Articles with suggestions for visitors Milwaukee abound, two of the most informative linked off of the TripAdvisor list of articles and guidebooks : Frommer’s general and practical “Overview of Milwaukee,” and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/Chicago Tribune’s perspectival treatment “A View of Milwaukee from a Neighbor to the South.”

Todd Dacquisito’s recent work Milwaukee provides a rare photographic tour of the city, exceptional in its Dacquisito’s skill and its affordable paperback price. 

For further pre-visit historical background, try either The Making of Milwaukee by John Gurda or Milwaukee Then and Now by Sandra Ackerman.  Gurda, a Milwaukee and Greater Wisconsin fanatic, is more than comprehensive in his work, which runs almost a little long at 458 pages.  Ackerman’s publication is a third of this length and part of the Then and Now series.  It provides much in the way of photos to supplement its time travelogue.

Other worthwhile reads include City Smart: Milwaukee by Nathan Guequierre and the Milwaukee Fire Department by Wayne Mutza, part of the Images of America series.  Finally, nearly any book regarding American labor history will detail much of the city’s role in defining the country’s modern labor law and reform.