Wisconsin’s Capitol Collapses

The Madison Capital-Times ran this photo on its front page to accompany an article, in honor of April Fool's Day, about the dome of the Wisconsin state capitol supposedly collapsing because "large quantities of gas, generated through many weeks of verbose debate in the Senate and Assembly chambers, had in some way been ignited."

By modern standards the picture looks phony, but many readers in 1933 were fooled. One particularly irate reader wrote in declaring the hoax "was not only tactless and void of humor, but also a hideous jest."
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Photo Categories: Composite Images, Architecture, Humor, April Fool’s Day, Politics, 1920-1939

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