This quarter, we added some new collections to Recollection Wisconsin and DPLA! Winnefox Library System premiered the Princeton Newspaper Collection from Princeton Public Library and Berlin High School Mascoutin Yearbooks from Berlin Public Library. Milwaukee Public Library debuted the Irene Bishop Goggans Collection. Bishop Googans documented the African-American community in Milwaukee and across the country in… Read More…
Recently Added
New in Recollection Wisconsin for Fall 2022
This quarter, we added collections from four Winnefox Library System libraries: Brandon Public Library, Caestecker Public Library (Green Lake), Patterson Memorial Library (Wild Rose), and Spillman Public Library (North Fond Du Lac). These collections contain historical newspapers, high school yearbooks, scrapbooks, family histories, and more. We also added a collection from our new content partners at Carthage College,… Read More…
Preserving At-Risk Audiocassettes: A Case Study of the History Museum at the Castle in Appleton, Wisconsin
This post was contributed by Bronwen Maseman, a Madison-based librarian, educator, consultant, and researcher. This case study is part of the Community Archiving Workshop Regional Training of Trainers program, funded by an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant (RE-85-18-0039-18) in partnership with the Association of Moving Image… Read More…
New in Recollection Wisconsin, Spring 2022
This quarter, we added four new collections from both new and existing content partners! Milwaukee Public Library has been working hard on these two new collections: The CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) Arts Program Photographs collection includes photographs taken between February and May of 1976 in Milwaukee, documenting life during the 1976 Bicentennial. After… Read More…
New in Recollection Wisconsin, Fall 2021
This month, Recollection Wisconsin added three new collections from new content partners and a new collection from a current content partner! The Verona Public Library Local History digitization project is a growing selection of digital materials culled from the physical archives of its Local History Collection which currently includes photographs, city directories, and community writing… Read More…
New in Recollection Wisconsin, Summer 2021
Last month, we welcomed four new collections from three of our current content partners: UW-Milwaukee’s Desi Wisconsin, oral histories from some of the first South Asian immigrants to Wisconsin on their journey to develop a distinct identity. Two magazines from UW-Oshkosh: Context (1976-2001) was dedicated to sharing the important research and creative activities of the University’s faculty and academic… Read More…
New Recollection Wisconsin Collections
The most recent ingest of the Recollection Wisconsin collection into the Digital Public Library of American is complete and we’ve surpassed 600,000 historical photos, documents, and other resources in the collection! Among the additions this quarter are these two new collections: Listening to War brings together first-person accounts of veterans and civilians in Wisconsin during… Read More…
New Content Partners and Collections for April 2020
There is new Recollection Wisconsin content available in both the Digital Public Library of America and Recollection Wisconsin! We are excited to welcome new content partners Waunakee Public Library, Milton Public Library, and Pauline Haass Public Library in Sussex! Their collections have been added to Recollection Wisconsin along with these new collections from Viterbo University: Lumen, Viterbo’s student newspaper since 1954. University… Read More…
Supporting Digital Projects in Southcentral Wisconsin
This post is contributed by Tamara Ramski, Digitization Specialist, South Central Library System (SCLS). The South Central Library System (SCLS) provides services to public libraries in seven counties in south-central Wisconsin. In 2017, SCLS began offering member libraries assistance with local history digitization projects through a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant funded by… Read More…
Wisconsin state government documents online
More than 15,000 state government documents are now available through Recollection Wisconsin and DPLA, thanks to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB). These collections are in active development, with new content added each month. The Wisconsin Digital Archives, maintained by DPI, includes materials from the executive and… Read More…
ECHO: Exploring Cultural History Online, Winding Rivers Library System
This post was contributed by Barry McKnight, current Digital Assistant for the ECHO Project at Winding Rivers Library System and Cassandra Torgerson, who held the position of Digital Assistant at WRLS in 2014. The Winding Rivers Library System, based in La Crosse, wanted to increase access to the unique history materials owned by our system… Read More…
