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Pride Month: Lloyd Barbee & Wisconsin's Gay Rights Laws

Attorney, state legislator, and prominent leader of Wisconsin’s civil rights movement Lloyd Barbee is most well-known for his leadership in the fight to desegregate Milwaukee’s Public schools. But did you know that he also led the charge behind Wisconsin’s Gay Rights Laws?  

In 1967 Barbee introduced the first bill decriminalizing homosexuality and all consenting sexual practices in the state assembly. In 1971 (two years post-Stonewall) he introduced a second bill protecting gays and lesbians from job discrimination. After Barbee left his position in 1976 Madison lawmaker David Clarenbach picked up where he left off, working over the next 6 years with activists and state lawmakers to consolidate community and legal support and organize votes.

On February 25, 1982, Wisconsin became the first state in the nation to legally protect gay people from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. All sexual relations between consenting adults were legalized in 1983, including those between same-sex lovers.

You can learn more about our LGBTQ collections and Lloyd Barbee's life and work through our Digital Collections and check out the finding aid for the Lloyd A. Barbee Papers. The articles Barbee Legalizing Sex and Love is a Crime are both available online via UWM's LGBT Digital Collections.

-- Ana

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Pride Month: Manonia Evans & Donna Burkett Fight for Same-Sex Marriage Rights

On October 8th, 1971, Donna Burkett & Manonia Evans made Wisconsin history when they visited the Milwaukee County Clerk’s office to apply for a marriage license. When their application was denied because they were a same-sex couple, they proceeded to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin claiming that County Clerk Thomas Zablocki had denied them due process and equal protection under the law by refusing to recognize their constitutional right to marriage. Burkett told GPU News “The law should protect us and help us the way it does any two straight people who love each other and want to live together... That’s our civil rights; that’s what this is all about.”  

Not to be deterred, Burkett & Evans were married on Christmas Day, 1971, by Father Joseph Feldhausen, a local openly gay pastor who was involved in numerous civil rights and social aid initiatives in Milwaukee.  

Though same-sex marriage would not be legalized in Wisconsin until 2014, their case was part of the first wave of same-sex marriage lawsuits in the nation and was covered by both the The Advocate and Jet. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel caught up with Burkett in 2014, when she received an “everyday courage" award from the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center, who called her an “a little-known pioneer of the marriage equality movement”.  

video source: October 12, 1971, Daily News, Milwaukee Journal Stations Records

--Ana

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Pride Month: Lou Sullivan

Lou Sullivan was an activist, lay historian, and writer who was born in Wauwatosa in 1951 and grew up in Milwaukee. He became a member of the Gay People’s Union and a close friend of Eldon Murray, and first publicly identified publicly as transgender in an article in the August 1973 issue of GPU News titled “A Transvestite Answers a Feminist”. Sullivan, who lived his life as a gay man, was one of the first FTM transgender people in the nation to speak out about his medical transition and the many roadblocks and instances of discrimination he encountered along the way.  

In 1980 Sullivan wrote Information for the Female-to-Male Crossdresser and Transsexual, one of the first publications to share recommendations on clothing choices and body language as well as advice on finding support groups, counseling, and endocrinological and surgical services for FTM transgender men. The booklet is held in the Eldon Murray Papers at UWM Archives and is available in full online. 

Sullivan moved to San Francisco in 1975, where he completed his medical transition and continued his engagement with activism and advocacy for the transgender community. He was a founding member of the GLBT Historical Society and was involved in editing and publishing their newsletter.    

After receiving an HIV diagnosis in 1986, Sullivan spent the last years of his life amplifying his activism in support of the trans community and increasing his advocacy amongst the doctors and psychiatrists who had delayed his own transition- in part through the founding of FTM International, the oldest group for trans men in the U.S, and contributing to FTM International Newsletter. He died of AIDS-related complications in 1991, at the age of 39. 

The Louis Graydon Sullivan papers, Lou Sullivan’s personal archive, was donated to the GLBT Historical Society of San Francisco in 1991. Over 350 of the records from this collection are available online courtesy of the Digital Transgender Archive. 

We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan, 1961-1991, which documents Sullivan’s social and medical transition, can be found in the Golda Meir Library’s main collection. From Female to Male: The Life of Jack Bee Garland, which Sullivan wrote in 1990, is held by UWM Special Collections.   

