place north of the Dells-absolutely loved it. Wisco ftw!
a more violent age.
very interesting. thank you my friend
Thank you! Glad you liked it.
I LOVE BOOKS! ❤.
Welcome, then! :)
@AisleofMisfitBooks thank you the more obscure the better and in my opinion there's nothing like the smell and feel of an old physical book looking forward to more content great job on this one! I subscribed immediately 💖
Awesome video man, i'm subbed now and im eagerly waiting for your next video, im getting a lil shack wacky myself 😂
haha - don't go shack wacky, please! Thanks for the sub and encouragement - it means a lot! Cheers
I lived In Madison in the 80s. I read this book during that time. Wow.
This video just now shown up in my feed, so of course I had to subscribe. 😊
By the way, I LOVE your channel name! Former B&N bookseller here.
Awesome, thank you! I was surprised it wasn’t taken :)
Okay, you've got my attention. Looking forward to more hidden gems!
Glad to hear it! Stay tuned! :)
My copy is around here somewhere. The number of 'drownings' in cisterns...
Oh man, so true! What a horrible way to go. Same holds for carbolic acid…
I have a copy of this book. Now I must find it and look through it again.
Well worth it!
You ended up on my recommendation list, which is creepy because it means "they" know I like odd, macabre things. Good guess. Subbed...looking forward to further videos. Much luck to you.
Haha-“they” seem to know everything! Thank you!
Wisconsin has ed gein and Jeffrey Dahmer and god knows who else to show this state is wacky
That’s a whole other level of horrifying :)
you have unlocked the skill: strange attractor
your reward: HELVETICA (2007)
edit: there are no such things as misfit books.
they prefer the term oversized
Hehe-or, elephant folio for oversized, duodecimo for under!
Thanks for the tip, Helvetica now on my list :)
10:57 was haunting. Even with the poor quality you can see the grief overwhelming her.
So true
I first found this book at a small library on a navy base in California. It interested me. In the 70's. Am a native of wisconsin.
Probably a first edition!
Interesting
Thank you!
That's a great book. I think I've given away a few copies as gifts-I know for sure I sent one to a friend in Geelong.…My partner was acquainted with the author, back in Madison, in the early '70s.
Nice! It really is one of a kind.
9:59 Surely that must be a snapshot, right?
In a way, though I bet they were posing, she just jumped up for some reason when she shouldn’t have. You can see she’s kind of blurry. There are some in the book that are more casual like this, less posed-I’m just saying most photos back then were posed. Good catch!
@@AisleofMisfitBooks Yeah, I wasn't trying to "catch you" being wrong. That picture's just different. It is certainly blurry, though.
@@TroubleToby3040 The one that looks most to me like a snap is the one where the two guys are in the office, and one is sitting on his head--that one cracks me up :)
Yeah, the best static-x song/album, get up on this Wisconsin death trip, get on it!
It’s a banger! In my rotation :)
@ hellz to the yellz, &. For those who disagree i say, what’s wrong dicky ding dong wing wing , or something like that.
I first heard about this book from a video put out by Ethel Cain of all people.
Interesting! It’s one of those books that makes an impression
It was a very interesting book!
Agreed!
3:52 Taking funny pictures of your friends is nothing new…
It was just a lot more expensive! :)
Check the skull on top of the desk
I wonder how many people depicted actually ever saw the photos of themselves
Almost all of them, I’d say-the subject or someone in the subject’s family (or group) paid the photographer, Van Schaick, to take them, for the most part. He might’ve had the only camera in town, which is funny to think of, now that we all have cameras in our pockets and record everything
Nobody is going to mistake you for being from Wisconsin with that pronunciation.
Haha-there were some doozies :)
Proud Pennsylvanian here, but I spent time three summers near Friendship north of the Dells, and absolutely loved it!
❤
05:55 AHHHHH!
Why does this video start mid-sentence with an unidentified "they" ?
I wonder if this book was the inspiration for "Static X's" album titled "Wisconsin Death Trip"?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Death_Trip_(album)
Must be-I saw that when I was researching for this video :)