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Sifting and Reckoning: An exhibition from the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Public History Project, opening September 12, 2022 at the Chazen Museum of Art.

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Cronon, Edmund David, and John W. Jenkins. The University of Wisconsin: A History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.

Barnes, Rhae Lynn. Interview with Nathan Connolly. Backstory Radio. February 8, 2019. Podcast.

Lott, Eric. Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Roediger, David R. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. New York: Verso, 2007.

"Van Hise Speaks to Engineers: Commends Success of Minstrel Show." Daily Cardinal (Madison, WI), Mar. 24, 1909, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Messer-Kruse, Timothy. "The Campus Klan of the University of Wisconsin: Tacit and Active Support for the Ku Klux Klan in a Culture of Intolerance." Wisconsin Magazine of History, Autumn 1993.

Kantrowitz, Stephen, Floyd Rose, and et al. "Report to the Chancellor on the Ku Klux Klan at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. " (PDF). April 4, 2018.

Weaver, Norman Frederic. "The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1954.

International Club brochure, Series 20/3/2/5/10 49A5, Student Life Organizations, Records and Related Materials, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"International Club 61 Years Old." Daily Cardinal, (Madison, WI), Fall Registration Issue 1963, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Chinese Night 1920 program, UW Memorabilia Collection, 1920, Box 10, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"When did Ebony Ball start?" Ask Flamingle (blog), Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association. Accessed December 6, 2021.

"Concerned Negro Students" Group Organized at U.W." Madison Capital Times, Nov. 28, 1966, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Pathways to Independence," 12 December 1978, Series 2005/146 40A9, McBurney Disability Resource Center Records (1965-2009), Chancellor's Committee for Disabled Persons 1978-79, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Organization Instituted for Benefit of Homosexuals." Daily Cardinal (Madison, WI), Jan. 7, 1970, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"History." OOCities - MEChA, Accessed November 23, 2021.

Peterson, Angela. "Rewriting Chapters: Resistance to Addressing Discriminatory Practices in University of Wisconsin-Madison Fraternities and Sororities, 1947-1962." Archive, May 2020.

Murphy, Peter H. "Fraternities Come Back." Wisconsin Alumnus Magazine, February 1947.

Hiller, Burt. "Report to the Committee of Student Life and Interests Concerning Discrimination Clauses in Fraternity Constitutions," Box 1, Dean of Student Affairs-Inter-Fraternity Affairs Records, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Bar to Negro Stirs Campus." The Journal's Madison Bureau, May 15, 1931, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"On the Cover." Wisconsin Alumnus Magazine, Apr. 1949, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Levine, Mort. "Negro Pledges 'White' Fraternity." Daily Cardinal (Madison, WI), Mar. 24, 1949, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Fraternity explains Negro pledging." Daily Cardinal (Madison, WI), Nov. 15, 1949, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Glenn Frank's wife, Mary Frank, published exclusively under the name "Mrs. Glenn Frank." Frank, Mrs. Glenn. "Heartache on Campus." Women's Home Companion, April 1945.

Inter-Racial Committee Constitution and By-laws, Box 1, Dean of Student Affairs-Inter-Fraternity Affairs Records, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Report of the Committee on Human Rights." Box 3, Faculty Document 1041, Human Rights Committee Records, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Discriminatory Clauses Out! Regents Rule Against Clauses After 1960." Daily Cardinal (Madison, WI), Aug. 12, 1952, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Levitan, Stuart D. Madison in The Sixties. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018.

"Faculty Lets Delta Gamma Stay." Wisconsin State Journal, Dec. 4, 1962.

"UW-Madison Commission to Study Future of Fraternities and Sororities." Minority Groups, Fraternity Incidents, 11 November 1988, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Wisconsin fraternity suspended over racist, bigoted slurs." Chicago Tribune, May 18, 2016.

For more information on the councils within Fraternity and Sorority Life at UW-Madison: "Councils." Fraternity & Sorority Life.

For more details on sources and to request full footnotes, please contact the Public History Project at publichistoryproject@wisc.edu.

