Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Wisconsin Death Trip

In trying to submerge myself in the culture of death I came across this book and eventually a movie that deals with a strange phenomenon that happened in Wisconsin in the 1890s. Due to an economic downturn and disease a lot of people there died (especially children) went mad, committed strange acts. Lots of very strange acts, both lethal and not. The movie is well worth seeing although extremely morbid. The book written many years earlier than the film has the newspaper accounts of the time and photographs of the dead. Anyone know any more about this? I'm into death so help me out!

Don: The posting where we were communcating got deleted inadvertently. Feel free to comment here instead.

A story of mine called "Quality Operations" appears today on Hardluck Stories. I'll add the link on the side.

5 comments:

Christa M. Miller said...

Let me ask my husband. He's a high school history teacher whose dad practically memorized all the lurid bits of human history. I'll get back to you.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Thanks, Christa. It may be the two covered all there is to know.

Christa M. Miller said...

Hmm, he says the book is out of print but I see there are cheap copies available at Abebooks: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&y=0&tn=wisconsin+death+trip&x=0

pattinase (abbott) said...

Christa-I got the book at the library. Thanks for your help.

anne frasier said...

i have the book and movie. love them both. a couple of years after i bought the book i stayed at a bed and breakfast in milwaukee, wisconsin, and found out the woman who owned the place was one of the set designers and had a few bit parts in the movie. some scenes were filmed in the B&B. i stayed in a room where a murder was filmed. pretty cool. she had the DVD, so i watched it that night, then bought my own copy later. anyway, i've been a real fan of both book and movie for a long time.