Last spring, the University of Wisconsin campus was caught in an uproar. Thousands of activists flooded State Street, thundering through the Capitol and chanting in protest to proposals to take collective bargaining away from public employees. Many of these activists were students, abandoning their comfortable beds to sleep on the cold hard floors of the Capitol building, putting aside schoolwork to picket out in the chilly Wisconsin air.
While photographs of these massive rallies stunned the nation, this type of activism is actually not new to the university. Author A.G.S. Johnson explores this idea in her novel, “The Sausage Maker’s Daughters,” a legal drama largely set in the UW campus during the Vietnam era.
The novel’s protagonist, Kip Czermanski, is a UW alumna facing a court hearing in her fictional hometown of Wausaukeesha, Wis. She spends much of her time reflecting back on her life, especially her college days of counter-culture activism during the Vietnam War.
As a college student in the ’60s, Kip transforms from the small town daughter of a sausage company owner to an Afro-sporting, bra-burning, anti-war feminist. To the horror of her conservative family and hometown, she wrangles her way out of their restrictive values and into the dizzying world of rebellion.
Kip spends her college years actively protesting the war, shouting mantras against President Johnson alongside her friends and professors. Kip describes her devotion, claiming, “Only our shouting and chanting could divert our minds from the penetrating wind chill factor. … We determined to stay until our demands were heard.”
Sound familiar? This kind of devotion is is reminiscent of last year’s rallies, where people would camp out for days at a time in front of the Capitol to illustrate a point.
A.G.S. Johnson’s choice of Madison as the setting for “The Sausage Maker’s Daughters“ was no accident. During an interview with The Badger Herald, Johnson described Madison as a sort of “Third Coast,” especially during the Vietnam era. Schools like Berkeley and Columbia, situated on either coast of the country, were legendary for their radical movements. Madison, sandwiched in between these two sides of the country, was similarly experiencing social upheaval. Nestled comfortably in middle America, the university became a hotbed for radical ideas.
Die-hard anti-Vietnam activists may be hard to find in Madison today, but Kip’s story remains poignant for the current generation. “The potential for students to erupt in rebellion or overt resistance is always there,” Johnson said. “The environment is perfect. You’re at college; you’re the right age. … There’s free thinking all around.”
Despite this era of free thinking, Kip’s activism is not at all sugar-coated. She lives during an uncomfortable period of transition in America, where the conservative 1950’s model of thinking was under pressure from the open-minded atmosphere of the ’60s.
Today, the U.S. boasts equal rights society, where feminist values are supposedly embraced and the youngest generation doesn’t have the threat of a war draft hovering from above. Compared to the Vietnam era, things seem to be going pretty well. Does this mean there’s nothing left to fight for?
According to Johnson, the answer is a resounding no. Look deeper and it’s clear there are plenty of issues that deeply concern college students, she said. Whether it’s the question of current women’s rights or the debate of whom to tax, there will always be a cause. And if the past Vietnam protests and the latest rallies have proven anything, it’s that this campus is ready to act.
Johnson calls the recent budget repair bills a “spark” that gives the current campus body a glimpse of its own potential. If there’s one thing she wants us to understand from “The Sausage Maker’s Daughters,” it is that students have the power to make a difference.
Today, students face different problems than those Kip tackles in her day. There is no war draft, no blatant sexism. But there are endless causes that are still worth fighting for.
Johnson addresses the general student body when she says, “Let’s change the world. It could be better.”
For generations, UW students have been sacrificing precious time and energy to fight wholeheartedly for what they believe in. Thousands of activists demanded their rights on the very soil that UW students tread through each day. With this spirit in mind, “changing the world” might not be such an unattainable goal after all.
