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 history collection highlighting the experiences of faculty members and a timeline covering the history of the College from the founding of the Wisconsin College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1893 to the establishment of the MCW-Green Bay campus in 2015.
Wisconsin College of Physicians and Surgeons
Course catalogs and commencement programs from the state’s first medical school, founded in Milwaukee in 1893.
Milwaukee Medical College
Course catalogs and commencement programs from the Milwaukee Medical College and School of Dentistry. The school was incorporated in 1893 and officially opened on September 26, 1894. In 1913, Milwaukee Medical College merged with the Wisconsin College of Physicians and Surgeons to become the Marquette University School of Medicine and later the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Medical College of Wisconsin History Collection
Commencement announcements from the Marquette University School of Medicine in the 1910s, photographs of Milwaukee County General Hospital and Milwaukee Children’s Hospital, and the publication An Anchor for the Future: A History of the Medical College of Wisconsin (1991).
Medical College of Wisconsin Heritage Portrait Gallery
Painted portraits of deans, presidents and other notable figures in the history of the College.
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.
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. Marquette’s first product, the Central ECG (Electrocardiographic) System, was developed for Northwestern Medical School in Chicago. Based on the success of this product, the company became a global leader in the field of medical electronics. 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 College.
