World Amateur Radio Day

Every April 18th, the airwaves swell in celebration of amateur broadcast voices across the globe. The local public radio station hosted through UWM, WUWM, got its start as a learning opportunity for Journalism students in 1963. The Journalism Department changed its name in 1970 to the Mass Communication Department. 

In 1975, the Mass Communication Department hired professionals to staff the full-time positions at WUWM.The emphasis of the Mass Communication Department throughout its existence was to provide students with the education for careers in mass communication while offering opportunities for students to work in privately and publicly owned radio stations and newspapers. Although WUWM can’t be considered “amateur” these days by any standard, the Mass Communication Department still maintains close ties with the station and students continue to work part-time for the station.

The Ivy (1965), pg. 95 |  WUWM Radio engineer |  WUWM Radio production| WUWM Radio broadcast of Morning Edition |  WUWM Radio engineer during the 1980 election | The Ivy (1966), pg. 159

“The first disruptive protest in UWM’s history”

In November of 1967 UWM students demonstrated against Dow Chemical for its production of napalm for use in the war and against the CIA for its alleged complicity in war crimes. In addition to demonstrations, the Student Life and Interest Committee (SLIC) considered a formal proposal “requesting that the use of the UWM facilities for the Dow and CIA interviews be denied."  After the decision is made to proceed with the Dow Chemical interviews at the UWM Civic Center campus, over 100 students rally in front of the Union, then march downtown for a picket of the potential interview site. Chancellor J. Martin Klotsche, in a released statement, praises the peaceful nature of the protests, noting that, "the actions of the students were in the best traditions of the university.” In response to the protests, the Chancellor appoints a special committee to study the feasibility of continuing the interviews on campus.

Nevertheless, in February of 1968, Dow Chemical Company held interviews w at UWM. Approximately 40 to 50 protesters gathered in the Union before marching to the second floor of Mitchell Hall to protest the interviews. Two students are arrested while blocking access to the Chancellor’s office, in what the UWM Post calls “the first disruptive protest in UWM’s history.” The protesters deliver a list of demands to the Chancellor, including the release of the arrested students and cancellation of the remaining interviews.The next day, twelve students from the previous day’s demonstration meet with Chancellor Klotsche, who affirms students’ right to protest, but not in a disruptive manner. He also explains that UW Regents policy requires him to allow recruitment except under extraordinary circumstances. 

The arrested students were charged with disorderly conduct and sentenced to 30 days in the House of Correction but were released after Dean David Robinson has their bail lowered from $1500 to $100. Two months later, UWM students participate in activities associated with the national “April Days of Protest,” including a march from campus to the Federal Building, burning President Lyndon Johnson in effigy, and a “Bitch-In” on the Union Lawn sponsored by the Campus Action Party.

Chancellor Klotsche addresses student protestors in hallway | Counter-Protesters |  UWM Post February 23, 1968 |  UWM security personnel scuffle with student protestors

Mount Mary University students practicing archery, 1934 :: James Blair Murdoch Photographs

This futuristic library design is from our Willis and Lillian Leenhouts Architects Records.  Designed for the Theosophical Society’s Adyar Library in India, this was one of several Theosophical Society buildings which the Leenhouts worked upon.  

We also have our suspicions that George Lucas may have known the Leenhouts, because that top-down view looks remarkably like the Millennium Falcon.  

Project 1460. Designs for Adyar Library (India), 1961 ::  Architectural Drawings of Willis and Lillian Leenhouts

Happy National Library Week! We’ve had quite a few libraries on this campus in the past 100+ years: Greene Hall Library, Chapman Memorial Library, Mitchell Hall Library, Mellencamp Hall Library, and now the Golda Meir Library. 

Although libraries have changed somewhat over the 20th century, the passion and dedication that librarians bring to their jobs remains the same.  If you see a librarian this week, make sure you thank them!    

Happy National Pet Day!

We found this astonishing photo in the Vel Phillips papers. Now, we love to gush about the many accomplishments of politician and civil rights leader Vel Phillips–she’s our hero–but we had no idea she had such a remarkable pet. Truth be told, we don’t know anything about this pooch or where he learned to be such a snazzy dresser, but we’re still impressed. 

Platterpus Society Dinner

Yes, you read that right…”HippopotamusTidbits,” “Octopus Ragout,” “Roast Beaver,” and “Reindeer Steaks”…these menus have a suspicious amount of exotic fare for dinner parties sponsored by a zoo, don’t you think? 

