The Wisconsin Historical Society (officially the State Historical Society of Wisconsin) is simultaneously a state agency and a private membership organization whose purpose is to maintain, promote and spread knowledge relating to the

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, with an emphasis on the state of

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

and the trans-Allegheny West. Founded in 1846 and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest

historical society A historical society is non-profit organization dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and promoting the history of a particular place, group of people, or topic. They play a crucial role in promoting historical awareness and understan ...

in the United States to receive continuous public funding. The society's headquarters are located in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

, on the campus of the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

. __TOC__

History of the society itself

Beginnings

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

had formed its state historical society 170 years after the Pilgrims arrived. Because of that delay, parts of that colony's early history were lost. With that in mind, some of

Wisconsin Territory The Territory of Wisconsin was an organized and incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 3, 1836, until May 29, 1848, when an eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Wisconsin. Belm ...

's early history-minded leaders began advocating in 1845 for creation of a state historical society. In late 1846 during the convention to write a state constitution, two meetings were held to organize a state historical society. They adopted a constitution for the society, chose A. Hyatt Smith of Janesville as first president, and chose Governor Doty as one of the vice-presidents. But the newborn historical society seems to have done little for its first few years. In January 1849, after Wisconsin became a state, interested parties met in the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

chamber and revived the society, electing Governor Dewey as president and Increase A. Lapham as corresponding secretary, among other officers. They drafted a constitution for the society which laid out its purpose, including: "...to preserve the materials for a complete history of Wisconsin embracing the antiquities, and the history of the Indian tribes." This iteration of the society arranged annual speeches and started a book collection, but didn't accomplish a lot because it still had no paid secretary. Pederson House-Old World Wisconsin

In 1853 the

legislature A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...

gave the young historical society a charter and $500 to finance its mission. The members chose

Lyman Draper Lyman Copeland Draper (September 4, 1815August 26, 1891) was a librarian and historian who served as secretary for the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Madison, Wisconsin. Draper also served as Superintendent of Public Instruction of Wis ...

as corresponding secretary and adopted a new constitution which elaborated on the society's aim:

''The object of the Society shall be to collect, embody, arrange and preserve in authentic form a library of books, pamphlets, maps, charts, manuscripts, papers, paintings, statuary, and other materials illustrative of the history of the State, to rescue from oblivion the memory of its early pioneers and to obtain and preserve narratives of their exploits, perils and hardy adventures; to exhibit faithfully the antiquities and the past and present condition and resources of Wisconsin, and may take proper steps, to promote the study of History by lectures, and to diffuse and publish information relating to the description and history of the State.''

Unlike some other states, the founders decided that Wisconsin's historical society should not restrict its membership to elites, but should be open to anyone interested, if they paid their dues.

Early Progress

With these changes and with Draper carrying the ball, the new Society began making progress. Draper asked for donations of publications from historians and public figures, narratives and old letters from early settlers, descriptions of Indians and Indian mounds, newspapers, pamphlets, and so forth. In 1855 the Society began publishing the ''Wisconsin Historic Collections'' every three years, which printed some of the accounts of early Wisconsin which the Society was receiving. At the start of the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

Draper asked several Wisconsin army officers to send him relics of the war and encouraged soldiers to keep diaries of their experiences. In 1875 the Society acquired the Perkins Collection of 9,000 stone and copper Indian artifacts. The Society was seeing 20,000 to 35,000 visitors each year and by 1876 had the largest library west of Washington DC.

Reuben Gold Thwaites Reuben Gold Thwaites ( May 15, 1853 – October 22, 1913) was an American librarian and historical writer. Biography Thwaites was born in 1853 in Dorchester, Massachusetts. His parents were William George and Sarah Bibbs Thwaites, who had m ...

took over from Draper in 1887. He identified gaps in the Society's collection and travelled around the state seeking to fill them. He sent staff to libraries outside Wisconsin to copy Wisconsin-related documents. He strengthened ties with the UW by opening the Society's library and source materials to UW students, which was a new thing for a non-university library. He hired assistants Annie Nunns, Mary Stuart Foster and Iva Welsh, who were so important to the Society that their long period of influence has been called "The Matriarchy." He hired

