Milwaukee is the largest city in Wisconsin and the nineteenth largest in the United States. Known as the Cream City (for the cream-colored bricks produced there), Brew City (for its many breweries), and the German Athens (for its once-dominant German population), Milwaukee was still known at the end of the twentieth century for its bratwurst, ethnic festivals, and innovative city government. Milwaukee's history has been marked by the long terms of its mayors. The nonpartisan format of local elections (a socialist reform) produced remarkable stability in the mayoralty, as only three men held the job between 1948 and 2000.

The area now known as Milwaukee (opinions differ as to the exact Native American meaning of the name, but the most likely is "gathering place") was the home to various settlements after at least A.D. 400. The first permanent white settlements began in the early 1830s, following the lead of the French Canadian fur trader Solomon Juneau. Other early noteworthies included Byron Kilbourn and George Walker, whose names persisted in street and neighborhood names. In its early years, Milwaukee vied with Chicago as a Great Lakes port, but the coming of the railroad cemented Chicago's place as the predominant metropolis of the Middle West.

The late nineteenth century saw the arrival of a large Polish population to rival the Germans, Irish, and British who had arrived earlier; this new group left its mark on the landscape of the city's South Side, although relatively few Poles remained at the end of the twentieth century. Additions to Milwaukee's ethnic mix during that century included large Hispanic and African American populations, as well as other small groups.