By Hazel Johnson, UW-Madison iSchool, Summer 2026
During summer 2026, I was able to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin for three separate weeks to work at Gateway Technical College (GTC) library and begin the process of digitizing their archived materials. This experience was made possible through the Recollection Wisconsin Digitization Initiative, which matched me with GTC as my host site.
Gateway Technical College was founded in 1911 as the Racine Vocational School, the first publicly funded vocational institution in the United States. Soon, other vocational schools began to form in southeast Wisconsin including the Kenosha vocational school which featured a practical nursing program that had its first graduating class in October of 1947.
A scrapbook made for the first two graduating classes was the first item that I digitized for Gateway and opened my eyes to the deep history of women that attended classes at the institution.
Women have been present in Gateway’s history throughout all content I have been able to look at from photographs of women in programs in the 1940s to the yearbook pages featuring “the girls of KTI”.
For this blog post I wanted to highlight them and the programs they took part in.
These 1940s photos illustrate a variety of programs including upholstery, leather work, foods, hat making, a program to learn to care for your car, and a class called “supper class”.
In the years that followed, women continued to be represented in a variety of fields, though their studies throughout the 1970s and 1980s were generally concentrated in areas such as nursing, dental hygiene, interior design, fashion merchandising, and secretarial science.
Gateway Technical College, photos from 1947-48 programs.
Yearbooks from 1969 to 1974 provided deeper insight into the various programs offered by the college. They offered a closer look at the specific programs available during this period, as well as the students enrolled in them. The 1974 yearbook was particularly valuable because it included a comprehensive list of each program and the students enrolled in it.
1971 Kenosha Technical Institute yearbook photos.
Overall, exploring the history of the people who attended this institution, particularly the wide range of female students, was incredibly interesting. I especially enjoyed seeing the clothing, hairstyles, and makeup trends of the time, as well as learning about the different fields of study these women chose to pursue.
1970 Kenosha Technical Institute yearbook.
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