Louise Phelps Kellogg Louise Phelps Kellogg (May 12, 1862 – July 11, 1942) was an American historian, writer, and educator. Early life and education Eva Louise Phelps Kellogg was born on May 12, 1862, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She later stopped going by "Eva". The W ...

as a research assistant in 1901. He improved the Society's museum displays, to serve the general public who were less interested in the Society's library. In line with

Progressive Era The Progressive Era (1890s–1920s) was a period in the United States characterized by multiple social and political reform efforts. Reformers during this era, known as progressivism in the United States, Progressives, sought to address iss ...

ideas, Thwaites encouraged local historical societies around the state, and in 1898 advocated state legislation to establish a network of local historical societies, guided by the WHS. Local societies in Green Bay and

Ripon Ripon () is a cathedral city and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The city is located at the confluence of two tributaries of the River Ure, the Laver and Skell. Within the boundaries of the historic West Riding of Yorkshire, the ...

were the first to affiliate, in 1899. By this point, the WHS was seen as one of the leading historical societies in the US. The physical presence of the Historical Society had started as one bookcase in the

state capitol A capitol, or seat of government, is the building or complex of buildings from which a government such as that of a U.S. state, the District of Columbia, or the organized territories of the United States, exercises its authority. Although m ...

in 1849. After that, the collection resided in Lyman Draper's basement, then the basement of his church, and back to the capitol. These locations were somewhat inconvenient and certainly vulnerable to fire. Meanwhile, the UW had outgrown its own 1878 Library Hall. In 1891 UW President Chamberlain suggested that the Historical Society ask the state legislature for a new building to house libraries of both the UW and the Historical Society. The legislature granted money starting in 1895 and architectural plans were solicited. After some critique and rework, the design from

Ferry & Clas Ferry & Clas was an architectural firm in Wisconsin. It designed many buildings that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. George Bowman Ferry (1851 - 1918) and Alfred Charles Clas (1859 - 1942) were partners. The partners ...

of Milwaukee was selected. The building was constructed from 1896 to 1900. The new building was just in the nick of time. In pitching the new building, Thwaites had described the state capitol as a fire-trap, and indeed most of the capitol burned in 1904. Wisconsin Historical Society library reading room

Wisconsin Historical Society library reading room

Ferry & Clas's building is considered one of the finest

Neoclassical Revival Neoclassical architecture, sometimes referred to as Classical Revival architecture, is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy, France and Germany. It became one of the most promin ...

designs in Wisconsin. The facade is four stories tall, with a central

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...

across the second and third stories flanked by blocks of windows, all of Bedford

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

with many features carved. With The footprint was U-shaped, with the colonaded front the base of the U. Behind the colonade, in the base of the U, is a large reading room a full two stories tall, which was shared by the UW and the Historical Society. Only one upright of the U was initially built, for lack of funds; it extended back from the south end of the base of the U and in the first years held the stacks of both the Historical Society and the UW. By 1914 that wing was filled and the state financed building the northern wing of the U. By the late 40s the whole building was again bursting at the seams, so the state financed a new, separate library for the UW. The UW moved out of the shared building in 1952, leaving the whole building to the Historical Society. In 1907, as a result of the capitol fire, the legislature made the Historical Society responsible for preserving and distributing the records of the state. That same year, the Society organized a new museum division and brought on Charles E. Brown to lead it. After Thwaites' unexpected death in 1913, historian

Milo Quaife Milo Milton Quaife (1880–1959) was a historian of Michigan and the Great Lakes region. Quaife was born in Nashua, Iowa. He received his education at Grinnell College, the University of Missouri and the University of Chicago. He was head of the ...

was chosen to lead. During his tenure, the Society struggled with shortages during the

first World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and after, and Quaife never won over the Matriarchy, but he did expand the Society's publications - in particular with the 1917 launch of ''Wisconsin Magazine of History'', a quarterly that prints historical papers aimed at laymen instead of academics. Quaife was succeeded by Wisconsin native Joseph Schafer, who initiated a statewide historical survey modelled on the ancient English

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

. The Society Museum remained popular, but publications faltered, the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

forced more budget cuts, and then in the early 1940s many of the old hands died or retired.