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Cronon, Edmund David, and John W. Jenkins. The University of Wisconsin: A History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999. Barnes, Rhae Lynn. Interview with Nathan Connolly. Backstory Radio. February 8, 2019. Podcast. Lott, Eric. Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

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In the Classroom | Sifting and Reckoning

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The classroom hasn't always felt like a welcoming space for marginalized students.

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Proposal #1: A public history project to recover the voices of campus community members, in the era of the Klan and since, who struggled and endured in a climate of hostility and sought to change it.
What UW-Madison is doing:

Based on this recommendation, UW-Madison will be committing significant university resources to a public history project that will reclaim and celebrate the voices of those who endured, fought and overcame prejudice on campus, not just in the early 1900s but throughout the history of the university. Study group co-chair Stephen Kantrowitz, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of History, and member Christy Clark-Pujara, an associate professor of history in the Department of Afro-American Studies, have agreed to convene a group this summer to design a process for the implementation of this project and to recommend ways to make the resulting information publicly available and visible. This will be a multi-year effort, likely involving archival research and oral history, culminating with a museum-quality public display. (Estimated cost about $1 million)

Proposal #2: Renewed commitment to the Department of Afro-American Studies and the programs in American Indian studies, Chican@/Latin@ studies, and Asian American studies.
What UW-Madison is doing:

We will be funding a proposal from the four ethnic studies divisions to hire four new faculty members, each of whom will be jointly appointed with other departments, over the next year. (Estimated cost $360,000)

This follows the addition of a second budgeted faculty member in the Chican@/Latin@ Studies Program this academic year and a commitment to expand sections of high-demand ethnic studies courses.

Proposal #3: Increased investment in the high-impact recruitment programs housed in the Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity & Climate, and more generally the commitment of resources to the improved retention of undergraduates, graduate students and faculty of color and from first-generation, economically disadvantaged and otherwise underrepresented groups.
What UW-Madison is doing: Faculty

We will be allocating new resources to the recruitment of top scholars from underrepresented groups in the coming year. Details of this initiative are still in development and will be announced publicly in fall 2018. It is clear that an investment in the future inclusivity of campus must include a commitment to creating expanded diversity among our faculty.

As noted above, we will be making new ethnic studies joint hires.

Undergraduates

This proposal needs to go beyond the activities of the Division of Diversity, Equity and Educational Achievement to include Admissions and Financial Aid. We are in the midst of launching two previously announced programs, Badger Promise and Bucky's Tuition Promise, that we expect to significantly increase affordability and access for low- and moderate-income students from Wisconsin. We expect this to increase our applications among students from first-generation and underrepresented groups in Wisconsin.

In recent years, we have been reviewing and refining targeted scholarship programs (such as Powers-Knapp and Chancellor's Scholars) to be more effective at recruiting and retaining students. Based on a major external evaluation, we have also revised our PEOPLE pre-college pipeline program, which operates primarily in the Madison and Milwaukee schools, to make it more effective at preparing students for higher education.

We have closed the retention gap that once existed among historically underrepresented students and all students. Graduation rates are increasing for all students and are growing more rapidly among underrepresented students, which means we've made substantial progress on the graduation gap as well.

Proposal #4: Increased investment in the Advanced Opportunity Fellowships (AOF) program, which benefits graduate students from traditionally underrepresented groups.
What UW-Madison is doing:

Over the past decade, our commitment to AOF has been vigorous. We are spending $5 million on AOF this year, up from $3.75 million in 2010.

The AOF program provides more than just money. We continue to strengthen the Graduate Research Scholars communities that all AOF recipients participate in. These communities provide academic, research, social and professional development opportunities.

Funding support of underrepresented minority PhD students has increased in recent years, from 79 percent receiving funding in fall 2012 to 84 percent last fall.

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Confronting campus history: UW–Madison actions

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Proposal #1: A public history project to recover the voices of campus community members, in the era of the Klan and since, who struggled and endured in a climate of hostility and sought to change it.

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"Negro Co-Ed Says Other Tenants Caused Ouster." Wisconsin State Journal, Apr. 26, 1940.

"Jewess, Denied Room, Sues." Capital Times (Madison, WI), Jan. 10, 1930.

