The cover to Stuart Levitan's 'Madison: The Illustrated History.'
Author Stuart D. Levitan will appear at the Wisconsin Book Festival on Oct. 27.
Adapted from Madison, Volume 2: The Illustrated History, 1932–1979 by Stuart D. Levitan. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press.
Madison changed in many fundamental ways from 1932 to 1979, becoming a better city in most respects. This was usually due to the same national economic and social trends and events that affected other cities, but with a Madison twist.
The greatest change — for the good — was the democratization of political power, so it was no longer held exclusively by upper middle-class, middle-aged straight white males. Thanks to the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, gay rights, a constitutional amendment, and some local conditions, the 1970s brought common councils with nine women (1979), eight alders under age 29 (1973), and four Black members (1971). I don’t know what most Madisonians of the 1930s would have thought of all that, but I know they would have noticed.
The city itself also got more racially diverse, as the combination of historic local legislation in the 1960s and state and federal enactments and court orders ended the earlier era’s pervasive and legal racial discrimination in housing. The accompanying economic and social segregation largely continued.
Beyond the three liberation movements, the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution also played a decisive role in city government by enfranchising 18- to 20-year-olds; most were university students, already well politicized by the war in Vietnam.
In 1971, the last city election before its ratification, arch-conservative Mayor William Dyke easily won reelection; future progressive state powerhouse Mary Lou Munts lost decisively to a conservative businessman, and conservative former mayor George Forster, 65, beat future county supervisor and treasurer Elizabeth Salmon, 39.
But in 1972, the student vote was instrumental in powering several upsets, especially the election of energetic progressive Andrew Cohn, 24, to the council seat formerly held by fair housing opponent Ald. Harold Rohr, and attorney Archie Simonson’s defeat of conservative county judge Russell J. Mittlestadt.
And in the record-turnout election of 1973, Ald. Paul Soglin, 27, carried the four student-dominated central city districts by almost 9,000 votes in beating Dyke by nearly 3,400 votes in the mayoral election. Eight alders elected that day were also in their 20s, setting the council’s course for years to come.
Within a few years, the activist, progressive mayor and council solved one of the city’s longest-standing challenges — building a civic auditorium and civic center…. Madison began a concerted effort to build a civic auditorium and exhibition hall in 1922 and kept trying every decade thereafter. It finally succeeded just two years after 18-year-olds first voted, when the council ratified Soglin’s offer to buy the Capitol Theater and turn it into the Madison Civic Center.
The considerable accomplishment of developing the Civic Center did not settle the bitter controversy over a municipal convention center that (spoiler alert!) finally ended with the opening of the Frank Lloyd Wright–derived Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center in July 1997. In his second administration, Soglin was again instrumental, along with Gov. Tommy Thompson, banker George Nelson (also critical in the Civic Center saga), and a broad coalition of labor, business, and community groups. Also key — financial support from the Dane County Board, highlighting the transformational legal and political realignment that began with several U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the early 1960s requiring equal protection in state elections.…
Soglin’s student-powered election also marked a fundamental, and apparently permanent, shift in executive control of the city.
Madison had nine permanent mayors and two city managers during this period; five mayors and both city managers were Republican (or GOP-adjacent), governing for 30 of the 47 years. Conservative chief executives held office continuously from 1932 to 1955 and even maintained their power for half of the supposedly liberal 1960s.
But since 1973, the city has elected only Democratic (or Democrat-adjacent) mayors, espousing varying degrees of liberalism. No conservative or business candidate has even made it to the general election since Nino Amato’s surprising primary win in 1977.
