Archives and Oral Histories

The University Archives is located on the 4th floor of Steenbock Library. It has biographical clippings’ files, oral history interviews (some with transcripts), records of departments and organizations, and personal papers of some faculty and staff women.

The oral histories are all catalogued in the Library Catalog. Check the Library Catalog for the person you are interested in, or use the Archives’ Oral History Interviews page, which includes an alphabetical list of interviewees and procedures for using the tapes. A few of the audio interviews have been digitized by the University of Wisconsin Digital Collection, including those with Kathryn Clarenbach (educator and leader of the women’s movement) and Cora Lee Kluge (Professor of German). To see an up-to-date list of which interviews have been digitized, browse the UW Campus Voices Collection. One sub-collection is Women in Science and Engineering. There also interviews with women and men concerning the TAA Strike of 1970.

Among the records for relevant campus units are The Dean of Women Records, 1920-1968. Library Catalog Record . See also references to “Wisconsin” in The Dean of Women, by Lois Kimball Mathews Rosenberry, Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1915. She was Dean of Women at the University of Wisconsin and though the book is more general, many of her examples come from Wisconsin. The book has been digitized by Google and is accessible through the Hathi Trust library repository. Appendix A is the constitution of the Self-Government Association of the Women Studies of the University of Wisconsin.

The Madison LGBT Community, 1960s-Present Oral History Project also has several items on the site and accessible through searching Minds@UW, as explained on the site.

Catalog records for collections of personal papers are also in Madcat (ex: Madeleine Doran; Nellie K. McKay.)

The Wisconsin Historical Society Library-Archives also has material on some UW-affiliated people, particularly when their activities went beyond the University into local, state, or national affairs. See also the Society’s digital collections.

Since new material is being added all the time, be sure to try The University of Wisconsin Collection, its sub-collection on The History of Women at the University of Wisconsin and the State of Wisconsin Collection.

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Relevant Archival Collections Not at UW-Madison:

The papers of Professor Gerda Lerner, who founded the women’s history graduate program at UW-Madison, are in the Schlesinger Library, Harvard Unviersity. Finding Aid.

The papers of Professor Elaine Marks, who taught French literature and Women’s Studies at UW-Madison, are in the Feminist Theory Archives, Pembroke Center, Brown University. Online Exhibit.

There are letters to/from Professor Nellie McKay (Afro-American Studies, English, and Women’s Studies) 1977-2005 in the papers of Nell Irvin Painter, at Duke University. Inventory. They are closed until forty years from the original date of creation of each item.