"University Club Ousts Colored Grad Student." Daily Cardinal (Madison, WI), Oct. 24, 1944, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Pollack, Jonathan Z.S. Wisconsin, The New Home of the Jew 150 Years of Jewish Life at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (PDF), Self-published, 2019.

Newspaper clippings on housing discrimination during the mid-century in Madison, University General Milwaukee Journal Clippings, Box 1 and 2, "Admission-Discrimination" Folder, 1922-77, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Negro Co-Ed Says Other Tenants Caused Ouster." Wisconsin State Journal, Apr. 26, 1940.

"Negro Co-ed Still Lashed, She Complains." Wisconsin State Journal, May 24, 1940.

"University Club Ousts Colored Grad Student." Daily Cardinal (Madison, WI), Oct. 24, 1944, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Curti, Merle. "Oral History Interview: Merle Curti." Interview by Donna Taylor. 1973, OH #027, Oral History Project, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"University Club History." Office of the Secretary of the Faculty website.

Seyforth, Scott. "The Life and Times of Carson Gulley." Wisconsin Magazine of History 99, no. 4 (2016): 2-15.

For more information on disability and housing at UW-Madison, see McBurney Disability Resource Center Records (1965-2009), Box 4, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Negress Denied Room; U.W. Student Board to Investigate." 31 March 1949, Box 26, "Racial Discrimination, Disturbances about, on the University campus" folder, Chancellor's Misc Files; General Subject Files - Discrimination-Enrollment, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Housing muddle can be cleaned by university." Daily Cardinal (Madison, WI), Apr. 1, 1949, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Letter from Board of Regents Secretary Clarke Smith to President E.B. Fred, 17 November 1950 and 5 December 1950, Box 145, Committee on Human Rights Folder, Chancellors General Correspondence 1950-51 Committees, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Memo on Regent Action, August 8, 1952, Box 24, "Discrimination - Ann Emery and Langdon Hall" folder, Chancellors Miscellaneous Files, General Subject Files - Discrimination, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Letter from Regent Campbell to E.B. Fred regarding the Grady Resolution, October 26, 1950, Box 145, Grady Request Folder, Chancellors General Correspondence 1950-1951 Committees, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Landlord Evicts Co-Ed When She Dates Negro." Daily Cardinal (Madison, WI), October 30, 1947, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Communications and newspaper clippings on the Iris Alexander case, Box 26, "Discrimination - Iris Alexander Case" folder, Chancellor's Misc Files, General Subject Files - Discrimination-Enrollment, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Education: No Place to Mix." Time, November 10, 1947.

Communications and newspaper clippings on the housing film controversy, Box 26, Bias Film (Discrimination) Folder, Chancellor's Miscellaneous files, General Subject Files - Discrimination - Enrollment, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Rashad, Liberty. "Oral History Interview with Liberty Rashad," interview by University of Wisconsin-Madison Communications in 2018 in Madison, Wisconsin. Transcript. UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Report of the Student Board Committee Against Discrimination, May 1949, Box 5, "Student Board, Faculty, Regent Documents on Discrimination" Folder, Dean of Student Affairs Kenneth Little subject files, "Discrimination - E", UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Merritt Norvell, Jr. Report on Preliminary Observations on Minority Students and the Residence Hall Community, prepared for the Office of Student Housing, October 1, 1971, University of Wisconsin Housing Archives.

Roe, Gwyneth. "Polish Born Adela Kalvary Finds Group." Daily Cardinal (Madison, WI), July 3, 1951, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

University of Wisconsin News Service Press Release on Groves Women's co-operative house, November 15, 1951, UW-Madison Archies, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Summary of the Recommendations: Report of GLIC," Dean of Students Records 1968-2010, LGBT Liaison 1962-99, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

Schoenmann, Joe. "UW Committee Urges Separate Housing for Gays." Capital Times (Madison, WI), January 23, 1992. UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Separate but Equal," Badger Herald (Madison, WI), January 24, 1992. UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries.

"Open House Living Community." University Housing website.

