Welcome! Imaginary Shirt is a project where I research visual elements from high schools’ histories and then use them to make new t-shirt concepts. If you’re associated with one of these schools and would like to make any of these imaginary shirts a reality, let me know! I’d love to help you accomplish that. This companion newsletter gives some more details on process and on the schools featured. Enjoy!
Instagram Week in Review
Monday, 1 May 2023—South Division Cardinals, Milwaukee, WI

I happened on an article about the South Division principal soliciting a set of thirty-nine historic Milwaukee neighborhood posters to decorate the school’s third floor, and I wanted to know more about these posters! It turns out that the City of Milwaukee commissioned twenty-seven posters depicting different neighborhoods from artist Jan Kotowicz, starting in 1983. More recently, Kotowicz added twelve more. You can see the posters (and buy them) at Historic Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Record has ranked them all here. I think my favorite is the poster for Concordia (which the Record has ranked at #34!).
See more designs from the South Division set here.
Tuesday, 2 May 2023—Washington Purgolders, Milwaukee, WI

I was checking out some Washington alumni, among them former NBA basketball player Latrell Sprewell, former MLB commissioner Bud Selig, and former Willy Wonka Gene Wilder, when I came across former department store guy, Milwaukee Bucks owner, and U.S. Senator Herb Kohl.
I Googled him, looking for something interesting to share here, and was mercifully greeted by this New York Times headline: “Quiet, Peaceable Man Just Wants to Hogtie Senate.”
Sold!
The November 1999 article started out describing Kohl: “Senator Herb Kohl hardly resembles the protypical Senator…He displays not a smidge of pomposity, pretension or bombast. He is rather shy and shuns the spotlight, and on the few occasions when he speaks out, he talks softly and tends to look at his feet.”
I think I like this guy!
But every story needs a conflict, and in November of 1999, some senators did something that would be detrimental to Wisconsin Dairy Farmers. I didn’t care enough to process exactly what it was, but that was precisely the point; it was important to people in Wisconsin. Kohl, who self-financed most of his campaign and ran on the slogan “Nobody’s Senator But Yours,” said, “I am not just a national senator. I am a senator from Wisconsin.”
So Kohl, “announced that he would do everything in his power to obstruct and delay the adjournment of the Senate for as long as possible unless he received concessions on the dairy issue.”
“This is very much unlike me,” he said, “I hate it. I don’t like to be a pain. I’ve never been an obstructionist before. But if this is what it takes, this is what I’ll do.”
Another senator was very unhappy with Kohl, who said, “I didn’t like the fact that he was upset with me. But then I decided the hell with him.”
Kohl eventually agreed to drop his filibuster and take up the dairy discussion in the new year, at which point Senator Byrd of West Virginia said:
He is the Stonewall Jackson of Wisconsin. He stands like a stone wall. If I had the voice of Jove, I would shout from the ends of the earth. Yet I would not be able to move this man, Herb Kohl, when he takes a determined stand. He has been talking to me time and time again about this issue that is so important to him and the people of Wisconsin. He has been absolutely indefatigable; he has been unshakeable, and I salute him. He has stood up for the people of Wisconsin. That is what I like about him. He stands for principle. He stands for his people.
See more designs from the Washington set here.
Wednesday, 3 May 2023—West Division High School, Milwaukee, WI

The preface to the 1915 West Division Student Handbook noted that:
The primary purpose of this book is to acquaint the new student with the many-sided life of West Division High School. The activities and interests of so large a school are numerous and varied. It is expected that you will each find opportunities to develop socially, to express yourselves and your talent in writing and art, to compete in athletics, and to co-operate in clubs.
This booklet gives you explicit information concerning your duties and privileges as a student of West Division. It shows you how to avoid errors and gives a clear conception of the responsibilities of the best High School life.
West Division High School is now your school. It is rich in tradition and spirit. West Division welcomes you cordially.
One such activity listed in the handbook caught my attention—the Newsboys’ Club, which was, as you may have guessed, a club for newsboys. The last sentence in the description, though, read, “The club is a branch of the Newsboys’ Republic, an all-city organization.”
So what was this Newsboys’ Republic? An article published in 1913 explained that, “A Newsboys’ Republic, recently formed in Milwaukee, promises to be an instant success as an experiment in self-government.” Described as a “republic within a republic,” the organization had a constitution, and even made some of the newsboys into “police” with “authority to arrest the lawless of his district.” What could go wrong?
Perhaps most interesting to me was the fact that, just moths after the publishing of the West Division Student Handbook, the Newsboys’ Republic’s very own newspaper (Newsboys’ World) was formed. This perhaps wouldn’t be so interesting were it not for a question that haunts me: if the newsboys were busy with the normal papers, who sold and delivered that Newsboys’ World?
See more designs from the West Division set here.
Thursday, 4 May 2023—Edina Hornets, Edina, MN