--Ana

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International Nurses Day

May 12th is International Nurses Day! To celebrate, here are pictures of nurses from around the world hard at work:

India, nurse checking patient's pulse at New Delhi hospital - AGSL Digital Photo Archive - Asia and Middle East - UWM Libraries Digital Collections

Thailand, nurse and Dr. Osathanondh unpacking CARE package in Bangkok - AGSL Digital Photo Archive - Asia and Middle East - UWM Libraries Digital Collections

Nurse tends to patient in an iron lung at Milwaukee County General Hospital - Milwaukee Polonia - UWM Libraries Digital Collections UWM Mss 019

Singapore, nurse holding prosthetics with artificial wounds for training exercise - AGSL Digital Photo Archive - Asia and Middle East - UWM Libraries Digital Collections

Nurse holding three babies - James Blair Murdoch Photograph Collection - UWM Libraries Digital Collections UWM Mss 131

Guatemala, nurse feeding children at hospital dinner table - AGSL Digital Photo Archive - North and Central America - UWM Libraries Digital Collections

Hong Kong, nurse vaccinating refugee from mainland China - AGSL Digital Photo Archive - Asia and Middle East - UWM Libraries Digital Collections

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The Founding of Milwaukee's First Mosque

Iftekar Khan, on religious life as a Muslim UWM student in the 1970s and the establishment of a mosque, Desi Wisconsin Oral History Collection, UWM Archives Digital Collection

Full interview here

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Desi WI Profile: Premu Advani

Premu Advani immigrated in the US in 1967, but she had visited the United States the year before to see her brother, sister-in-law, and their new child. After 10 months in Chicago, she moved to Milwaukee with her husband, who had gotten a job as a brewing chemist at Pabst Brewing. She worked for Robert W. Baird in accounting and became a U.S. citizen in 1982.  

“We moved right in the middle of winter. It was a shock; I had never seen snow in my life, but I was thrilled to see all this because it was all new to me. I was young, and I was ready to adapt. Life was lonely when we first came. But his coworkers and his boss, we’re very grateful to them. They were very welcoming. They were a small company; we got to meet everybody, and it was close to Christmas, my first Christmas in this country. It was a great experience because the company at that time gave out turkeys and a case of beer. And I didn’t know diddly about cooking turkey, but I attempted it. I called his boss’s wife and said “What do I do with this big bird that’s here?” So she kind of showed me the way. I ended up having a little fire in the oven because I didn’t have the right equipment, but the turkey got cooked.” 

“A lot of people in Milwaukee did not (understand India and Indian culture), but the people that I mingled with and got to know were more knowledgeable, they were more educated. But the [average] man on the street did not know where India was, I’ll be very honest. So we had to kind of go along with that and accept that fact.” 

“I’ll never forget that I’m an Indian. I’m an American because I did get my citizenship. So I am an American of Indian descent. And I’m one of millions who live in this country with the same status. Being Indian is foremost in my head; it’s never going to go away. No matter how long one lives here, that feeling never goes away...our children are raising their children always focusing on the fact that we are Indian. Even if they’re born here, originally they are from India. How they feel as the years go, we have no idea. Right now they’re young, and they go along with our thoughts. What they do in the future is up to them.” 

“I didn’t teach our children to speak our language. That is my one regret. I didn’t because we lived here and we raised our kids here; we only spoke to them in English. We did try this method: I said, “you walk in the door, and you only speak Hindi”. Well, that didn’t last long because if I had to reprimand them, I would do it in English so that they would understand. And that is my one regret. What I see now, and I admire that in the younger generation that is here, is that they teach their children Gujrati or Hindi or whatever is their language, and those children are like little sponges, they are speaking them very fluently”. Mrs. Advani did note that she and her husband taught their children to pray in Sanskrit. 

-Desi Wisconsin Oral History Project, UW-Milwaukee Archives Digital Collections

link to full interview

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Indian American Identity in Wisconsin

Aruna Gupta on her identity as an Indian immigrant to the United States, Desi Wisconsin Oral History Project, UWM Archives Digital Collections

full interview here

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National Hat Day 2020

The interwebs is informing us that today, January 15, is National Hat Day. It is as good an excuse as any to show these dapper lads and lasses in their fine hats. These photographs were taken by Edwin Flancher and feature his family the Gruettners of Milwaukee. The family spent summers at their cabin at Lake Manitowish, perhaps they are dressed for a June wedding or a 4th of July celebration.

Since it is mid-January here in Wisconsin we suspect most of us will be in toques, Stormy Kromer hats, hand-knit beanies, or trapper hats. Whatever style you chose don your chapeau on National Hat Day.

