The library is more than just books, and our series with the Milwaukee Public Library (MPL) – Books and Beyond – showcases that by sharing resources, book recommendations and just some cool stuff you might not know about.
MPL’s Great Lakes Marine Collection is compiled of books, magazines, journals directories, logbooks and photos. There are also 12,000 ship files that date all the way back to 1650, making it a great collection for maritime enthusiasts to explore.
The collection's existence is thanks in large part to local expert Herman Runge giving his entire marine collection to the library in 1958, according to special collections librarian Tobias Fudge.
"He was a collector he worked for the Milwaukee Road, and so that afforded him a lot of travel but he was a hoarder," says Fudge. "I mean, he collected so much extensively on the Great Lakes ships ... I know some of the managers [at the library] had been in talks with him trying to get this collection for some time. And then a year after that, that's when the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society was founded to help process it and also to get other collections and just preserve and protect all this information on the Great Lakes and the ships."
For Anna Lardinois, author of Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes, being able to come see the collection in person was key to sharing Great Lakes maritime history.
"This collection captured my attention since the moment I saw it, just walking into the Humanities room and seeing any models of ships that are legendary wrecks just helped me dive into their stories so much deeper," she explains. "Being able to see 3D models of them really help me better understand the tragedies I was writing about - and help me figure out how to explain them to other people who also haven't seen boats that look like that."
The Great Lakes Marine Collection is also something that will continue to grow and change as new shipwrecks are discovered with better technology.
For example, Fudge points to Captain Pete's Maritime Maps (included in gallery below). "A lot of attention to the actual images of the ships were added, and you can see he added multiple pages to be able to fit all the different wrecks from the different lakes," he explains. "I've seen them break down wreck information by which lake, just chronology which decade it happened, in the type of way that the ships were sunk, so yeah there's a lot different ways of looking at the same information."
"Over 30,000 sailors have lost their lives on the Great Lakes and those are modern numbers," adds Lardinois. "Since we have been looking at ships that number grows every year and so there's just infinite room for those stories to be told."
![Caesar, Pete. Lake Michigan: Great Shipwrecks [publisher not identified], 1977.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f384069/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6740x4151+0+4163/resize/880x542!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8b%2F24%2Fe34e16af4f9ea22861d9daf6bc8c%2Flake-michigan-great-shipwrecks-i-lady-elgin.jpg)
![Caesar, Pete. Lake Michigan: Great Shipwrecks [publisher not identified], 1977.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ca3e080/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6715x4136+0+1257/resize/880x542!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8e%2Fd9%2F9828fa4544bfb1dade55e398889c%2Flake-michigan-great-shipwrecks-iii-eastland.jpg)
Frederickson, Arthur C., and Lucy F Frederickson. Frederickson's Treasure Chart of Lost Ships and Cargoes in the Frankfort, Michigan Area: 200 Miles, 200 Ships, 2 Billion Dollars A.C. & L.F. Frederickson, 1957.
Outside of the Great Lakes, MPL's collection also explores Milwaukee Waterways with over 50,000 images of activity on the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers. Milwaukee began as a Great Lakes port in 1835, and the collection shows the variety of materials and vessels that have passed through the Port throughout its history.
"Milwaukee wouldn't exist were it not for it where all these rivers come together," notes Fudge.
If you are interested in exploring any of the Great Lakes Marine Collection in person, you can stop by the Frank P. Zeidler Humanities Room on the second floor of Central Library, contact MPL archives online, or join the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society for their Treasures of the Great Lakes series on Mondays.