CCC Camp 657, Langlade County Historical Society
In March 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of the first New Deal programs designed to create jobs for Americans during the Great Depression. From 1933-1942, the CCC put nearly three million unemployed young men to work building parks, planting trees, stocking streams and rivers, and other environmental conservation projects. The… Read More…
Medical College of Wisconsin
Six digital collections of documents, photographs and artifacts from the Medical College of Wisconsin can now be discovered through Recollection Wisconsin. The collections, created by the MCW Libraries, trace the development and consolidation of Wisconsin’s first medical schools beginning in the 1890s. Additional digital projects in the works from the MCW Libraries include an oral… Read More…
Historic Trade Cards, Milwaukee Public Library
In the late nineteenth century, one of the most prevalent and eye-catching forms of advertising could fit easily in your pocket: the trade card. Retailers and manufacturers distributed small printed cards, known as trade cards or advertising cards, to shoppers along with packaged goods such as soap and medicines. Printers took advantage of the newly… Read More…
Madison Central High School yearbooks, Dane County Historical Society
A digital collection of Madison Central High School yearbooks from the Dane County Historical Society has been added to the Recollection Wisconsin syllabus. Madison Central High School was Dane County’s oldest high school, opening as Madison High School in 1853 with 90 students and only one teacher. It became Madison Central High School in 1922… Read More…
East Troy Electric Railroad Collection
A new digital collection has zoomed in from East Troy, providing a history of electric railroads, streetcars and buses in southeastern Wisconsin. The East Troy Electric Railroad dates to 1907 as a branch of the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company (TMER&L Co.). Established in 1896, TMER&L operated the largest electric railway system in Wisconsin…. Read More…
Mineral Point Library Archives
In A Field Guide To Mineral Point (Mineral Point Historical Society, 2012), Nancy Pfotenhauer writes: Mineral Point started as a wild and wooly frontier town. The discovery of lead in 1828 attracted dirt-poor hard-scrabble diggers, educated second sons, land speculators, lawyers, and lawless desperadoes . . . The very first to arrive were Yankees from… Read More…
Veterans Photographs, College of Menominee Nation/Menominee Public Library
Menominee County in northeastern Wisconsin has one of the highest per-capita rates of military service in the nation. A new initiative from the College of Menominee Nation’s S. Verna Fowler Academic Library and Menominee Public Library pays tribute to the many veterans in the community. Bryan Stevenson, Head of Special Collections at the College, invited… Read More…
Scandinavia Memory Project
Twenty-two yearbooks and other publications from schools in the village of Scandinavia in Waupaca County, Wisconsin are now available online from the Scandinavia Public Library. Although no schools remain in the community, from 1877-1932 the village was home to Scandinavia Academy (renamed Central Wisconsin College in 1920), a junior college supported by the Norwegian Lutheran… Read More…
Marquette University History Online
Over 11,000 photographs illustrating the history of Marquette University in Milwaukee are now available online thanks to the University Archives’ ongoing scan-on-demand program. For the past six years, the Archives has digitized materials in response to research requests from students, faculty, alumni and the general public. Some of the most heavily-requested subjects include athletics, campus… Read More…
South Wood County Postcards
The South Wood County Historical Museum in Wisconsin Rapids has shared online nearly 200 postcards from the cities of Grand Rapids, Nekoosa and Port Edwards. This new digital collection showcases just some of the Museum’s sizable archive of postcards. Intern Emily Ho worked with Museum board president Phil Brown to create descriptions and build the digital… Read More…
World War I Military Portraits, Milwaukee Public Library
At the centennial of the start of World War I, the Milwaukee Public Library has launched an extensive new digital collection documenting the men and women of Milwaukee County who served in the war. The bulk of the collection consists of more than 30,000 handwritten service record cards compiled by the Milwaukee County Chapter of… Read More…
Milwaukee Polonia, UW-Milwaukee
