“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 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.
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 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.
The Freedom Flotilla, also known as the Mariel Boatlift, occurred in 1980 after President Carter opened the doors to the United States for hundreds of thousands of Cuban refugees, of which nearly 15,000 would eventually arrive at the resettlement camp at Fort McCoy in western Wisconsin. This collection contains photographs taken by journalists reporting on the “Cuban Odyssey,” most of whom worked for the La Crosse Tribune, bringing together nearly 250 images of individuals and events directly involved with the Freedom Flotilla.
Diaries of the travels of Austrian Norbertine priest Father Maximilian Gaertner of Wilten Abbey in Austria. Gaertner arrived in Wisconsin in 1846 and remained there until recalled to Wilten Abbey in 1858.
Elizabeth Baird (1810-1890) and Henry Baird (1800-1875) were prominent 19th-century Wisconsin settlers. They were connected to most of the founders of modern Wisconsin through family ties, marriage, business interests and politics. This digital collection includes all the Baird correspondence and selected business, family and personal papers.
In 1983, volunteers from the Generation After (an organization of children of Holocaust survivors) conducted interviews with 65 Jewish immigrants residing in metropolitan Milwaukee. The digital version of the Generation After Oral History Project consists of 25 interview transcripts for subjects with surnames between A-L.
Selected materials from the Kvamme Local History Collection maintained by Stoughton Public Library. Documents in this collection include Stoughton city directories and telephone directories as well as volumes of newspaper clippings on topics of local interest including World War II, Syttende Mai, the Martin Luther Children’s Home and the Stoughton Ski Jump.
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.
More than 30,000 photographs by Roman Kwasniewski, who worked as a studio photographer in the Polish-American community on Milwaukee’s south side from 1907-1947, documenting social events such as First Communions, Confirmations, graduations, weddings, and anniversaries as well as day-to-day life in the neighborhood. Together, these photographs offer a portrait of Milwaukee’s second largest ethnic group in the first half of the 20th century.
Oshkosh Public Library partnered with Wisconsin photographer Michael Cooney to create this collection, which documents early church buildings still standing in Winnebago, Fond du Lac, Marquette, Calumet, and Waushara counties.
English translations of selected articles from the Pionier Presse, a German-language newspaper published in Sauk City 1853-1927. Alternate titles include Pionier am Wisconsin and Sauk City Presse.
Reform was a Norwegian-language newspaper published in Eau Claire, Wisconsin by novelist and journalist Waldemar Ager. The digital collection includes approximately 2400 issues of this weekly newspaper, from 1896 until 1941. It is made available online by the Waldemar Ager Association in partnership with the McIntyre Library Special Collections and Archives Department at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
A 1914 memoir by Wisconsin pioneer and civic leader Lucien B. Caswell (1827-1919). Caswell was a lawyer in Fort Atkinson and went on to be elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly and later the United States House of Representatives. Part of the State of Wisconsin Collection, University of Wisconsin Digital Collections.
The Skare Collection at the McFarland Historical Society comprises over one thousand objects related to the Norwegian immigrant experience collected by Albert Skare of McFarland, Wisconsin. The digital collection provides access to selections from this extensive collection, focusing on household goods and folk art brought to Wisconsin by Norwegian immigrants in the 19th century.
A digital collection of diaries, letters, reminiscences, speeches and other writings of people who settled and built Wisconsin during the 19th century. These materials were selected from the collections of the Wisconsin Area Research Centers (ARCs) as well as the headquarters of the Wisconsin Historical Society.
The field notes and plat maps of the public land survey of Wisconsin are a valuable resource for original land survey information, as well as for understanding Wisconsin’s landscape history. The survey of Wisconsin was conducted between 1832 and 1866 by the federal General Land Office. This work established the township, range and section grid; the pattern upon which land ownership and land use is based.
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.
