Oral histories, music, speeches and other recorded sound.
This collection spans more than a century of Barneveld’s history, from early settlement through the devastation of the 1984 tornado and the rebuilding effort. Content includes books, photographs, video, business and village records, and personal scrapbooks and memorabilia.
The Belgian-American Research Collection was established by the Cofrin Library, UW-Green Bay, to help preserve and make available original materials reflecting the character of the Belgian community in northeastern Wisconsin. An architectural survey was conducted to identify typical Belgian architecture including log, stone and brick houses and oral histories were recorded to document the Walloon language spoken in Brown, Door and Kewaunee Counties.
A history of the Dane County Library Service, covering 50 years of service to the residents of Dane County, Wisconsin. Includes news clippings, photos of bookmobiles and oral history interviews with bookmobile drivers and other staff.
Whether it was segregation in the 1950s or the cultural and political tumult of the 1960s and 1970s, South Asian immigrants to Wisconsin confronted a world fundamentally alien to that they had left behind. Neither black nor white, these individuals managed to raise families and often succeeded in their careers. From a few dozen students, professionals, and businessmen and their families who settled in Wisconsin, the presence of South Asian immigrants grew exponentially as they became tightly integrated into the fabric of their communities. The journey to develop a distinct identity as South Asian Americans in Wisconsin over the course of decades is highlighted in this collection of oral histories from some of the first South Asian immigrants to Wisconsin.
From the Matheson Memorial Library in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, this collection consists of oral history interviews that aim to record and preserve the stories and experiences of City of Elkhorn and Walworth County men and women for the education and enlightenment of future generations.
From 1965–1970, fieldworkers for the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) conducted interviews with nearly 3,000 “informants” in 1,002 communities across America. They visited native residents in all fifty states and Washington, D.C., collecting local words, phrases and pronunciations. DARE’s main partners in the effort to digitize, interpret, and make accessible these audio recordings were the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures and the University of Wisconsin Libraries, all at UW–Madison.
This digital collection contains two components: images of citizens and businesses along Main Street in the city of Fort Atkinson from the 1880s through the 1970s, and manuscripts, notes, letters, oral histories and photographs from or about poet Lorine Niedecker, who spent most of her life in the Fort Atkinson area.
This is an ongoing collection of audio stories recorded by the Mount Mary community at the Haggerty Library’s high-tech Storybooth. Begun in 2022, these recordings are from any individuals or classes who wished to share their stories – short, long, or somewhere in between.
Oral history interviews with prominent residents of the Wisconsin Dells and Lake Delton area as well as with local historians. The interviews were conducted by the Dells Country Historical Society in the 1970s and 1980s.
This collection contains oral histories, photographs, documents and color slides from six Mount Horeb residents who served in the Korean War.
The Lester Public Library of Arpin archive, preservation, and digitization project is gathering and preserving area history through video recordings of residents’ personal stories and digitization of physical materials, such as photographs and documents.
The Listening to War digital collection brings together first-person accounts of veterans and civilians in Wisconsin during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War. These stories of everyday life during wartime come from men and women who served on the battlefront; nurses, journalists, shipbuilders, and others who contributed to wartime work at home and abroad; Holocaust survivors who immigrated from Europe to Wisconsin after World War II; and Hmong refugees from Laos who were resettled in the state following the Vietnam War.
The Mills Music Library and the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures, along with many partners at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, present a growing collection of unique, historic, regional and endangered sound recordings with related documentation. These include recordings produced for immigrant, ethnic and indigenous audiences by American companies in the first half of the 20th century as well as more than 700 hours of original field and home recordings from the 1950s through the 1990s featuring the Upper Midwest’s culturally diverse traditional musicians.
This growing collection of oral history interviews and images gathered from community members offers a snapshot of Madison neighborhoods, places, people and events. Featured neighborhoods include Greenbush and South Madison.
Photographs and postcards by professional photographer Herman C. Benke from the 1890s and 1900s and images by amateur photographer Frances M. Kadow from the 1920s through the 1940s. Also includes historical texts concerning Manitowoc County, plat books and plat maps, and oral history interviews recorded with area residents in the 1970s.
Primary sources from the UW-Milwaukee Libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society that provide a window onto Milwaukee’s civil rights history in the 1960s. The efforts of civil rights activists and their opponents are documented in photographs, unedited news film footage, text documents and oral history interviews.
Oral history interviews conducted by the Milwaukee LGBT History Project 2003-2007. Interviewees describe their coming out experiences, the Gay Liberation Movement in Milwaukee, early LGBT organizations, the impact of feminism on LGBT politics, and LGBT social activities.
