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Videos, Podcasts, and Photo Presentations

We hope you enjoy the video, podcasts, and photos presented here. The Chippewa Valley Museum collects, preserves, and displays important, regional, cultural artifacts from the Chippewa Valley. If you enjoy this content please make a donation.

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Hmong in Eau Claire Web Exhibit

The Hmong in Eau Claire can trace their historic roots to southern China. In the early 1800s, Imperial China began suppressing the Hmong and other ethnic minorities. This timeline begins when large numbers of Hmong left southern China and resettled in the mountains of Southeast Asia. Learn more in this special web exhibit.

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Hmong in EC Banner

Sounds Like Home Podcasts

The Sounds Like Home audio series covers music and everyday life in Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley. In six episodes, we present the voices of regional musicians telling their own stories.

Sounds Like Home is an initiative of the Chippewa Valley Museum. It’s a regional music documentation project that spans field research, a museum exhibit, and this podcast. Sounds Like Home is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts with additional funding by the Wisconsin Arts Board.


Eau Claire’s Larry Lompa introduces us to the accordion’s lesser-known cousin, the Chemnitzer concertina. His own cousin, Bob Cynor, explains the Polish polka subgenre of Chicago “honky” music.


The members of Lac Du Flambeau drum group Tomahawk circle describe life on the intertribal powwow circuit. Accordion player Ryan Herman reminisces about how he started gigging with his dad’s band, the Rhythm Playboys.



Theresa Slipek describes secretly shirking household chores to teach herself the concertina. Iris Carufel talks about interpreting gender roles across Native American music contexts.



Imam Tamer Abdelaziz discusses the significance of the performing voice in Muslim worship. Iris Carufel describes summoning the courage to perform her topical slam poetry.



Theresa Slipek recalls braving a winter storm to play concertina at a friend’s memorial service. Members of Tomahawk Circle share their memories of a lost relative and music mentor.


La Realeza del Sur talks about resituating Oaxacan Chilena music in Arcadia. Isaak Mohamed describes working with Somali students to stage cultural heritage events for a rural American audience.

Nyckelharpa: A traditional Swedish instrument

Ian Holzman talks about his experience discovering and playing the Nyckelharpa (a traditional Swedish folk instrument). Earl Holzman tells us about how he builds these instruments.



The project was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.



House Story: Researching the History of a House

This virtual presentation, prepared for the Chippewa Valley Museum, explores the steps to researching the history of a house in the Chippewa Valley. The step by step approach presented here showcases some of the tools and resources that can support house history research. The presenter is Greg Kocken, Head Special Collections Librarian and University Archivist at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.


If you have questions relating to House Story:Researching the History of a House please contact us at info@cvmuseum.com or use our contact form,

Download or print the House Story Links and Resource Guide 

Pioneer Breweries of Western Wisconsin 

The story of Wisconsin includes the stories of many different cultures. Each made their contributions, often by bringing important elements of their culture with them when they arrived. In the case of the German community, that meant the establishment of many small breweries. While most of these breweries went under before Prohibition, a few limped out of it and now many new ones are springing up! Join Dr. Wolter through a virtual program looking at breweries from Chippewa Valley’s past, some of which would have been within sight of the Museum! 


If you have questions relating to Pioneer Breweries of Western Wisconsin please contact us at info@cvmuseum.com or use our contact form,

Check out Tim Wolter's Detritus of Empire site.


A Piece of Hmong: Mai Xee Xiong Creates a Hmong New Year's Hat

The Chippewa Valley Museum worked with local Hmong textile artist Mai Xee Xiong and the Eau Claire Area Hmong Mutual Assistance Association to create a video documenting Xiong's immigration story and the process of making a traditional Hmong New Year's hat. The video is featured in CVM's new exhibit Changing Currents: Reinventing the Chippewa Valley.



The project was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Barn Stories: Collected in 2001

Folklorists study the informal ways we learn, and our everyday expressions of what we find beautiful and important in life -- from making a quilt to celebrate a special occasion, to creating art from tools and objects we find around us, to planting corn in straight, perfect rows. In our stories, we also choose whats most important to us. And our stories happen in places important to us: our living rooms and kitchens, our churches and taverns, our workshops and barns. -- Ruth Olson, Associate Director, Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures. One of four parts.







Explore photos from the John Till Virtual Exhibit below.

    John Till, 1908.
    He didn’t look like a Doctor. John Till was usually unshaven, barefoot, and wore earrings. But odds were good he could help you. Born in Austria, he immigrated to Wisconsin in 1898.

    John Till, 1908-1910.
    He worked first as a lumberjack near Almena, about 60 miles north of here. He began healing people with a special technique he’d learned from a Swiss doctor. By mixing Croton oil (now considered highly dangerous) and kerosene into a paste, he applied it to a person's back to draw out illness.

    Crowding their way in to be treated by John Till, Almena, 1908-1910. Word spread across the Chippewa Valley and people came in droves—some from as far away as Canada. Local residents benefited from Till's success, renting rooms and serving meals to his patients. He worked 16 hour days, but didn’t charge for his services.

    Crowd waiting outside Till Hotel to see John Till, 1908-1910.
    My mother had a tumor growing under her arm. It was operated on but it grew again. So she went to Dr. Till and his plaster drie[d] it out and she wasn't bothered anymore. --Flo Hinterberg Kurth, Postcard, 1908

    John Till, 1908.
    Although he was sentenced to jail for practicing medicine without a license, 6,500 people petitioned against it and Till never served time. In 1922, he left the Chippewa Valley and the U.S., returning again after World War II.