Ada James (1876-1952) was a leading social reformer, humanitarian, and pacifist from Richland Center, Wisconsin and daughter of state senator David G. James. The Ada James Papers document the grass roots organizing and politics that were required to promote and guarantee the passage of women’s suffrage in Wisconsin and beyond.
This growing selection of local history materials includes images of former Appleton mayors with descriptions of key events during their terms, the publications Appleton, Wis., Illustrated (1892) and Pioneers of Outagamie County (1895), city and telephone directories for the Appleton area from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and other items pertaining to city and town life, the library, schools and tourism.
This collection documents the public life of Clement J. Zablocki, who represented Milwaukee’s south side in Congress from January 1949 until his death in December 1983.
Papers of Walter Eugene Leach (1857-1938), curator of the Racine County Museum. Included are biographical materials on notable Racine residents and Leach’s writings on Racine County history, including chapters of his unpublished manuscript “The Story of Racine County, a History.” There are also records of the Racine Senate, 1844-1851, and the Racine Relief Association, 1883-1898.
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.
This collection includes letters written to Helen Brace Emerson from her cousin, suffragist and president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Frances Willard, between the late 1860s and Willard’s death in 1898. Correspondence from other writers provide details about Willard’s final days.
Legal, administrative, educational and political documents, including correspondence and news clippings, describing events and people involved during the Menominee Termination and Restoration era, 1961-1973.
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.
The Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau conducts objective audits and evaluations of state agency operations. This collection contains the reports produced by the financial audits and program evaluations.
The Legislative Council prepares reports on proposed administrative rules, informational publications for Legislators and the public, and committee materials for suggested legislation, including materials on state-tribal relations.
The Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau provides fiscal and program information and analyses to the Wisconsin Legislature, its committees, and individual legislators. This collection contains publications produced by the LFB pertaining to the Wisconsin State Budget. Topics include taxation, public welfare, transportation, housing, education, corrections and insurance.
This collection contains items created by the Wisconsin Legislature and its committees as well as the text of speeches given before the legislature. Content includes State of the Tribes addresses, comparative studies of public pensions and party platform materials.
All briefs, bulletins and special publications from the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau and its predecessor, the Legislative Reference Library, since the 1950s.
Reports that the Wisconsin Statutes mandate state agencies provide to the legislature on the progress, status, or results of specific programs and initiatives, including those related to the University of Wisconsin System, environment, elections, rural and underserved health services and substance abuse services.
In 1954, the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin was terminated under federal policy that stripped them of their status as a recognized federal tribe. The 1973 Restoration Act allowed the Menominee Indian Tribe to restore their federally-recognized tribal status. The materials in this digital collection tell a personal and national story of the Menominee struggle for sovereignty during the Termination period.
The Milwaukee Leaders Collection began in 1989 as a photo exhibit at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Milwaukee Public Library Neighborhood Library titled “Black Role Models in Milwaukee.” The honorees were selected by the community as exemplifying leading citizens for their own generation and those to follow.
The Milwaukee Mayors digital collection is an adaptation of a volume of images and information collected by Library staff to form the Biographical Sketches of the Mayors of the City of Milwaukee. Created more than 40 years ago, it has been updated with images of recent mayors.
This digital resource offers an introduction to some of the rich materials related to the history of socialist politics in Milwaukee contained in the collections of the UWM Archives. Our collections are focused especially on Milwaukee’s first socialist mayor, Emil Seidel. This digital collection includes the entirety of Seidel’s personal papers, his official papers from his time serving as Mayor of Milwaukee, and his unpublished autobiography. Additionally, the digital collection includes selections from the UWM Special Collections’ monographs by and about the Milwaukee Turners.
In 1975, a group known as the Menominee Warrior Society took over the Alexian Brothers’ former Novitiate near Gresham, Wisconsin in Shawano County, claiming treaty rights to the property. Various groups responded in different ways to this event, including local residents, the national media, the Menominee Nation of Wisconsin, and the Menominee Warrior Society dissident faction. This digital collection from the Shawano City-County Library consists of news clippings about the event and its aftermath, originally published in the Shawano Leader.
This collection of images documents the life of Golda Meir from her childhood in Pinsk, Russia, through her school years in Milwaukee, her pioneer years in Palestine in the 1920s, to the peak of her political career as Prime Minister of Israel (1969-1974).
Public Documents of the State of Wisconsin, commonly known as Wisconsin Public Documents (WPD), consists of the annual and biennial reports of all important Wisconsin state agencies from 1852 through 1914.
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 Rock Springs Public Library collection includes documents and photographs related to the Rock Springs Memorial Community Center as well as documents related to the history of the village, images of community sites, events and residents of Rock Springs (formerly Ableman) and the surrounding area.
Audio files containing public remarks made by Joseph McCarthy, the Republican senator from Wisconsin, during his controversial campaign to remove communists and communist sympathizers from government.
Materials selected from the papers of Senator William Proxmire, who served for for 32 years in the U.S. Senate (1957-1989). Also includes transcripts of 40 oral history interviews conducted with the Senator’s friends, family and colleagues.
Images documenting the public career of former Wisconsin Governor Tommy G. Thompson. Most of the photographs were taken during Thompson’s 14-year gubernatorial career (1987-2001); however, some images depict his service in the Wisconsin State Assembly (1966-1986) and as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (2001-2005).
The Wisconsin Blue Book has been published every other year since 1885. Each volume includes information and statistics on life in Wisconsin, including government, population, geography, history, election data, educational resources, social services, finance, agriculture, industry and transportation systems.
This collection comprises citizen petitions written to the legislatures of the Wisconsin Territory and later the State of Wisconsin, from 1836 to 1891. At the time, petitions were the only direct means for citizens to communicate with the government. From requesting dams, roads, and money to build schoolhouses, to recording views on slavery, suffrage, and statehood, these petitions reveal what settlers wished to achieve for their communities, and the ways in which they hoped to connect Wisconsin to the expanding commerce and intellectual life of the United States.
This growing collection of documents about the activities, functions and policies of Wisconsin State Government contains documents published by the Executive and Judicial branches, state government task forces, initiatives, boards, commissions, councils and special study groups. The Wisconsin Digital Archives is a collaborative effort managed by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction as part of the Wisconsin Document Depository Program.
Photographs taken by emergency management officials documenting natural and man-made disasters that have hit Wisconsin and images of emergency response training and other historic materials related to emergency preparedness.
The Wisconsin Labor Advocate was a weekly newspaper published in La Crosse in 1886-1887. La Crosse was a hotbed of Labor political party activity in the 1880s and the Labor Advocate was one of at least four La Crosse area Labor-related newspapers from that time. George Edwin Taylor, the newspaper’s editor and owner, was African-American, born in Arkansas in 1857.
A selection of manuscripts and ephemera documenting the lives of women in Wisconsin, focusing on women who were active in social movements such as suffrage, temperance, abolition, civil rights and other efforts to reform society as well as women who ran for public office.