While perusing the Zoological Society of Milwaukee County Records we were pleasantly surprised by these playful menus for the Platterpus Society gatherings. The society, which started as a social dining club, later evolved into the Platypus Society–a group of generous donors who devoted a great deal of time and financial support to the Milwaukee County Zoo. 

Poetry Month

The images above are of the 1902 school composition book of Bina Merkley of Neenah, Wisconsin. This poem/song seemed fitting given Wisconsin’s weather this last week. We were so happy to have had April smile on us for a short while, but then March came back with more wild and stout winds as a not so gentle reminder of what we thought was behind us.

This composition book is in the Eleanor Marsh papers, 1902-1998 (UWM MSS 162, box 1, folder 1)

Society of Women Engineers!

As part of Women’s History Month, we are celebrating women in the engineering field by showing out Society of Women Engineers collection with some pictures, brochures, and stickers from the 1970s and 80s. 

-Society of Women Engineers, Milwaukee Chapter Records: UWM Manuscript Collection 168, Boxes 1 and 2. 

A Friendly Wager on Votes for Women (c. 1876-1896)

“A true account of two important documents and what came of them.”

Perhaps the student was fumbling about for a pencil when she discovered a letter tucked at the back of a desk drawer in Suite 18 of Ladies’ Hall. Whatever the circumstances, the letter proved to be a happy discovery for the student (a member of the Class of 1896) and her companions in Ladies’ Hall (eventually known as Chadbourne Hall, shown below).

Twenty years earlier, two residents of the very same suite had sealed the terms of a bet on this sheet of paper. The matter under dispute? Women’s suffrage. If women had obtained the vote before 1896, Miss Helen Remington would treat residents of Suites 18 and 19 to dinner. If women were “still in bondage” by the same year, Miss Juliet Meyer would fund the feast.

With great relish, the inhabitants of Suites 18 and 19 wrote to Miss Juliet Meyer (now Mrs. Juliet Brown) to inform her of her loss. On February 22, 1896, Brown hosted the bet’s beneficiaries at the Hotel Van Etta (118-124 King Street). The ladies dined on oysters, quail, and raspberry sherbet – a sumptuous feast for these self-declared “hungry girls” who were tired of eating “codfish and hash.”

In the intervening years, Miss Helen Remington (now Mrs. J. M. Olin, shown below), Brown’s vindicated opponent, had become an active defender of women’s rights, participating in the organization that eventually became known as the Wisconsin Women’s Suffrage Association. At her side stood husband and UW-Madison law professor John M. Olin, a major public figure in Madison as both a University Regent and President of the Wisconsin Bar Association.

To the chagrin of Helen Remington Olin and many present at the Hotel Van Etta, women would not win the vote until June 10, 1919. Nonetheless, “most bounteous and enjoyable feast” brought together two generations of women for whom the very act of pursuing higher education was a considerable feat to be celebrated.

Story found in the 1900 Badger Yearbook, pages 209 and 210.

For more information about UW-Madison campus history, contact uwarchiv@library.wisc.edu or visit http://archives.library.wisc.edu.

Women’s History Month is as good an excuse as any to re-post this piece from a few years back!

Here’s an 1855 diploma from Milwaukee Female College, a predecessor of Milwaukee-Downer College!  The ink is pretty faded, but you can still make out that it was signed by Increase Lapham, eminent Wisconsin scientist.

Greetings from Lake Park, Milwaukee!

Wishing you could take a summer stroll around Lake Park today? Us too.

In light of all this unexpected winter weather, all we can do is remember how beautiful Milwaukee summers are. We are so close!

Greetings from Milwaukee Digital Postcard Collection:

1. Grand stairway

2. Government Light House

3. Lake Park

4. Lion Bridge

Business and Professional Women’s Club of Milwaukee

Happy Women’s History Month! Today we are showcasing our collection from the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Milwaukee. These images are some brochures, organizational documents and a photograph from their 1924 Convention in Wausau, Wisconsin.

Business and Professional Women’s Club of Milwaukee Records: UWM Manuscript Collection 127, Boxes 2-4

Specializing in single-family residences, the firm of Willis and Lillian Leenhouts Architects was well-known for its regional modernist style and utilization of passive solar technologies. The collection includes project records of the        firm (both files and drawings), as well as Willis and Lillian Leenhouts’ professional papers. The project records are the most extensive portion of the collection and pertain to over 500 built and unbuilt projects from 1936 to 1990. Of the projects represented in this collection, the vast majority are single- or multi-family residences in the Milwaukee area.

