Greetings from the Center for Campus History! This month we’re excited to celebrate Native November on campus with events, archival finds, book and movie recommendations and more. Plus we’re reintroducing our online research publication! Read on for more!

The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Rebecca M. Blank Center For Campus History is an ongoing university effort to uncover and give voice to those who experienced, challenged, and overcame prejudice on campus. As always, if you have a story to share, an event you think should be researched, or a person you think has been overlooked, please email us at centerforcampushistory@wisc.edu.

From time to time, we like to share helpful resources from other public history organizations, and it’s the right time of year to highlight Rethinking Thanksgiving from the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian. Just in time for the holiday, this collection of online resources and activities deconstructs romantic myths surrounding the first Thanksgiving at the Plymouth Colony and illuminates the history and traditions of the Wampanoag people. 

For an even deeper understanding of this history, check out This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by historian David J. Silverman.

We’re super excited to (re)introduce Siftings, the Center’s digital publication of research and writing! Originally a space to share work from our past incarnation as the Public History Project, we’ve expanded it into an ongoing collection of original historical research, writing and multimedia from the Center’s staff, students, and members of the campus community.

To kick things off, CCH Assistant Director Taylor Bailey has a deep dive into the complexities of belonging and shared identity at UW–Madison based on data collected from hundreds of visitors to the Center’s Sifting & Reckoning exhibition. Read it here!

In 1986, Paul DeMain (Ojibwe/Oneida) founded News from Indian Country in Madison, Wisconsin. It was the oldest continuing, nationally distributed publication on Indigenous issues that was not owned by a tribal government. It offered national, cultural and regional sections, and boasted the largest pow-wow directory in the country. In this photo from the UW Archives, Paul is pictured in a Native American Journalism Workshop in 1993, where he spoke about the importance of Native people covering Native news.

The Indigenous Student Center Coalition is pulling out the stops this year for the 10th annual celebration of Native November, including a keynote talk from Dallas Goldtooth, a writer, actor and comedian known for his work on Reservation Dogs. 

See the full lineup of events here.

We get asked a lot of questions about UW history. Each month we’ll answer one in the newsletter. 

This month is sort of a mashup. Folks are consistently interested in the history of Native people on campus: Who was the first known Indigenous student to graduate from UW? What was the first Native student group? The first Native star athlete? 

The answer: The short answers are, respectively, Geraldine Harvey (Oneida and Chippewa) who graduated with a master’s in education in 1950; Wunk Sheek, founded in 1968 to serve “students of Indigenous identity and members of the UW–Madison community interested in Indigenous issues, culture, and history”; and Thomas “Ted” St. Germaine, a standout member of the football and water polo teams in the early 1900s who would go on to be the first Native American in Wisconsin to be admitted to the state bar. 

For longer versions of these stories and more, check out the Center’s digital Sifting & Reckoning exhibition.

Have a question? Let us know! Email us at centerforcampushistory@wisc.edu. 

Each month Center Director Kacie Lucchini Butcher will share a book, podcast, movie, quote, or something else she thinks has been adding to the CCH. We're calling it "From The Desk of KLB".

This month From The Desk of KLB, we have a recommendation in multiple mediums.

Originally a deeply researched narrative nonfiction book by David Grann, and now an acclaimed new film from Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon recounts the chilling true history of dozens of murders of Osage people by white settlers in 1920s Oklahoma, bent on stealing land and oil rights.