Economy of Milwaukee

terms of the number of Fortune 500 company headquarters as a share of the population. Milwaukee also has a large number of financial service firms, particularly those specializing in mutual funds and transaction processing systems, and a number of publishing and printing companies.

Service and managerial jobs are the fastest-growing segments of the Milwaukee economy, and health care alone makes up 27% the jobs in the city.

In 2009, five Milwaukee-area companies were selected as leaders in their industries as Fortune magazine recognized “The World’s Most-Admired Companies.” Two Milwaukee companies ranked second in their field: Manpower Inc. in the temporary help industry and Northwestern Mutual in life and health insurance. Johnson Controls Inc., Glendale, placed fourth among motor-vehicle parts firms. Ranked fifth were Fiserv Inc., Brookfield, in financial data services and Kohl’s Corp., Menomonee Falls, among general merchandisers.

Milwaukee became synonymous with Germans and beer beginning in the 1850s. The Germans had long enjoyed beer and set up breweries when they arrived in Milwaukee. By 1856, there were more than two dozen breweries in Milwaukee, most of them German-owned and -operated. Besides making beer for the rest of the nation, Milwaukeeans enjoyed consuming the various beers produced in the city's breweries. As early as 1843, pioneer historian James Buck recorded 138 taverns in Milwaukee, an average of one per forty residents. Today, Beer halls and taverns are abundant in the city, although only one of the major breweries—Miller—remains in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee's founding fathers had a vision for the city. They knew it was perfectly situated as a port city, a center for collecting and distributing produce. Many of the new immigrants who were pouring into the new state of Wisconsin during the middle of the 19th century were wheat farmers. By 1860, Wisconsin was the second ranked