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by Gail Klein (Author)
"The great concerns of the southern states have made their products so well known that few people realized that tobacco can be grown elsewhere than Virginia and Cuba." - Clarence Olson, Edgerton Reporter, 1953
Widely known as America's Dairyland, Wisconsin also has a long, fertile history with tobacco. For centuries, Indigenous tribes cultivated it for spiritual, medicinal, and ceremonial purposes. First introduced commercially in Dane and Rock Counties, and later Vernon County, the crop earned a reputation among generations of local farmers as the "mortgage lifter." Specializing in the broadleaf tobacco used to bind cigars, local farms became major producers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--a lifeline for newly arrived Norwegian immigrants. Ultimately, the state's golden age of tobacco spawned the creation of the country's first cooperative tobacco marketing association.
Author and Wisconsin historian Gail Klein surveys the Badger State's historic tobacco regions and the agricultural commodity's lasting impact.
Author Biography
Gail Klein is a professional historian and historic preservation consultant with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has conducted extensive research on various Wisconsin history topics and has documented hundreds of historic buildings and landscapes across the state. Gail lives in Stoughton, Wisconsin, with her family.