Edina was the high school home of former Atlanta Braves catcher Greg Olson, but not of former Baltimore Orioles pitcher Gregg Olson, who attended Omaha Northwest High School. (He’s actually in the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame.)
As any baseball card collector of the early ‘90s knows, these guys were in the major leagues at the same time. As it turns out, they both have the same middle name—William. And both made the MLB All-Star Game in 1990.
The one-g, Edina, catching G.W. Olson (referred to in this Washington Post article about that All-Star Game as “Other Olson”) played eleven years in college and the minor leagues before being called up after the 1990 season had started. At the time, he was the first all-star to have started the season in the minors. The Post asked him his feelings about the two-g, Omaha Northwest, pitching G.W. Olson:
Olson says he’d love to bat against The Other Olson. “It would be good for baseball. And fun,” he said. “I just went to meet him. Actually, if I faced him, it would probably be more fun for him. I hear he throws 90 mph with a nasty curve.”
The tragedy of the tale of two Olsons is that Greg Olson was released by the Braves on December 6, 1993, just two months before the Braves signed Gregg Olson on February 8, 1994. We were that close to an all G.W. Olson battery. Why can’t we have nice things?
See more designs from the Edina set here.
Friday, 5 May 2023—Wayzata Trojans, Plymouth, MN

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar is a Wayzata graduate, and in her book The Senator Next Door she detailed a prank she was involved with at Wayzata. The night before the last day of classes, she and her friends, uh, “borrowed” a coin-operated elephant ride from in front of the local K-Mart and put it in front of the school. According to Klobuchar, the police got involved and the elephant was impounded. The K-Mart people decided not to press charges and the elephant was restored. I’m sure everybody had a nice laugh over their tater tot hotdish that night.
See more designs from the Wayzata set here.
Saturday, 6 May 2023—Patrick Henry Patriots, Minneapolis, MN

I try to be pretty careful in what is a minefield of school names and nicknames. I have a policy against Native American imagery and names that honor Confederates. I go back and forth on how to treat “Crusaders.” I try to be careful, but I usually assume I will mess something up eventually.
I see that Patrick Henry High School will be getting a new name due to Patrick Henry’s owning of slaves. The (vastly oversimplified, I’m quite sure) sentence in his Wikipedia article says, “A slaveholder throughout his adult life, he hoped to see the institution end but had no plan beyond ending the importation of slaves.”
I’m not really sure how complicated that is or isn’t, but it seems like the name bothers people in the community where the school is, so I’m glad it’s getting a new name. I know there are people who feel like part of their past is being stripped away, and I’m sympathetic to that. But I hope they can trust that their neighbors are being honest when they say the name is damaging.
The first round of voting for the new name just ended. There were a lot of choices. It’s going to be Prince Rogers Nelson High School, right? I look forward to learning about some of the names I don’t know.
See more designs from the Patrick Henry set here.
Sunday, 7 May 2023—Breck Mustangs, Golden Valley, MN

The Breck School counts The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn as an alumnus. I enjoyed this article positing that there is a “Craig Finn Curse” that results in places he mentions disappearing. It catalogs places around Minneapolis that have seemingly suffered that fate. Enjoy!
See more designs from the Breck set here.
From the Archive
North Polars, Minneapolis, MN

Counted among North High’s graduates is Farrell Dobbs, who ran for United States president four times (1948, 1952, 1956, 1960) as a candidate from Trotskyist organization the Socialist Workers Party. Dobbs and seventeen other Socialist Workers Party members were convicted in 1941 under the Smith Act, whose long title was “An Act to prohibit certain subversive activities; to amend certain provisions of law with respect to the admission and deportation of aliens; to require the fingerprinting and registration of aliens; and for other purposes.”
Dobbs was one of twenty-nine members of the Socialist Workers Party who were indicted on July 15, 1941. The indictment charged that, “The defendants would seek to bring about, whenever the time seemed propitious, an armed revolution against the government of the United States,” and, “The members accepted as ideal the formula of the Russian revolution of 1917, and certain defendants went from the Twin Cities to Mexico City, where they received advice and counsel from Leon Trotsky.”
Eighteen of the defendants were convicted, but the jury suggested lenience, and Farrell Dobbs spent about a year in jail, to be released in time for his four failed presidential bids.
See more designs from the North set here.
A Recommendation
The Tampa Bay Rays! It’s not too late to get on the bandwagon!
Reddy Kilowatt of the Week
Reddy Kilowatt is the famous mascot of…..electricity? He appears in many forms, and is frequently featured in school yearbook ads. Every week I’ll take a look at a Reddy I’ve found in my research. This week’s Reddy came from a 1938 ad for Puget Sound Power & Light.

See you next week! Tell your friends!