“Ach Ya!: The Story of German Music in Wisconsin” presents images from the nineteenth through the late twentieth century that evoke the long-standing heritage and rich diversity of Wisconsin’s German musical traditions, especially in German-American communities in Calumet, Dodge, Marathon, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, and Sheboygan counties.
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.
Photographs of musicians and music-related subjects held by Mills Music Library, dating from the late nineteenth century to the present, representing the musical heritage of Wisconsin from Swiss yodeling to Les Paul. Also includes postcards, lithographic prints, advertising and promotional materials, posters, and other types of ephemera.
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.
This collection from the Mills Music Library at UW-Madison consists of music written by Wisconsin composers, published by Wisconsin publishers and/or pieces whose subject matter is Wisconsin. The publications date from the late 1850s to the present.
