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Peter Shrake
The Wisconsin Historical Society Speakers Bureau offers an exciting opportunity for our historians, curators and authors to visit your community and share the stories of our great state.
In the early 19th century Wisconsin was a region in flux. The War of 1812 had concluded. Populations and governments were shifting. The British were a recent memory and Indian nations grappled with the onset of American authority. The fur trade, still an important but declining part of the economy, now rubbed elbows with emerging mining, lumber, agriculture, and fishing interests. Join author and historian Peter Shrake as he explores this tumultuous 30 period in our state's history, from the end of the War of 1812 to statehood in 1848.
Peter Shrake is a lifelong resident of Wisconsin. He earned his master's degree in History from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a master's degree of library and information studies from the University of Wisconsin. For eight years, Shrake served as the Executive Director of the Sauk County Historical Society. He also worked for a number of years as an archivist for the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin. Since 2011, he has been the archivist at the Robert L. Parkinson Library at Circus World. Shrake has written numerous articles, published in a variety of scholarly journals, relating to upper Midwest and circus history and is the author of the book The Silver Man: The Life and Times of Indian Agent John Kinzie, published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press in 2016. He lives in Baraboo with his wife, Kim, and his sons, Ethan and Ben.
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