Progress from WWII on

Starting in 1941 under Edward Alexander and then Clifford Lord the Society focused more on supporting local historical societies around the state. In 1947 the Society began encouraging junior historian chapters in elementary and middle schools, sending them ''Badger History'' magazine, which contained articles aimed at those age levels and articles written by the students themselves. When the state began placing historical markers along roadsides to encourage tourism, the Society guided the project. In 1952 the Society opened the Villa Louis to the public - the first of about a dozen permanent historic sites/living history museums sprinkled around the state. In 1954 the Society launched its Historymobile, a mobile museum which travelled all over the state, changing the exhibit each year. PeshtigoFireCemetery

Other things were changing in the Alexander/Lord era. To ease space problems before the UW library moved out, the Society's library began shifting to

microfilm A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

storage. After WWII, the society began collecting some materials at a national level, including archives from the

McCormick family The McCormick family of Chicago and Virginia is an Americans, American family of Scottish and Scots-Irish descent that attained prominence and fortune starting with the invention of the McCormick reaper, a machine that revolutionized agriculture ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

, and

MTM Enterprises MTM Enterprises (also known as MTM Productions) was an American independent production company established in 1969 by Mary Tyler Moore and her then-husband Grant Tinker to produce ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' for CBS. The name for the produc ...

. The Society began updating its museum displays, adding color and better lighting and moving some displays to the first floor where more visitors would run across them. Alexander believed that "museums need not look like morgues." In the 1930s and 40s, the Society began producing history programming to run on

Wisconsin Public Radio Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) is a network of 38 public radio radio station, stations in the state of Wisconsin. WPR's network is divided into two distinct services, the ''WPR News Network'' and the ''WPR Music Network''. History Wisconsin Publ ...

. In the 1950s and '60s that expanded to video to air on

public TV Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive f ...

. The society had long documented social movements like

Communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

and

entitlements An entitlement is a government program guaranteeing access to some benefit by members of a specific group and based on established rights or by legislation. A "right" is itself an entitlement associated with a moral or social principle, while an ...

; in the 1960s that turned to the Civil rights movement, among other trends. The Society also established Area Research Centers, in which the historical documents pertinent to the Eau Claire area, for example, are stored in Eau Claire to be convenient for those who are most interested. In 1963 the Society helped Milwaukee develop a historic preservation ordinance, to be followed by many other communities. With the

National Historic Preservation Act The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA, , ) is legislation intended to preserve historic and archaeological sites in the United States of America. The act created the National Register of Historic Places, the list of National Historic Landm ...

of 1966, the Society became a designated gatekeeper/advisor for

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

sites in Wisconsin. In the 1970s the Society opened

Old World Wisconsin Old World Wisconsin is an open-air museum located near Eagle, Wisconsin, Eagle, in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States. It depicts housing and the daily life of settlers in 19th-century Wisconsin, with separate areas representing the trad ...

, the living history museum which presents the farms and daily life of settlers of various ethnicities. The Society also began teaching classes on

genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...

and reorganizing its catalogs, responding to new interest inspired by the U.S. Bicentennial. The Society began producing the 6-volume ''History of Wisconsin'' series and began the ''Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution'', a standard reference work for judges and constitutional scholars nationwide. In 1980, with the Society's building bulging, it bought the Wolff, Kubly & Hirsig hardware store on Capitol Square and converted it to house the Museum, which moved there in 1986. In the 1980s the Society began computerizing its collections, and in 1993 made its catalog available over the Internet, at which point requests began arriving from new types of users across the country. Four years later the Society launched its website wisconsinhistory.org, again sharing its resources beyond the bounds of its building and Madison. Through all this, the Society continued opening more historic sites around the state like the H.H. Bennett Studio, and arranging special events at those sites like the Villa Louis Carriage Classic. In the 1990s the Society began supporting elementary and middle-schools by producing a new textbook for teaching Wisconsin history to fourth-graders, along with teacher guides and other Wisconsin history books for younger readers. In 2005 the Badger Biographies series started. In 2001 the Society joined the nation-wide National History Day, in which students in grades six through twelve pick historical topics to research and create presentations on. Also in 2001, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin rebranded itself as the Wisconsin Historical Society, a decision which was criticized by some historians for removing the emphasis on the society as a "state" institution. "State Historical Society of Wisconsin" remains the official name of the institution in state law, after an attempt by legislators to change it failed. The shorter name had long been used unofficially, and the Society's name was already abbreviated as "WHS" in many cases rather than "SHSW". As of 2024, the Society is replacing its 40-year-old museum with a newer museum building on the same site, planned to open in 2027.

