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Nash Motors Company of Kenosha, Wisconsin, was so dedicated to the idea of aerodynamics that it charged $9 extra for the George Petty-designed flying lady hood ornament on its 1949 Ambassador sedan. The plush, post-war "Airflyte" Ambassador featured technological innovations such a single welded "unibody" (frame and body are one), enclosed front wheels, (hydramatic) automatic transmission, and reclining seats that formed a twin bed. Known as the "make-out" auto of choice by the teens of the 1950s, the Ambassador had a streamlined tear-drop shaped back, cockpit-like instrument panel with uniscope instrument grouping, and a spaceous trunk. Referred to as "Miss Upside-Down Bathtub of 1949" by Tom McCahill in Mechanix Illustrated, it sold for about $2,200 and was alternately called the "Kenosha Cadillac" or "Kenosha Duesenberg." Just a little over a half-century later, the former Nash Motors factory on 110 acres near Lake Michigan was considered a blight. After morphing into Nash-Kelvinator then American Motors (AMC) then Chyrsler, the plant closed in 2010 and demolition began in December 2012. Surviving Ambassadors remain as a monument to the idealism of an American ingenuity that believed in the possibility of a faster and sleeker vessel to transport the human body through space and time. We purchased a 1949 Ambassador from a guy named Kurt in Idaho Falls, Idaho in November of 2012 for about the original selling price including shipping. The last time he started the car before sending it on its way to our farm in Wisconsin, Kurt said "she purred like a kitten." And she did. On Thursday, September 26, 2013 John Shimon, accompanied by artist Matt Chung, drove the auto through the Wisconsin countryside passing corn fields, verdant forests, and an aqua Lake Michigan to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. On the trip, it got 25-30 miles per gallon due to its economical 6-cylinder engine, overdrive transmission, and aerodynamic body design. As part of our WE GO FROM WHERE WE KNOW exhibition at the JMKAC, it will be filled with over 1,000 cast concrete corn cobs memorializing a childhood memory of a Nash repurposed as a corn crib while contemplating the contemporary role of corn as food and fuel in the US.  Matt Chung made this video documenting the journey:

John A. Trumble tapped into the fashion sensibilities of the swinging 1960s to depict "Native Winnebago Indians" in Wisconsin Dells. Kicky mini-skirted "Indian Maidens" and groovy long-haired bell-bottom wearing Indian boys predated Cher's glittery-feathered cover of a ballad of Cherokee-strife called "Half-Breed" in 1973 (written by Al Capps and Mary Dean). Trumble's images fueled the Wisconsin "tourism craze" for hiring native Americans as Wisconsin River Guides in the 1960s and 1970s. Selling autopgraphed postcard portraits of the guides for profit was integral and working for the tourism industry provided a livlihood for displaced Ho-Chunk (then known as Winnebago) whose other alternative was working the cranberry bogs. Though there is little evidence of Trumble's work accessible to us today, we note he self-published a 31 page book of his photographs titled The Dells of the Wisconsin River in 1965 and left a legacy of these kitschy Native American chic postcards to ponder.

Little blonde girl wearing red coat and saddle shoes points to rock formations on this postcard promoting Cave of the Mounds. A performative photographic ploy to direct viewer attention in a vast dark space. Cave of the Mounds is often referred to as the "jewel box of America's major caves because of the variety, color and delicacy of its formations,"in tourist materials. The Cave was discovered on August 4, 1939 on a Wisconsin farm during a blasting session to mine limestone... eventually becoming a tourist attraction with spaces with names like Painted Waterfall, Gem Room, and Dream River Room. Hosting millions of visitors with a gift shop, hiking trails, and Prairie and Savanna Restoration Gardens, the land formation acts as spectacle like nearby Wisconsin Dells.

Minocqua's website boasts of November being the opening of deer hunting season, which is "practically an official holiday and an important part of our Northwoods heritage." Ike Eisenhower was a "regular Minocqua visitor" due to its wilderness beauty and the town is the birthplace of the Association of Wisconsin Snowmobile clubs. This postcard of young "Deers" grazing shows the creatures inhabiting a landscape of birch and cedar where they became a spectacle for the Minocqua tourist of yore.

The bears of Milwaukee once existed in a simulated natural landscape while spectators,
empowered by a 15 foot moat, ogled them from afar at the Washington Park Zoo. After seeing Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, this scene takes on sinister overtones though the sender of this card saw the barless bear den as visual proof of Milwaukee's dynamism:
"Having a wonderful time here. A big and growing city.
Weather nice and warm. Edith Allard"
Post marked August 24, 1953