Fjelstad, Elise. "Beyond the Binary: Gender Inclusive Community expands housing options for trans, gender-nonconforming residents." Badger Herald, December 2, 2021.

"Gender Inclusive Affinity Community." University Housing website.

Savidge, Nico. "Student disciplined for posting swastikas, photos of Hitler on dorm room door." Wisconsin State Journal, Last modified February 18, 2016.

Zhong, Xiani. "UW First Wave scholar subjected to hateful language, spit on face in campus dorm." Badger Herald, Last modified March 13, 2016.

Savidge, Nico. "UW-Madison launching another investigation after student finds racist note." Wisconsin State Journal, Last modified April 1, 2016.

Walters, Anna. "When home doesn't feel like home: How racism in world, on campus continues in dorms." Badger Herald, Last modified September 30, 2020.

Washington, Reonda and et al. "The Color of Drinking: An exploratory study of the impact of UW-Madison's alcohol culture on students of color." (PDF) University Health Services, UW-Madison.

To learn more about The Color of Drinking Study, visit "Color of Drinking." University Health Services.

For more details on sources and to request full footnotes, please contact the Public History Project at publichistoryproject@wisc.edu.

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"Negro Co-Ed Says Other Tenants Caused Ouster." Wisconsin State Journal, Apr. 26, 1940. "Jewess, Denied Room, Sues." Capital Times (Madison, WI), Jan. 10, 1930. "University Club Ousts Colored Grad Student." Daily Cardinal (Madison, WI), Oct. 24, 1944, UW-Madison Archives, UW-Madison Libraries. Pollack, Jonathan Z.S.

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Student Activism | Sifting and Reckoning

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For decades, UW students have effected change through activism and protest.

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Spanning over 150 years, Sifting & Reckoning: UW-Madison's History of Exclusion and Resistance brings to light stories of struggle and perseverance. Through archival objects, photographs, and oral histories, the exhibit will illuminate under-recognized histories in the university's past. Visitors will meet the university's first students of color, explore early struggles for equality in social organizations, housing, and athletics, and learn about protest movements on campus. Numerous talks, presentations and related events will occur throughout the fall to engage the community. Events are free and open to the public.
Visit the Sifting & Reckoning website

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The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Public History Project is a multi-year effort to uncover and give voice to those who experienced, challenged and overcame prejudice on campus. The project grew out of a campus study group that looked into the history of two UW-Madison student organizations in the early 1920s that bore the name of the...

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The Public History Project regularly publishes blog posts highlighting the history of UW-Madison. To see our newest blog post, please visit our website.

In the process of researching for the Public History Project, our team has used the following resources to aid in our research. They have been divided by topic. This list is by no means exhaustive. If we've missed a book you think is important to include, please email publichistoryproject@wisc.edu.

Higher Education/UW-Madison History

Articles

Black History

LGBTQ+ History

Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) History

Chicanx and Latinx History

Native & Indigenous History

Disability Justice & Disability History

A Disability History of the United States by Kim Nielsen

The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public by Susan Marie Schweik

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century by Alice Wong

Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann with Kristen Joiner

Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design by Bess Williamson

History of whiteness in the United States

The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter

Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class by Eric Lott

The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class by David R. Roediger

Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs by David R. Roediger

Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America by Matthew Frye Jacobson

Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race by Matthew Frye Jacobson

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Campus Resources | History Resources | Research Guides | Teaching GuidesDepartments and units across campus are doing important work to recognize the history of the racism and discrimination in the United States and to provide educational opportunities and resources for our campus community to learn more about building an anti-racist future.

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To establish a university, you need land. A place to build. For UW-Madison, as for the entirety of the United States, the land was taken from Indigenous peoples.
The land on which the city of Madison and the university stand are part of the ancestral homeland of the Ho-Chunk people. In an 1825 treaty, the United States recognized it as such. But in an 1832 treaty, the U.S. demanded that the Ho-Chunk surrender a huge area of land, including this region. The Treaty of 1832 may be our campus's most important document: it is the legal basis on which the city and the university could be built and on which non-Ho-Chunk people can now reside.

