Book Club

If you are interested in history – whether it is local, regional, or national history – the Center has an exciting and fun activity. The SCHRC is hosting a historical-themed book club.

Book club is now held at the Research Center on the upper level (no elevator access), 518 Water Street. The book club is held from 1 to 2:30 pm. Participants are responsible for obtaining their own copy of the book.

September 16

September’s book selection is Wrecked: The Edmund Fitzgerald and the Sinking of the American Economy (2025) by Thomas M. Nelson with Jerald Podair.

Wrecked links the story of America’s most infamous shipwreck to the story of an even larger disaster—the wreck of the American industrial economy. When the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975, more was lost than the ship and the twenty-nine lives on board. The disaster was a human tragedy as well as an indictment of the American industrial policies that eventually cost the nation thousands of jobs and marooned hundreds of communities. Written with a passionate yet factually grounded intensity, Wrecked shows that the reasons for the decline of industrial manufacturing in the upper Midwest are linked to why the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, and to the legal turmoil that followed for the victims’ families. The book conveys the sense of loss that still is felt by those affected, along with the outrage over the disappearance of manufacturing jobs and the inadequate maintenance and legal maneuvering over liability for the sinking of the ship. What follows is a fascinating critique of what went wrong and why.

November 18

November’s book selection is Wisconsin for Kennedy: The Primary That Launched a President and Changed the Course of History (2024) by BJ. Hollars.

When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, he did something no candidate had done before: he leveraged the power of state primaries to win his party’s nomination. Kennedy’s first battleground state? Wisconsin—a state that would prove more arduous, more exhausting, and more crucial to winning the presidency than any other.

Wisconsin for Kennedy brings to life the stories behind JFK’s history-making 1960 Wisconsin primary campaign, and how Kennedy’s team managed to outmaneuver his politically seasoned opponent, Hubert Humphrey. From Jackie Kennedy commandeering a supermarket loudspeaker in Kenosha, to the Wisconsin forklift driver who planned President Kennedy’s final trip to Dallas, this captivating book places readers at the heart of the action.