Maybe beer made Milwaukee famous, but it was machinery — and the mastery of it that developed here — that made the city hum. Electricity-generating turbines for Hoover Dam. Steam shovels to dig the Panama Canal. Forges that shaped casings for the space shuttle’s booster rockets. Diving equipment used to set depth records. Rheostats to control electric motors. The first commercially available telephone answering machine. The first successful outboard motor.
Forget beer. Exhibition shows it was mastery of machinery that made Milwaukee hum.