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries has launched an exciting (and enormous!) new digital collection — Milwaukee Polonia: The Roman Kwasniewski Photographs — now available for searching through Recollection Wisconsin. Roman Kwasniewski was a studio photographer in the Polish-American community on Milwaukee’s south side from 1907-1947. Using a unique rapid-capture system that we blogged about last year, UWM has… Read More…
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, Wisconsin Historical Society
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are essential resources for historic preservationists, genealogists and other researchers looking for detailed documentation of American cities and towns and how they’ve changed over time. Thanks to a generous grant from the Caxambas Foundation, the Wisconsin Historical Society is currently building a digital collection of its Sanborn maps, representing more than… Read More…
Antigo soldiers in World War I, Langlade County Historical Society
More than 200 of William H. Wessa’s photographs of the 107th Trench Mortar Battery Company (TMB) of Antigo, Wisconsin are now online from the Langlade County Historical Society. Wessa was a professional photographer and lifelong Antigo resident. He brought his camera with him when he signed up for service with the TMB during World War… Read More…
Grant County Historical Society
The Grant County Historical Society maintains two locations in southwest Wisconsin: the Cunningham Museum in Lancaster and the Mitchell-Rountree Stone Cottage in Platteville. They’ve also made many items from their extensive photo archives available online in a variety of ways — on Facebook, on their own website, and now through Recollection Wisconsin. Volunteer Dennis Wilson… Read More…
History of UW-Stout
A new digital collection from the University of Wisconsin-Stout Archives looks at more than a century of vocational education in northwest Wisconsin. In 1891, James Huff Stout, heir to the Knapp, Stout and Company lumber fortune, established a school in his home city of Menomonie. Inspired by the industrial arts education movement of its day,… Read More…
Ripon College basketball, Ripon College Archives
To mark the beginning of both the men’s and women’s basketball seasons in November, the Ripon College Archives has digitized selections from its basketball photograph collections. Intercollegiate basketball teams have competed at Ripon since at least 1907. The new digital collection showcases almost 200 photos of men’s and women’s intercollegiate and intramural basketball teams at… Read More…
St. Norbert College Catalogs
Fifteen college catalogs from St. Norbert College, spanning the years 1902-1916, are now available online through Recollection Wisconsin. This collection complements a digital collection of yearbooks from 1917-1926 made available earlier in 2013 by the Miriam B. and James J. Mulva Library at the College. St. Norbert College was founded in De Pere, Wisconsin in… Read More…
Kewaunee Ships of War, Kewaunee Public Library
During World War II, Wisconsinites contributed to the war effort in many ways. Wisconsin’s shipbuilding industry flourished in communities along the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, where manufacturers such as the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company and Globe Shipbuilding of Superior built submarines, cargo ships, and other vessels for the United States military. In 1941,… Read More…
Camp Gallistella Collection, UW-Madison Archives
From 1912 to 1962, the University of Wisconsin-Madison offered an unusual housing opportunity for graduate students and their families spending the summer session in Madison: camping in tents on the Lake Mendota shoreline. The tent colony, called Camp Gallistella, appeared every summer along the lake in the area now known as Eagle Heights. This unique aspect… Read More…
Eau Claire Area Historical Photographs, Chippewa Valley Museum
More than 1,100 photographs depicting Eau Claire and the surrounding area are now available online from the Chippewa Valley Museum archives. The Museum has partnered with the L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library in Eau Claire to provide access to this wide-ranging collection, which offers a look at businesses, industry, recreation, and daily life in… Read More…
Railroad and logging photographs, Langlade County Historical Society
The Langlade County Historical Society in Antigo recently made a major addition to its digital collections: more than 400 photographs documenting railroads and the lumber industry in northwoods Wisconsin from the late 19th century up to the 1990s. Some photographs were taken by Antigo-based professional photographer Arthur J. Kingsbury for his picture postcard business, but… Read More…