Since it’s Women’s History Month, we’d be remiss not to mention that Lillian Leenhouts’ career was especially distinguished. From 1929 to 1932, she studied at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, where she discovered the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. She graduated from the University of Michigan School of Architecture in 1936, returning to Milwaukee and working in the architectural office of Harry Bogner, president of the Milwaukee Art Institute. Lillian had the distinction of becoming Wisconsin’s first licensed female architect in 1942, and she helped to form the Milwaukee chapter of the Society of Women Engineers in 1973. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning awarded her an honorary doctorate in May 1989. In 1990, the School established a financial scholarship in Willis and Lillian Leenhouts’ name. Willis and Lillian were inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects (A.I.A.) in 1975, marking the first time in the A.I.A.’s history that a husband and wife earned a fellowship together.

Our Leenhouts records are getting a workout this semester for an architecture class and we’re always curious to see which designs students choose for their projects. This 1952 design for the First Methodist Church of South Milwaukee is one of their non-residential projects.  We’re especially fond of the mid-century aesthetic and the woman with the perky pillbox hat.

In honor of Women’s History Month,  we will be featuring a series of remarkable women in our collections.  This Wednesday, we’re highlighting Charlotte Russell Partridge and Miriam Frink.

Partridge came to Milwaukee-Downer college as a faculty member in the Fine Arts department in 1914. She met Frink, who taught English at college, that same year. They became lifelong companions, sharing their lives and a home for fifty-five years. 

Patridge and Frink are most known for founding Milwaukee’s Layton School of Art in 1920, which started with day and night classes for adults and Saturday classes for children. At Layton, Frink taught literature appreciation while overseeing business and student activities, while Partridge taught art classes, and oversaw the faculty and community activities. They remained with the school until 1954 when a Board of Trustees meeting decided to forcibly “retire” the women, carried out immediately, despite protests from faculty, students, and alumni. 

In addition to her work at the Layton School of Art, Partridge also served as the director of the Layton Art Gallery from 1922-1953, served on the gallery’s Board of Trustees from 1921 to 1973, and directed the Wisconsin Federal Art Project from 1935 to 1939 among other civic projects. 

Charlotte Partridge once said of Miriam Frink, “Miss Frink is the head and I am the feet of the school.” Margaret Clark Davis stated, “Charlotte was marvelous and Miriam was tremendous along with her… Miriam was like a Great Dane–[she] protected, undergirded, and saw to it that things worked out for Charlotte.” The two women’s individual talents complemented each other and the two, together, made the Layton School of Art unique.

For further exploration: the Smithsonian Archives of American Art has a fascinating oral history interview with Partridge.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we will be featuring a series of remarkable women in our collections. This Wednesday, we’re highlighting Helen Willa Samuels.

A graduate of Queens College (1964) and Simmons College (1965), Samuels has had an illustrious career spanning five decades. She began as a music librarian, but turned to archives when she was hired in 1972 by the University of Cincinnati to run the brand new archival program. In 1977, Samuels became the first archivist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she spent the majority of her career before retiring in 2006.

Samuels is known for developing two important concepts in archival appraisal: institutional functional analysis, and documentation strategy, both of which took the archival world by storm. Archivists have long realized that choosing which records to keep is often conducted in a piecemeal fashion and not based on a holistic understanding of the documents’ creation and context. 

In his introductory essay to Controlling the Past: Documenting Society and Institutions, a festschrift in Samuels’ honor, Terry Cook reflects that “the important message…from Helen was that appraisal was a societal activity and had a societal focus, much more than it was about reflecting or anticipating research trends in history or documenting the key activities of one’s parent or sponsoring institution.”

Her ideas, along with those of her peers, helped the archival community to think about the role of the archivist as somebody who is not a passive guardian of historical treasures, but a group of individuals who are ultimately documenting society. To do this effectively, Samuels argued that archivists need to understand both the context and process of records creation; by studying these processes and creating institutions, archivists can develop a strategy of appraisal to cover as much of the documentary universe as possible.

The photograph above was taken on October 3, 1985 during Samuels’ visit to the School of Librarianship, University of New South Wales. Dr. Peter Orlovich is in the foreground. From right to left, pictured are John Shipp, Laurie Dillon, Denis Rowe, Samuels, and Ken Smith.