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Desi WI: The India Religious Society and Hindu Temple

Early Indian immigrants to Milwaukee felt a strong need to pass on their culture and religion to their children despite the lack of a temple. One way this was accomplished was through the India Religious Society: meeting in homes, doctors' offices, and church basements, these families worked together to impart their beliefs and values to their children.

On the founding of the India Religious Society: “That (preserving Indian heritage) was one of the concerns for everybody here. That ‘how are we going to educate our children? How do we implant and invite some Indian values or things we think are good and so on.’ And so some of the few friends got together, and we thought maybe we should have something like Bible school. Similar to Bible school, we can have something like Indian cultural school, so that we can tell our children and teach some of the values, Indian values that we consider very dear to us. And so that’s how we started. 

We called it ‘India Religious Society’. It wasn’t a Hindu religious society, it was not a Buddhist religious society, not a Jain or Sikh, but India Religious Society. So all the religions that were there in India, we wanted to give them an exposure to each one’s different ideology and values. So we will meet every fortnight, at one of the place, which may be in some doctor’s office, basement, or somebody’s house...we didn’t have any Indian temple built in those days. And most of our children, even now, miss not having that type of program.’

-Dr. Sanath Gandhi, Desi WI Oral History Project, UWM Archives Special Collections

Full interview here

“And since we didn’t have temples, we realized that people were taking their children to Chicago to go to the temple. So that’s when we thought maybe we can come together and build a temple...and that temple would have a community center, a community hall. And the Indians, by that time, we had over I think the Indian population was over 1000, maybe more (in the late 1980s)...so we floated that idea, and we started a group to see the feasibility of this. By that time we had collected in the early part we collected donations from everybody...and we had collected over $300,000, and some members who were there were in real estate, and they said “hey, we can buy this land over here”. And I said, if you buy land, that is a good start, then we can, we have something, it is not something up in the air. We say “look, here we have the land. Now we have to build”. We bought the land, and that was the crucial part because there was something to show off to our community...and it took us three years to collect enough money so that we could build, of course we had to get loan, but banks were willing to knowing the community at large, they could see that we could afford a temple, and that’s how we started. So it was a risky move for many of us, but we felt it was necessary, and this would really help and gel the entire Indian community to come together.” 

-Dr. Sudhakar Wagle, Desi WI Oral History Project, UWM Archives Special Collections

Full interview here

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Indian Americans and the American Dream

(transcript) "I feel I am 100 percent American because I came young and I, so what is called American Dream, I lived with it. I enjoyed all the benefits of this society which offers as far as opening up any business without any hesitation and working with the system is a 100 percent freedom, despite your business, your lifestyle. So I consider, you know, 100 percent American, but at the same time, I have Indian values, which I want to keep because it’s good overall...the main is the family connection, we believe in families. So we take care of all our families whether they’re ours or our relations'. That’s number one. Number two, our religion.” 

-Dinesh Sanghavi on his identity as an Indian American, Desi Wisconsin Oral History Project, UWM Archives Digital Collections

Full interview can be found here

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Desi WI Oral History Profile: Dr. Sanath Gandhi

Dr. Sanath Gandhi grew up in India and came to Milwaukee (and the United States) on an immigrant visa to be an instructor and anesthesiologist at the Marquette School of Medicine (now the Medical College of Wisconsin). Previously, he had lived and worked in the United Kingdom.  

“The Milwaukee Department of Medical College had an advertisement in Landsat for several positions in anesthesia in CS magazine, so I applied, and I got the job. I had no idea that Milwaukee is going to be so very cold. If I had known, probably I might have selected some other place. But I was going to America. I had no idea that America can be, weather can be from frozen tundra to tropical. And I ended up in Milwaukee. And you know how the place usually grows on you with time. And I was very happy, I never moved from Milwaukee.” 

“I went to apply for my driver’s license. And then there were only two categories: W and B. W for White and B for Black, and there was no other category. So in application, I wrote down ‘Indian’. So they say, “You are not Indian, that is American Indian”. I said “yeah, I know. But what do I write here?” They say, “It’s either black or white”. So she marked down white because I was not black. And so they gave me a test (this was when you apply for a preliminary license), and he’s writing down and says, “you are not white”. I said, “I know, but I’m not black either. What do I write there?” He said, “I don’t know”. So that was one of those things where there’s not enough categories for immigrants.” 

