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Madison in the Sixties

Topical tales of Madison's influential people and critical events from long ago.

Madison in the Sixties, the end of March

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Madison in the Sixties – the end of March 1960                More than a thousand students pack old Music Hall past legal capacity for Sen. John F Kennedy’s last local appearance before the April 5 presidential primary. University workers lock the doors, leaving several hundred students out in the snow – until one of them finds […]

Madison in the Sixties – the second week of March

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1963                When attorney Albert McGinnis, chair of the Madison Redevelopment Authority, decided to run against Mayor Henry Reynolds, he knew that urban renewal would become an issue in the campaign. A week after McGinnis stuns Reynolds in the March 5 primary it does, as the mayor attacks the MRA over the Triangle project, where the […]

Madison, Feb. 21-22, 1967: Dow 1– the Skirmish

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Getting the Dow Chemical Company to stop making the incendiary gel Napalm B for use in Vietnam became a priority for the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) when the Ann Arbor chapter launched a protest campaign against the Michigan- based company in August 1966. Six months later, the Madison SDS steps up. Tuesday morning, February […]

Madison, the third week of February in the sixties

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1960 Sen. John F Kennedy begins his Wisconsin presidential primary campaign at 5:30 in the morning of February 16, shaking hands with about a third of the 1,500 first-shift workers arriving at the Oscar Mayer company plant gates. With neither hat nor gloves, his only concession to the frigid February weather, a topcoat and scarf […]

Madison, the second week of February

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Madison in the sixties, the second week of February An important week for university expansion. In 1961, the regents authorize vice president A.W. Peterson to start buying land for the massive $30 million South East Dormitory project which will create about 4,000 housing units. Exactly one year later, the regents approve $6.4 million in contracts […]

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