Modern Organization

The Wisconsin Historical Society is organized into four divisions: the Division of Library, Archives and Museum Collections, the Division of Museums and Historic Sites, the Division of Historic Preservation-Public History, and the Division of Administrative Services.

Division of Library, Archives and Museum Collections

The Division of Library, Archives and Museum Collections collects and maintains books and documents about the history of Wisconsin, the United States, and Canada. The society's library and archives, which together serve as the library of American history for the

, contain nearly four million items, making the society's collection the largest in the world dedicated exclusively to North American history. The Wisconsin Historical Society's extensive newspaper collection is the second largest in the United States after the Library of Congress. Visual materials in the archives include some three million photographs, negatives, films, architectural drawings, cartoons, lithographs, posters, and a variety of visual ephemera. The

Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) is a major archive of motion picture, television, radio, and theater research materials. Located in the headquarters building of the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, th ...

is also housed within the division. The society's archives also serve as the official repository for state and local government records. The society coordinates an Area Research Center Network, an alliance between the Historical Society in Madison and four-year campuses of the University of Wisconsin System throughout the state and the Northern Great Lakes History Center in Ashland, to make most of the archival collections accessible to state residents. The society's museum collections are maintained in the Collections Division containing objects relating to Wisconsin history.

Division of Museums and Historic Sites

The Division of Museums and Historic Sites operates the Wisconsin Historical Museum in downtown Madison and 11 historic sites throughout the state. The museum has an archaeology program in collaboration with the Department of Transportation and the Department of Natural Resources that undertakes research, and collects and preserves historical artifacts. The other historic sites are tourist attractions that display historic buildings reflecting Wisconsin history and provide exhibitions and demonstrations of state history, such as ethnic settlement, mining, farming, fur trading, transportation, and pioneering life.

Division of Historic Preservation-Public History

The Division of Historic Preservation-Public History administers the state's historic preservation program, the state's burial sites preservation program, and the

Wisconsin Historical Society Press The Wisconsin Historical Society Press, operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society, in Madison, Wisconsin, is Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the Uni ...

, which publishes books on Wisconsin and American history and a quarterly magazine, the ''Wisconsin Magazine of History''. The division also provides outreach to local historical societies.

''Wisconsin Magazine of History''

The ''Wisconsin Magazine of History'' () is a quarterly journal published by the WHS since September 1917. The society maintains a fully digitized archive that contains more than 2,000 feature articles totaling more than 30,000 pages.

Division of Administrative Services

The Division of Administrative Services provides support and planning for the WHS and its divisions. The society's website include a large, searchable collection of historical images and a vast digital archive containing thousands of scanned documents relating to Wisconsin history. Wisconsin Historical Society employees are employees of the State of Wisconsin.

Notable people

John Givan Davis Mack John Givan Davis Mack (September 5, 1867 – February 24, 1924) was a professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin. He was also curator of the museum of the Wisconsin Historical Society. He was for many years State Chief Engineer. Biog ...

, professor of engineering and curator of the WHS libraryOn the Presentation of the Mack Portrait to the State Historical Society
''The Wisconsin Magazine of History'', vol. 8, no. 1 (September, 1924), pp. 74–77. *

F. Gerald Ham Francis Gerald "Jerry" Ham (April 13, 1930 – June 5, 2021) was an American archivist and educator, and served as state archivist of Wisconsin between 1964 and 1990. Ham also founded the archival education program at the University of Wisconsin- ...

, former Wisconsin state archivist and director of the Division of Library-ArchivesJohn Fleckner, "F. Gerald Ham: Jeremiah to the Profession," ''American Archivist'' 77, no. 2 (2014): 377–393

References

External links

*
''Wisconsin Magazine of History'' archive of scholarly articles

Legislators' Guide to the Wisconsin Historical Society

Teachinghistory.org review of WHS website, ''American Journeys''
{{Authority control State historical societies of the United States Scientific organizations established in 1846 1846 establishments in Wisconsin Territory Organizations based in Madison, Wisconsin Digital history projects Photo archives Photo archives in the United States