Finding Solace Along Walnut Avenue: Settlement and Turnover in a Milwaukee Ethnic Neighborhood

Abstract

This paper uses the interdisciplinary skills obtained through both history and geography classes and takes a glance at the history of a specific neighborhood in Milwaukee known today as Bronzeville. Over the course of a century, this neighborhood had witnessed the in-migration and out-migration of three distinct ethnic groups: German Jewish immigrants, Russian Jewish immigrants and African American migrants. This case study works to evaluate the ways in which all three of these groups have altered the cultural urban landscape of Walnut Avenue in distinctly different ways, impacting the economy, family life, and the general composition of the neighborhood’s businesses and services district. By focusing on the ways that each of these immigrant groups altered this specific space, not only is one able to draw conclusions about the area’s history and foreign influences, but also about the progression of each specific group of people as they integrate into the typical American lifestyle.