The Treaty of 1832 took place under duress-what one U.S. official called "the blended grounds of conquest & contract." A U.S. army occupied large parts of Wisconsin, and the Ho-Chunk had no choice but to sell the land. The treaty demanded that they leave the region, and U.S. authorities repeated this demand in an 1833 meeting with Ho-Chunk leaders just a few miles from here, in today's city of Middleton. Decades of ethnic cleansing followed, during which the state and federal governments repeatedly sent soldiers to banish the Ho-Chunk from Teejop and the rest of their homeland. But the Ho-Chunk people's spiritual connection to this land and its waters and to their ancestors could not be broken by treaties and violence. Many Ho-Chunk people refused to leave Wisconsin, and many others quickly returned.

The land the U.S. took from the Ho-Chunk in 1832 was the most important way in which the university benefited from the seizure of Indigenous people's lands. The university also received the profits from grants of "public lands" that the federal government had seized from Native people in other treaties. For example, under the Morrill Act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, the University of Wisconsin received 235,530 acres in northern Wisconsin, which it sold for a $303,439 profit. Adjusted for inflation, this represents nearly $5 million that still benefits the university today.

The University of Wisconsin was founded in 1848, in the same year as the State of Wisconsin. Native people remained in Teejop and throughout Wisconsin, but for the first century of the university's life not one Native person from Wisconsin graduated from the university. Although the university stands on ancestral Ho-Chunk land, it was not until the 1970s that Ho-Chunk students were able to make a place for themselves here.

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To establish a university, you need land. A place to build. For UW-Madison, as for the entirety of the United States, the land was taken from Indigenous peoples. The land on which the city of Madison and the university stand are part of the ancestral homeland of the Ho-Chunk people.

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In the face of adversity, UW athletes and coaches have fought for equality on and off the field.

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Across the different sections of this exhibit what patterns did you notice? What is the significance of those patterns?

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Across the different sections of this exhibit what patterns did you notice? What is the significance of those patterns?

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This section talks a little bit about some of "firsts" at UW in what benefits do you believe compositional diversity at UW has provided? In what ways can UW continue to improve?

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This section talks a little bit about some of "firsts" at UW in what benefits do you believe compositional diversity at UW has provided? In what ways can UW continue to improve?

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How do we see the historical legacy of exclusion at UW continue to impact students at UW today? What can we do differently?

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How do we see the historical legacy of exclusion at UW continue to impact students at UW today? What can we do differently?

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What structural or organization practices/processes at UW have contributed to the legacy of exclusion at UW?

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What structural or organization practices/processes at UW have contributed to the legacy of exclusion at UW?

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What is the importance of acknowledging the displacement of indigenous peoples?

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What is the importance of acknowledging the displacement of indigenous peoples?

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As you look back at the various instances of student activism and resistance what themes do you notice? In what ways do we continue to see some of these themes on campus today?

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As you look back at the various instances of student activism and resistance what themes do you notice? In what ways do we continue to see some of these themes on campus today?

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The section on activism makes a nod to the Our Shared Future initiative stating "it is a collective act of moving together from ignorance to awareness" in what ways has this exhibit facilitate your own process of moving from ignorance to awareness?

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The section on activism makes a nod to the Our Shared Future initiative stating "it is a collective act of moving together from ignorance to awareness" in what ways has this exhibit facilitate your own process of moving from ignorance to awareness?

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Given UW Madison's historical legacy of exclusion as it relates to student life many students of color (SOC) had to create counter spaces to find belonging on campus. While this gave space to SOC in some ways UW-Madison failed to reckon with parts of student life that created these experiences of exclusion. How does this continue to impact student life on campus today?

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Given UW Madison's historical legacy of exclusion as it relates to student life many students of color (SOC) had to create counter spaces to find belonging on campus. While this gave space to SOC in some ways UW-Madison failed to reckon with parts of student life that created these experiences of exclusion. How does this continue to impact student life on campus today?

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What stood out to you or surprised you? What didn't?

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What stood out to you or surprised you? What didn't?

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It really saddened me that the physical attacks against athletes mentioned in the exhibit seemed to get dismissed. The students definitely did not receive the justice they deserved, even after protesting (which they shouldn't have had to do in the first place).