“Of course, I consider myself an American because I have been here almost 45 years or 50 years. And at the same time, I have a nostalgic view of India and the Indian things, so I still read the newspapers every day. I also read American newspapers every day. And I keep up with the things. I like to help out because India did provide me all the things, the education and everything. The only thing that I can do as a doctor is that we can go and have some medical missions in India...we go, and every year since 2015...we try to run a free clinic in America too.” 

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Happy International Dance Day! Our Milwaukee Polonia digital collection has dozens of pictures of both ballet and folk dancers, including the image that can be seen on our website's finding aid

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To celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the UW-Milwaukee is showcasing the Desi Wisconsin oral history collection. During the 1950s to the 1970s, the Indian population of the city of Milwaukee grew from a few families to a community of hundreds. In a city of primarily white and black residents, these immigrants learned to navigate and raise families in a culture that was fundamentally different to the one they had left behind. Covering themes of religion, identity, family, and immigration, these interviews give insight into the experiences of the South Asian immigrants who made Milwaukee their home. 

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PSA: Starting May 19th, the Archives will begin operating by appointment only! Send an email to AskArch@uwm.edu to schedule an appointment or with any questions.

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Black History Month Pop-Up Exhibit: Public Education in Milwaukee, 1950-2025

UWM Archives’ new Black History Month pop-up exhibit highlights the more than half-century of organizing for integrated public schools in one of the most segregated cities in the United States.  

The exhibit traces the fortunes of public education in Milwaukee from the early, militant organizing of Lloyd Barbee’s Milwaukee United School Integration Committee (MUSIC) through a stagnating desegregation program and flashpoints over school closings in the 1980s, to the rise of voucher schools and privatization since the 1990s. The exhibit also highlights how organizing to “Defend Democracy” and “Protect Our Public Schools” from takeovers since the 2010s sit within a longer activist vision of “Freedom and Independence” and “true equality of educational opportunities.”  

📸: MUSIC calls on Milwaukee parents to “Keep Your Children Out of School” and send them to a Freedom Day School instead. Call Number: MUSIC Records, Milwaukee Mss 5.

📸: A “Freedom School Certificate” certifies that a student “took an active part in this historic battle for equal education and human dignity.” Call Number: MUSIC Records, Milwaukee Mss 5.

📸: A flier from Blacks for Two-Way Integration shows how organizers kept up the pressure even after the adoption of a formal desegregation plan, protesting that the burden of integration rested primarily on students and families of color. Agitating for integration that was “two-way or no-way,” students, families, and community organizations defended neighborhood schools, autonomy, and the freedom to choose for students and families of color. Call Number: Metropolitan Integration Research Center Records, UWM Mss 332.

Drawing on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, we also invite visitors to respond to the exhibit by sharing their hopes for the future of public education in Milwaukee.

Drop by anytime during library open hours in February, and be sure to visit other stellar Black History Month pop-up exhibits at UWM Special Collections and the American Geographical Society Library!

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National Girls and Women in Sports Day at UWM Archives

February 5th is National Girls and Women in Sports Day! To celebrate, here are some images of Milwaukee's female athletes from our digital collections.

Girls playing field hockey, 1935. From James Blair Murdoch photographs (UWM Mss 131).

Women practicing archery at Mt. Mary College, 1934. From James Blair Murdoch photographs (UWM Mss 131).

Women boxing at Milwaukee Athletic Club, undated. From James Blair-Murdoch photographs (UWM Mss 131).

Women practicing archery, 1934. From James Blair-Murdoch photographs (UWM Mss 131).

Girl bowling, 1935. From James Blair-Murdoch photographs (UWM Mss 131).

Female golfers, 1926. From James Blair Murdoch photographs (UWM Mss 131).

Girls playing tennis, Milwaukee-Downer College, undated. From James Blair Murdoch collection (UWM Mss 131).

Women's rifle team, 1954. From UWM Photo Collection (UWM AC 6).

Panther women's track, c. 1983. From UWM Photo Collection (UWM AC 6).

Panther women's basketball, undated. From UWM Photo Collection (UWM AC 6).

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Have a wonderful winter break!

As the fall semester winds to a close, we wanted to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and winter break! In that spirit, please enjoy some photos of our own Milwaukee Winter Wonderland from the Milwaukee Polonia Collection.

Child on Sled in Kosciuszko Park

Vehicles Traveling Along City Street in Winter

View of St. Josaphat's Basilica from Kosciuszko Park in winter

~Jenna-Rose