The protesters who camped out in the Wisconsin Capitol building in Madison for nearly three weeks hung a handwritten placard over the marble bust of Robert La Follette, the state’s titan of progressivism.

“What Would Bob Do?” it begged, a plaintive appeal to recall the state’s history on the forefront for workers’ rights as the protesters try to fend off Scott Walker, the new Republican governor, who insists that he will not compromise in his bid to all but eliminate collective bargaining for public unions.

A particular indignation inflects the chanting of the protesters, who had taken over the Capitol before a judge ordered them to leave Thursday: How could workers’ rights be on the line here, of all places — the state that was the first to establish workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance, the birthplace of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the giant public employees’ union?

But that history tells only part of the story. In Wisconsin, and the Midwest more broadly, there has long existed a tension between those who would expand workers’ rights and those who believe that they are the impediment to prosperity. The region has been the model as much for anti-union campaigns as it has been for workers’ rights.