Carl Minkley (November 14, 1866 – July 26, 1937) was an

interior decorator Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. With a keen eye for detail and a creative flair, an interior ...

housepainter A house painter and decorator is a tradesperson responsible for the painting and decorating of buildings, and is also known as a decorator, or house painter.''The Modern Painter and Decorator'' volume 1 1921 Caxton The purpose of painting is t ...

labor movement The labour movement is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considere ...

activist and

Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America ...

politician from

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

who served two terms in the

Wisconsin State Assembly The Wisconsin State Assembly is the lower house of the Wisconsin Legislature. Together with the smaller Wisconsin Senate, the two constitute the legislative branch of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The Assembly is controlled by the Republican ...

(as well as being an

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denotin ...

for the City of Milwaukee).

Background

Minkley was born in Strelno (now Strzelno), in what was then the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

, on November 14, 1866. He attended the

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and studied designing for interior decoration in the trade schools of

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, Germany. He became a member of his

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

in 1887, and was elected a delegate from the city of Berlin to its national convention in 1890. Minkley came to the

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in 1892, settling in Milwaukee in 1893. He was a delegate to the national convention of the Brotherhood of Decorators and Painters of America. He became a member of the

, became the state organizer of the Socialist Party (known in Wisconsin at the "Social-Democratic Party"), and served as a delegate to the national Socialist convention in 1912.

Elective office

Minkley was appointed as alderman-at-large in the city of Milwaukee by mayor

Emil Seidel Emil Seidel (December 13, 1864 – June 24, 1947) was an American woodworker, patternmaker and politician. Seidel was the mayor of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912. The first Socialist mayor of a major city in the United States, Seidel became the vice ...

, to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of

Victor L. Berger Victor Luitpold Berger (February 28, 1860August 7, 1929) was an Austrian–American socialist politician and journalist who was a founding member of the Social Democratic Party of America and its successor, the Socialist Party of America. Born in ...

after Berger's 1910 election to

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

. Minkley was first elected a member of the Assembly in the Fourth district of

Milwaukee County Milwaukee County () is a county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. At the 2020 census, the population was 939,489, down from 947,735 in 2010. It is both the most populous and most densely populated county in Wisconsin, containing about 1 ...

(20th and 22nd

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s of the City of Milwaukee) in 1912, with 2365 votes to 1969 for independent Paul G. Dorow, 1331 for Republican Max J. Leutermann, and 54 for

Prohibitionist Prohibitionism is a legal philosophy and political theory often used in lobbying which holds that citizens will abstain from actions if the actions are typed as unlawful (i.e. prohibited) and the prohibitions are enforced by law enforcement.C Canty ...

Peter J. Norgaaard, succeeding his fellow Socialist Max E. Binner (Binner, whose old district had been split up after the

1910 United States Census The 1910 United States census, conducted by the Census Bureau on April 15, 1910, determined the resident population of the United States to be 92,228,496, an increase of 21 percent over the 76,212,168 persons enumerated during the 1900 census ...

, did not run for re-election.) Minkley served on the Assembly's Committee on Municipalities. In 1914, he was re-elected by a narrow margin, with 2295 votes to 2209 for Republican Walter F. Mayer. He was assigned to the Committee on the Judiciary for the 1915-1916 Assembly session. In May 1915, he requested an indefinite leave of absence, as the $500 salary and what money he had earned as a housepainter while the Assembly was not in session was insufficient to pay his expenses in

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. While in the Assembly, he continued his work as Socialist Party state organizer. He was succeeded in the Assembly in the 1916 election by fellow Socialist Henry Ohl, Jr.

After the Assembly

After leaving the Assembly, Minkley continued as an activist. He frequently appeared before the legislature on behalf of Socialist legislation or on behalf of unions. As a lobbyist for the Brewery Workers Union, he wrote, published and distributed 2,500,000 copies of a pamphlet against

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

, and appeared before the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

and five state legislatures in opposition to it. When the

Milwaukee City Hall The Milwaukee City Hall is a skyscraper and town hall located in Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. It was finished in 1895, and was Milwaukee's tallest building until completion of the U.S. Bank Center (Milwaukee), First Wisconsin ...

's Council Chambers were remodelled in 1931, Minkley contributed a

stencil Stencilling produces an image or pattern on a surface by applying pigment to a surface through an intermediate object, with designed holes in the intermediate object. The holes allow the pigment to reach only some parts of the surface creatin ...

design for the ceiling and anteroom on the theme "Human Endeavor and Progress". This led to some complaints from the Milwaukee Art Commission, which condemned the designs as the product of "a painter, not an artist." In 1934 he was the Socialist nominee for the Fifth

Wisconsin State Senate The Wisconsin Senate is the upper house of the Wisconsin State Legislature. Together with the Wisconsin State Assembly they constitute the legislative branch of the state of Wisconsin. The powers of the Wisconsin Senate are modeled after those o ...

District, garnering 6,458 votes to 10,435 for Democrat Harold Schoenecker, 6,916 for Republican Bernhard Gettleman, and 5.674 for Progressive Gustave Dick. Minkley's rhetoric was often vigorous. During a 1935 rally in the Assembly chamber in favor of a bill to create a state corporation to operate shuttered factories and employ jobless workers, he told the Assembly that if the bill did not pass, its supporters would return at the next session with

baseball bats A baseball bat is a smooth wooden or metal club used in the sport of baseball to hit the ball after it is thrown by the pitcher. By regulation it may be no more than in diameter at the thickest part and no more than in length. Although histor ...

"to drive you out." In 1937, Minkley was state secretary of the Socialist Party, and expressed the Party's concern that the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...

was "a breeding spot for militarism or Fascism."

Personal life

On September 29, 1934, he married Anna Hunter, a widow whom he'd met at the Wisconsin Socialist Party annual picnic in Pleasant Prairie. He already had six children (Carl, Nora, Carla, Clio, Eric and Kurt) by a prior marriage. He died July 26, 1937, of a

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

."Carl Minkley Stroke Victim" ''Milwaukee Journal'' July 27, 1937; p. 1, col. 5

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Minkley, Carl 1866 births 1937 deaths American interior designers Emigrants from the German Empire to the United States House painters Members of the Wisconsin State Assembly Wisconsin city council members German trade unionists Politicians from Milwaukee People from Strzelno Politicians from the Province of Posen Socialist Party of America politicians from Wisconsin 20th-century members of the Wisconsin Legislature