The Monarch Digital Collection program was created by the Monarch Library System to expand access to local historical material that previously had limited or no accessibility. The goal is to continue digitally preserving and promoting the histories of the four counties that make up Monarch Library System (Dodge, Ozaukee, Sheboygan, Washington) for a fuller and richer view of these communities and Wisconsin.
MPL’s Own Archives contains the history of the Milwaukee Public Library system. Encompassing written records, photographs, and film the collection offers a look back at how the library has served the community of Milwaukee since its founding. This online portion of the collection contains an interview with Toni Morrison, a handful of PSAs, informational videos, and a partial episode of “Library Playhouse”, a library created TV program.
The Wisconsin HIV/AIDS History Project brings to light significant stories from the state’s history of HIV/AIDS through the medium of oral histories. This collection includes video interviews with physicians, nurses, social service workers, AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW) staff, and long-time survivors. The interviews were conducted by Linda Wesp at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2017-2018.
Wisconsin’s story is still being written, folding in the customs and traditions of everyone who calls this place home. You’re invited to help build a shared history of our state by contributing your photos, documents and audio files to the Recollection Wisconsin Shared Collection.
The Rosemary Garfoot Public Library of Cross Plains, Wisconsin created a partnership with the Cross Plains – Berry Historical Society to house the Society’s archives in the Library. This digital collection is gleaned from those archives and contains recorded oral histories, scanned photographs and documents highlighting the rich history of the Cross Plains area and the Rosemary Garfoot Public Library.
Audio files containing public remarks made by Joseph McCarthy, the Republican senator from Wisconsin, during his controversial campaign to remove communists and communist sympathizers from government.
Materials selected from the papers of Senator William Proxmire, who served for for 32 years in the U.S. Senate (1957-1989). Also includes transcripts of 40 oral history interviews conducted with the Senator’s friends, family and colleagues.
In 2007, author Will Fellows collaborated with photographer Jeff Pearcy to create “Shall Not Be Recognized,” an exhibit of photographic and verbal portraits of thirty same-sex couples in long-term, committed relationships, all residents of the Milwaukee area.
The Somos Latinas (We Women) History Project (2012-2016) was created to document the many significant and largely hidden contributions of Latinas in Wisconsin engaged in their communities to positively impact society in K-12 and post-secondary education, civil rights, women’s rights, domestic abuse services, immigration reform, political representation, peace and justice, and other areas. The online collection currently includes 52 interviews from 37 Latinas from across Wisconsin.
The State of Wisconsin Collection presents writings about the state of Wisconsin and unique or valuable materials that relate to its history and ongoing development. The collection includes published material as well as archival materials such as books, manuscripts, sound recordings, photographs, maps and other resources.
A collection of audio oral history interviews with residents of Sauk Prairie, Wisconsin, conducted by Doris Litscher Gasser in the 1980s and 1990s. Each item in the digital collection also includes a photograph Gasser took of the each community member interviewed and an article published in the Sauk Prairie Star based on each interview.
This collection documents the history of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin 1939-1947, including both universal homefront experiences and activities as they played out locally, and more unique activities that defined the area during WWII, specifically shipbuilding and manufacturing.
Audio recordings and transcripts of oral history interviews with 52 employees of the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin.
Selections from the more than 3,000 hours of interviews recorded by the UW-La Crosse Oral History Program and housed in Murphy Library’s Special Collections.
This digital collection provides access to primary sources documenting the activities and output of Works Project Administration (WPA) arts projects in Wisconsin from 1935-1943, especially the work of the Milwaukee Handicrafts Project. Materials include design portfolios, oral history interviews with artists and selections from the papers of Elsa Emile Ulbricht, director of the Milwaukee Handicraft Project, and Charlotte Russell Partridge and Miriam Frink, co-founders of the Layton School of Art.
Materials from two collections from Mills Music Library at UW-Madison: field recordings, notes and photographs made by UW-Madison faculty member Helene Stratman-Thomas as part of the Wisconsin Folk Music Recording Project during the summers of 1940, 1941 and 1946 and recordings collected by song catcher Sidney Robertson Cowell during the summer of 1937 for the Special Skills Division of the Resettlement Administration.
The Wisconsin Sound Archive is an ongoing effort to digitize and make the audio heritage from and about the state of Wisconsin available to the public online. Recordings will span the state of Wisconsin and include traditional oral histories or historical reminiscences; captured events, such as speeches and conferences; limited commercial recordings, such as radio and advertising; interviews; environmental recordings, and more.
This collection brings together books, photographs, audio interviews, slides, personal scrapbooks and memorabilia collected from Mt. Horeb-area veterans of WWII.
