In the 1870’s, the United States Government began a system of education for Native Americans in the U.S. Richard Pratt, a military veteran of the Civil War, was chosen to lead a school intended to assimilate Native American children into white American culture. Students there would be forced to cut their hair, speak the English language, change their names to Christian names, and change from their traditional religious beliefs to Christianity. Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, PA in 1873. The boarding schools would have a profoundly negative impact upon generations of Native Americans and forced many to lose contact with their traditional culture. Several boarding schools were operated in Wisconsin, including one in Lac du Flambeau, WI.

You may recall the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) from the 1992 film, A League of Their Own starring Geena Davis and Tom Hanks. Who will ever forget that “there’s no crying in baseball!” But did you know the AAGPBL has deep roots in the upper Midwest, including Wisconsin? This online exhibit pairs research and primary sources, documenting the AAGPBL in Wisconsin.

When, on March 4, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was inaugurated as President, the United States was mired in the Great Depression with unemployment estimated at 25% and no social safety nets such as Social Security and unemployment insurance in place. He promised Americans a “New Deal” and stated that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He immediately set out with an unprecedented series of proposals to use the federal government to get Americans working and to improve the infrastructure in rural and urban communities. What he later named “The first 100 days” became a benchmark of presidential achievement.

This gallery offers a closer look at some of the state’s grandest hotels and resorts built between the 1870s and the 1940s. Some, like Oakton Springs in Pewaukee, have long since vanished; others, like the Northernaire of Three Lakes and Milwaukee’s Pfister, continue to serve visitors from around the country.

Images of women in the kitchen are a familiar scene in the history of home economics, but what these images don’t show is the important role that home economics played in getting women into higher education. From its inception, collegiate home economics was multidisciplinary and integrative with an emphasis on science applied to the real world of the home, family, and community. It was an academic science designed by women for women. In the first half of the 20th century, these programs prepared women for teaching but also for careers in extension services, state and federal government, industry, restaurants, hotels, and hospitals.

A look at the history of lumber, lumber camps and lumberjacks in Wisconsin.

During the 1960s, Milwaukee’s African-American community waged protests, organized boycotts, and fought legislative battles against segregation and discriminatory practices in schools, housing, and social clubs. This exhibits provides highlights from the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project (https://uwm.edu/marchonmilwaukee/), a digital collection that features primary sources including photographs, unedited news film footage, text documents, and oral history interviews from the Milwaukee Area Research Center at the UW-Milwaukee Libraries as well as a detailed timeline and bibliography.

The freedom to resist authority and government in the United States has been a very important right throughout our history. Resistance of the government of Great Britain is what founded our country with the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the winning of the Revolutionary War. Native American people have resisted the U.S. government’s attempts to assimilate them into mainstream culture, the termination of reservations, and to exterminate them as a race of people. That isn’t a process that is confined only to history, it still occurs in many instances in today’s world. This lesson is meant to teach students several historical examples of Native American Resistance and then to investigate recent examples on their own through research and presentation.

Did you know that two major energy sources – hydro and solar power – have deep roots in Wisconsin history? It’s true. You might even say a current of energy-related ingenuity surged through our great state throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Read on if we’ve ignited your curiosity.

Fron what Indigenous peoples in what is now the state of Wisconsin grew, hunted, fished, and gathered to the modern supermarket to the ubiquitous summer farmers markets, this online exhibit pairs historical photographs and research to examine where Wisconsinites get their food.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote “In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” But in much of Wisconsin, once the lakes thaw, some men’s (and women’s) thoughts turn to sport fishing, particularly on the first Saturday in May which signals the opening of fishing season.

This online exhibit features images from Recollection Wisconsin content partners documenting our state's rich history of recreational fishing.

At the turn of the 20th century, most American cities of any size had a family-run department store (or two or more) entrenched in their downtowns. By New York, Chicago, or Philadelphia standards, Wisconsin department stores were small and modest, but they served their communities well. In this exhibit, you'll learn about and see images of Wisconsin's bustling department stores along with the impacts those stores had on their communities and the people they employed.