Resources

Teaching Guides

The Center for Campus History developed these teaching guides to provide educators with resources about historical moments of discrimination and resistance at the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. Almost all of the primary sources in these teaching guides come from archival research conducted by historians working at the center. We encourage educators to modify and adapted these guides and sources to best fit the needs of their particular lesson plans, students, and classrooms. Instructors can also find these materials on Canvas.

Each teaching guide includes:

  • Recommended primary sources with a description of each source.
  • Recommended secondary readings to help students contextualize the primary sources.
  • Additional primary sources with descriptions and secondary readings.
  • Discussion questions for all recommended primary and secondary sources and secondary sources.
  • Suggestions for a Socratic seminar discussion norms.
  • Citations for all the primary sources.

Oral Histories

The oral histories found here are part of a larger effort to center the voices, stories, and experiences of discrimination and resistance at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Madison community. These stories were shared with members of the Center for Campus History, and we encourage individuals to explore additional resources that explain the center’s mission and teaching resources that highlight the experiences of other students.

Each oral history guide explores a student’s experience at UW and also relates to a larger phenomenon on campus. Each guide contains:

  • A brief description of the interview.
  • Audio clips from the interview, typically, a 2-3, 5-7, and 8-10min section.
  • All of the segments combined into one file.
  • A transcript of the interview (if available).
  • Discussion questions about the complexities of oral history and questions that address the content from the interview.

Similar to our teaching guides, there is no right or wrong way to use this material. We encourage educators to select audio clips and questions that best facilitate their goals and objectives for their courses, lectures, and discussions.

All of the audio files are saved as an MP3 format and can either be downloaded or will play in your internet browser when you click the link.

These histories were collected with collaboration and support from the UW Archives Oral History Program, and are part of a the Program’s larger collection featuring hundreds of recorded interviews.  This is an ongoing project, and we hope to include more oral histories and resources on this page as the Center continues its work.

Oral Histories

Dr. Victor Jew: Asian-American Studies

Sara Jackson-Brunson: Black Greek Life

Kelly Holmes: Indigenous Student Experience

Ramona Lisa Natera: Chican@ & Latin@ Studies Program

Isaac Trussoni: African American Studies Department

Tshiab Dua Yang: Hmong American Alumni

Frank Emspak: Black Student Strike

History Resources

The Center for Campus History regularly publishes blog posts highlighting the history of UW–Madison. To see our newest blog post, please visit our website.

Our team has used the following resources to aid in the Center’s 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 centerforcampushistory@wisc.edu.

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Higher Education/UW–Madison History

  • The University of Wisconsin: A Pictorial History by Arthur Hove
  • Madison: a history of the formative years by David V. Mollenhoff
  • The University of Wisconsin: A History by Merle Curti
  • Madison in the Sixties by Stu Levitan
  • Wisconsin, The New Home of the Jew: 150 Years of Jewish Life at UW–Madison by Jonathan Pollock
  • A People’s History of American Higher Education by Philo A. Hutcheson
  • American Higher Education Since World War II: A History by Roger L Geiger
  • In The Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities by Davarian Baldwin
  • Undermining Racial Justice: How One University Embraced Inclusion & Equality by Matthew Johnson
  • Lean Semesters: How Higher Education Reproduces Inequity by Sekile M. Nzinga
  • For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America by Charles Dorn
  • The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities by Nicholas L. Syrett
  • They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 by David Maraniss
  • Cold War University: Madison and the New Left in the Sixties by Matthew Levin

Articles

Black History

  • A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross
  • The Black Revolution on Campus by Martha Biondi
  • The Black Campus Movement: Black Students and the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education, 1965–1972 by Ibram X. Kendi
  • The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom by Eddie R. Cole
  • White Money/Black Power: The Surprising History of African American Studies And the Crisis of Race And Higher Education by Noliwe M. Rooks
  • Settlin’: Stories of Madison’s Early African American Families by Muriel Simms
  • Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry
  • The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
  • Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay by Shanna Greene Benjamin

LGBTQ+ History

  • We’ve Been Here All Along: Wisconsin’s Early Gay History by Richard Wagner
  • Coming Out, Moving Forward: Wisconsin’s Recent Gay History by Richard Wagner
  • We Will Always Be Here: A Guide to Exploring and Understanding the History of LGBTQ+ Activism in Wisconsin by Jenny Kalvaitis and Kristen Whitson
  • The Lavender Scare: Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government by David K. Johnson
  • Departing from Deviance: The History of Homosexual Rights and Emancipatory Science in America by David Minton
  • Making Gay History by Eric Marcus
  • A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski
  • Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution by Susan Stryker
  • Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton
  • Trans* in College: Transgender Students’ Strategies for Navigating Campus Life and the Institutional Politics of Inclusion by Z Nicolazzo

Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) History

  • Hmong in Wisconsin (People of Wisconsin) by Mai Zong Vue
  • The Good Immigrant: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority by Madeline Y. Hsu
  • Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America by Mae Ngai
  • Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People by Helen Zia
  • Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans by Ronald Takaki
  • America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee
  • The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee
  • Hmong America: Reconstructing Community in Diaspora by Chia Youyee Vang
  • A New History of Asian America by Shelley Sang-Hee Lee

Chicanx and Latinx History

  • Mexicans in Wisconsin (People of Wisconsin) by Sergio González
  • An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz
  • Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuna
  • Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States by Felipe Fernández-Armesto
  • El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America by Carrie Gibson
  • From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America by Vicki L. Ruiz
  • Campus Counterspaces: Black and Latinx Students’ Search for Community at Historically White Universities by Micere Keels
  • My Time Among the Whites: Notes From an Unfinished Education by Jennine Capó Crucet

Native & Indigenous History

  • Wisconsin Indian Literature: Anthology of Native Voices Edited by Kathleen Tigerman
  • Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal by Patty Loew
  • An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
  • Playing Indian by Philip J. Deloria
  • Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums by Amy Lonetree
  • People of the Big Voice: Photographs of Ho-Chunk Families by Charles Van Schaick, 1879-1942 by Amy Lonetree
  • Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture by Chip Colwell
  • Our History Is the Future by Nick Estes
  • Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah
  • Killing the White Man’s Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century by Fergus Bordewich
  • Our Brother’s Keeper: the Indian in White America by Edgar S. Cahn
  • Custer Died for Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr.
  • Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science by Kim TallBear
  • Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement by Dennis Banks

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

Campus Resources

Departments 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. The following is a small sample of these resources.

Research Guides

We believe that everyone has an active role to play in researching and interpreting the history of UW–Madison. To help students, faculty, staff, and scholars more easily find and access research materials related to UW–Madison’s history, we are in the process of creating research guides. Please check back soon.