The path from agrarian life to urban life is never smooth, but the path that Wisconsin has traveled from the beginning of the 19th century to the end of the 20th saw more political turmoil and resulting social disruption than was true in most states. This paper examines the changes in both social institutions and cultural practices as well as the states changing population since 1800, when the area that is more or less the current state of Wisconsin area became part of the Indiana Territory the whole of American Northwest Territory except for Ohio to the present.