Evansville

I spent the day driving to and from a baby shower in Evansville, Wisconsin, a quaint town of about 5,700 people west of Janesville. It has a historic downtown that the state's historical society may consider the best collection of late 19th-century architecture of any small town in the state. 

As we were driving back to Minnesota, I thought I would check out the town's Wikipedia page, and I came across this startling bit of information, which is attributed to a story from the Janesville Gazette:

On November 11, 1918, Armistice Day activities celebrating the end of World War I took an ugly turn as some Evansville citizens began rounding up townspeople who they had deemed insufficiently supportive of the war, mainly due to their refusal or inability to buy war bonds. A German minister and his wife were apprehended on their way out of town before being brought downtown and forced to kiss the American flag. Other "slackers" were made to wear sleighbells as they rode atop a car's radiator, while others were forced to dance in a snake formation around a bonfire. A 73-year-old woman who passed on participating in the "Your Share is Fair" war bond campaign was dragged from her home by the mob, placed in a large animal cage and paraded about the streets before being parked before the fire. The woman, Mary J. Shaw, had previously bought bonds and supported the Red Cross and other war relief efforts. After refusing to salute or kiss the flag she was rescued by other citizens. Her attempts to see her assailants punished were brushed aside by the local sheriff, and testimony before the state legislature was similarly disregarded.

In case you don't know, there were many German-Americans and German immigrants in Wisconsin (and also many in Minnesota). Mary Shaw does not sound like a German name, however; she sounds like a person who didn't want to be forced to do things. 

By coincidence, later in the day today I saw this posted to Twitter in reference to the current Florida restrictions on AP curriculum, intended as a "there's nothing new under the sun" post:

A commenter replied with this:

It got pretty ugly in Milwaukee during WWI, there were even bans on the teaching of German, tons of pro war practices, teachers investigated for being pro German etc.

Out in New York State, my own German American great-grandparents and all their descendants Americanized the spelling of their name some time during World War I. I'll bet they bought a lot of war bonds to show their loyalty.