St. Norbert College Yearbooks
Another set of yearbooks has recently been added to Recollection Wisconsin, providing an interesting counterpart to the yearbooks now available online from Mount Mary College. St. Norbert College in De Pere is, like Mount Mary in Milwaukee, a four-year private Catholic college founded in Wisconsin in the 19th century and still in operation today. But… Read More…
Mount Mary College Yearbooks
Yearbooks from Mount Mary College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s oldest four-year women’s college, are now available through Recollection Wisconsin. This digital collection includes fully searchable issues of Arches, the college yearbook published from 1930-1970, and EXIT, a smaller publication focused on graduating seniors, published between 1971 and 1995. The digitization project was funded by the Mount Mary… Read More…
Alfalfa production at Cornfalfa Farms, New Berlin Historical Society
The New Berlin Historical Society is home to an archive of photos and documents from the Swartz family, whose experimental farming methods at Cornfalfa Farms in Waukesha County gained national recognition in the 1910s and 20s. The Swartzes led the way in making alfalfa a viable crop in the state, earning Peter C. Swartz the… Read More…
Badger Highways, Wisconsin Department of Transportation Library
Wisconsin’s highways are an unremarkable part of everyday life for most of us in 2013, but in the 1920s, the expanding state and county highway system was exciting news, enough to warrant a monthly magazine devoted to the subject. Badger Highways, published by the Wisconsin Highway Commission from 1925-1929, included information about state and federal… Read More…
Recently Added: Collections from Antigo, Brodhead and Middleton
We add new content to the Recollection Wisconsin search engine every month. Some of the most recent additions include postcards from the Middleton Area Historical Society, photographs from the Brodhead Historical Society, and Civil War letters from the Langlade County Historical Society. Civil War letters of Francis Deleglise, Langlade County Historical Society Francis Deleglise, founder… Read More…
Brodhead Historical Society Online Image Archive
Recollection Wisconsin recently added the Brodhead Historical Society’s online image archive to our search engine. This digital collection features more than 1300 photographs from Brodhead and neighboring communities in south central Wisconsin. Pat Weeden, president of the Brodhead Historical Society, provided more details about this ongoing project in an email interview. When did you start… Read More…
Postcards from Middleton Area Historical Society
More than 60 postcards illustrating the city of Middleton, Wisconsin in the early 20th century are now available online from the Middleton Area Historical Society. The postcards were collected by area residents and depict local businesses, residential neighborhoods, schools and churches. The digital project began in Summer 2012 when the Middleton Area Historical Society hosted… Read More…
Civil War letters of Francis Deleglise, Langlade County Historical Society
Francis Deleglise was a young man of 25, living in Appleton with his wife and children, when he enlisted in the Iron Brigade, Wisconsin’s most famous Civil War unit. The Iron Brigade fought in the Army of the Potomac, suffering unusually high casualties at Gainesville, Antietam (the Civil War’s bloodiest battle), and Gettysburg. Throughout his… Read More…
Crandon High School Yearbooks, Crandon Public Library
“The Cardinal endeavors not only to record a year in our School’s history, but to serve as a stimulus for recollecting our thoughts in future years. This book is merely a printed symbol; the memories which it represents are within us.” This quote from the 1938 Crandon High School yearbook evokes the value of historical… Read More…
Senator William Proxmire Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society
When Senator William Proxmire retired in 1989 after 32 years in the U.S. Senate, he and his staff donated more than 200 boxes of office files to the Wisconsin Historical Society. The Society has now made available online an extensive selection of those materials, including official press releases, newsletters sent home to constituents, campaign strategy… Read More…
Jay “Ding” Darling Collection, Beloit College
This month we added the Jay “Ding” Darling Collection from the Beloit College Archives to our search engine. Jay Norwood Darling, better known as “Ding,” spent most of his career as an editorial cartoonist for the Des Moines Register and Leader. A dedicated conservationist, he also created the Federal Duck Stamp Program and, in 1936, founded the National Wildlife… Read More…
