Immigration has been at the center of Milwaukee’s growth and development since the very beginning of the city, which was founded in 1846.
Perhaps no one has told Milwaukee’s story better than historian John Gurda. In his 1999 book “The Making of Milwaukee,” Gurda wrote, “Milwaukee was the most ‘foreign’ city in America in the 1800s and its German accent was unmistakable.”
People had lived in the area that became Milwaukee for more than 13,000 years before the first Europeans arrived, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society. Several American Indian tribes were living in the area when Europeans arrived. Father Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary, left the first written record of the Milwaukee area in 1674. Other French explorers followed in the late 1600s.
According to the Wisconsin Historical Society, Milwaukee’s modern history began in 1795 when fur trader Jacques Vieau built a post along a bluff on the East Side, overlooking the Milwaukee and Menomonee rivers. In 1818, Vieau transferred his Milwaukee assets to his son-in-law Solomon Juneau, the founder of the City of Milwaukee and its first permanent white resident.
Between 1835 and 1850, Milwaukee’s population grew from a handful of fur traders to more than 20,000 settlers who moved from the East Coast seeking opportunities here following the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825.
After 1846, when Milwaukee was incorporated as a city, a wave of German immigrants arrived in Milwaukee. Crop failures, economic distress and political unrest drove many Germans to come to America, and many of them came to Milwaukee, which “became the most German city in the most German state in the union,” Gurda wrote in “The Making of Milwaukee.”
One of the Germans who moved to Milwaukee was Frederick Miller, who arrived in 1855 at the age of about 30. Miller learned the brewing business in Europe. In Milwaukee he purchased the Plank Road Brewery and founded the Miller Brewing Company.
Johann Gottlieb Friedrich “Frederick” Pabst, who was born in Prussia (a major German state), immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 12 with his parents. He became a ship’s captain and married the daughter of Jacob Best, the owner of a small brewery. After a shipping accident, Pabst bought into his father-in-law’s brewing company, which eventually became known as Pabst Brewing Company and became one of the largest brewers in the U.S.
While Milwaukee began as a village of transplanted Yankees, by 1850, 64% of the city’s population was foreign born, according to Gurda. In addition to the massive German population, immigrants came to Milwaukee from numerous other European countries, including Ireland.
Patrick Cudahy Jr. was born in Ireland a few months before his family immigrated to Milwaukee. He later worked his way up at the Plankinton and Armour meat packing plant in Milwaukee, becoming superintendent in 1874. In 1888, the owner, John Plankinton, transferred the company to Patrick and his brother, John. They incorporated the business as Cudahy Brothers Co. In 1893 Patrick Cudahy moved the business to Cudahy, which he established and promoted as an industrial city. The family maintained control of the firm until 1971. Today the Patrick Cudahy brand is owned by Smithfield Foods Inc.
Germans were by far the largest group of immigrants in Milwaukee until Polish immigrants began arriving in large numbers and became Milwaukee’s second-largest ethnic group in the 1880s, according to Gurda.
Beginning in the early 20th century, and especially after World War II, African Americans migrated from the South to Milwaukee for industrial jobs. By the 1970s, they made up a significant share of the city’s population.
Starting in the mid-20th century, Mexican and later Puerto Rican migrants arrived in Wisconsin for both industrial and agricultural work. Milwaukee’s Hispanic population grew from less than 2% of the city’s population in 1960 to more than 6% in 1990, with at least 40,000.
The city’s Asian population grew at an even faster pace from 3,600 in 1980 to 11,635 in 1990. Most were Southeast Asians, including Hmong, Laotian and Vietnamese refugees who came after the Vietnam War. Many had fought with the U.S in the war and left in exile, according to Gurda.
The City of Milwaukee’s population peaked in 1960 at 741,324, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It has been in decline ever since and was at 577,222 in 2020. The city’s population would have shrunk at an even faster pace if not for the influx of immigrants that have continued to move to Milwaukee.
