This collection represents the things that Kermit Brekke of Blair, Wisconsin, saved as mementos of his service in World War II. It includes Brekke’s uniforms, souvenirs he collected in Europe, and a scrapbook of photos, telegrams, newspaper clippings, menus, leave passes, greeting cards and other ephemera.
Objects
Clothing, furniture, tools and other three-dimensional material culture artifacts.
East Troy Electric Railroad Collection
Objects related to the operation of the East Troy Electric Railroad such as fare boxes, uniforms and ticket stubs. The collection also includes 27 volumes of Rail and Wire, an employee newsletter published by the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company (TMER&L) 1935-1937.
Elcho CCC Camp Collection
Civilian Conservation Corps Camp 657 was established in Elcho, Langlade County, Wisconsin in 1933. The digital collection includes photos of barracks and work activities taken by CCC recruits Edward Drab, Alois Fisher and Warren Schabell as well as ephemera collected by recruit Ken Eliot, including newsletters published by the camp, menus, badges and a federally-published handbook for CCC enrollees.
Gesu Parish Grade School
This collection of photos, directories, programs, alumni newsletters, and objects documents the Gesu School, founded in 1895 after the combining of St. Gall and Holy Name parishes. After sixty-nine years of continuous educational service, Gesu School held its last graduation exercises on June 7, 1968.
Go Tell It at the Quilt Show!
Short video interviews with quilters in Lodi, Wisconsin, recorded in 2018. The Lodi Woman’s Club Public Library and the Lodi Valley Quilters Guild partnered with the non-profit Quilt Alliance to record the stories of local quilters and quilts as part of the Quilt Alliance’s Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! project.
Historical Medical Devices at Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries
Medical artifacts in the Libraries’ collections, ranging from an 1850s medicine chest to a cataract extraction set from the 1960s.
Ku Klux Klan in Northwestern Wisconsin 1915-1950
Records, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, ephemera and artifacts documenting a popular movement that most Americans would rather forget – a so-called “reform” movement driven by xenophobia and bigotry. Although largely gone from the state by the late 1920s, the Klan persisted in northwestern Wisconsin, including Chippewa, Clark, and Pierce counties, through the 1940s.
La Crosse Plow Company Collection
The La Crosse Plow Company Collection contains a variety of visual materials including repair guides, photographs, 3-dimensional objects, letters, and other similar items. The collection’s materials span the various phases of the La Crosse Plow Company including names such as Sta-Rite, Happy Farmer Tractor Company, and the La Crosse Tractor Company. The bulk of this collection was scanned from materials owned by Randy Reysen, and the other items featured are part of the Murphy Library Special Collections. In total, there are over 100 items included in this collection with the prospect of adding more in the future.
Logan Museum of Anthropology
The Logan Museum of Anthropology houses over 300,000 archaeological and ethnographic objects from 123 countries. The objects made available through Recollection Wisconsin include bandolier bags, baskets, beadwork, bitten bark, and silver jewelry. Wisconsin and Upper Great Lakes tribal affiliations represented include Ojibwe, Menominee, Ho-Chunk and Potawatomi.
Marquette Electronics Medical Equipment
In 1964, Michael Cudahy and Warren B. Cozzens founded Marquette Electronics, later known as Marquette Medical Systems and now part of GE Healthcare. The equipment featured in the digital collection, which includes devices produced by Marquette Electronics as well as historical precursors, is also on view in a permanent exhibit at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
