Wisconsin’s oldest theater organization, the Carroll Players, was inaugurated in June 1896 with a production staged by May N. Rankin, the first female professor at Carroll College. This collection includes photographic portraits of Rankin as well as notes and letters related to the drama program at Carroll University.
Arts
Tomah Area Historical Society and Museum
Tomah Area Historical Society and Museum‘s Frank O. King Collection features a selection of original cartoons, sketches, correspondence, photographs, and memorabilia from Frank O. King, the creator of the comic strip Gasoline Alley. This digital collection offers insight into King’s creative process and the cultural impact of his work, providing a unique window into the history of 20th-century American comics and daily life.
Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters is an independent, nonprofit membership organization chartered by the state legislature in 1870. Transactions, an annual journal (1870-2001), was central to the Academy’s goal of uniting scientists, humanities scholars and artists together to stimulate learning and exchange of research.
UW-La Crosse Theatre Posters and Playbills Collection
More than 400 playbills and posters from various theatrical productions on the UW-La Crosse campus from 1916 to the present.
UW-Milwaukee Book Arts Collection
Digital representations of 31 artists’ books from the Special Collections at UWM Libraries. This collection presents artists’ books – books designed and handmade by artists – that provide examples of the expressive use of the book arts including binding, papermaking, printing, typography and page design.
Visual Materials in Mills Music Library
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.
Wisconsin Academy Review
Published quarterly by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, the Wisconsin Academy Review (now known as Wisconsin People and Ideas) focuses on contemporary Wisconsin thought and culture. Issues in the digital collection date from 1958-2008.
Wisconsin Arts Projects of the WPA
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.
Wisconsin Concert Posters
Posters and flyers advertising a variety of concerts, mostly rock and punk shows that took place in the early 1980s in and around Milwaukee. Milwaukee-area bands represented include Colour Radio, Die Kreuzen and the Violent Femmes.
Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database
More than 1,000 examples of Wisconsin’s material heritage from public and private collections across the state, including furniture, ceramics, metalwork, quilts and needlework as well as beadwork, basketry, woodcarving and marquetry made in Wisconsin between 1820 and 1930.
