This Saturday, May 1st, is the much anticipated Mifflin Street Block party. Although students from all over come to party not many of them know the history behind this event.

It all started as a street protest in 1969 against the Vietnam War. The event arose as part of a continuing conflict between students and police in the "Miffland" area. The image on the left is from the Wisconsin Badger of 1977. It gives a nice description of "Miffland Days" and the Block Party.

Then in 1996 riots broke out after students started throwing bottles at a fire truck putting out a bonfire that the students had started. The image on the right shows some of the after effects of that year's party.

The Mifflin Street Block party had 20,000 attendees in 2002. After that year the police started making strict laws to keep the party under control.

The Mifflin Street Block Party is legendary and the people attending should know a little bit of the history behind the chaos.

Take a look though our Badger yearbooks and UW-Madison collections and party like its 1969 tomorrow!

Alright all you Civil War enthusiasts , summer is just around the corner and its time to get ready for reenactments. Our collections have tons of Civil War materials but one in particular that I wanted to highlight is the Civil War Band Collection: 1^st Brigade Band of Brodhead, Wisconsin.

In 1857, a group of citizens of Brodhead, Wisconsin, decided to form a brass band. They purchased a set of brass instruments and became known as the Brodhead Brass Band, or "B.B.B." Under that name, they performed at the debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas on August 27, 1858 at Freeport, Illinois.

The musical legacy of the 1st Brigade Band presented here consists of a set of twelve, leather-bound partbooks (although one of the twelve has lost its leather cover and some pages) and seven envelopes of other music manuscripts. The partbooks contain about 55 numbered selections and several unnumbered tunes. About half of the pieces in this collection are identified as quicksteps.

This collection has lots of interesting information for anyone who loves Civil War history.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Lathrop Hall. In 1910 the building opened its doors as the Department of Physical Training for Women. According to University News, the original Lathrop Hall had a bowling alley, cafeteria, laundry, theater, three-story gymnasium with a running track, swimming pool, dressing rooms with lockers and showers, club rooms, social lounges, kitchens, reading rooms, home economics laboratories, classrooms and faculty offices.

Our Cultural Landscape of the UW-Madison Campus Collection contains images of Lathrop around the time it first opened.

The Cultural Landscape of the UW-Madison Campus image gallery was developed as a research tool to support a two-year effort to inventory and assess cultural landscape resources on the University of Wisconsin-Madison main campus.

Take a look at our historic images and come out to celebrate Lathrop's anniversary. For a list of events see this University News Article.

This Saturday, April 24th, is the 29th annual Crazylegs Classic Run! According to the Crazylegs Classic website, the race was thought up over a couple beers (how Wisconsin of them). The run raises money for the UW-Athletic department and was named after the then athletic director, Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch.

Although we don't have any images from the first race in 1982, we do have some classic images of Crazylegs Hirsch himself!

Crazylegs" Elroy Hirsch, number 40, was star of the 1942 team before joining the Marine Corps in World War II.

After the war he transferred to the University of Michigan and starred for their football team. He played professionally for the Chicago Rockets from 1946-48 and the Los Angeles Rams from 1949-1957 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968. Hirsch returned to Wisconsin as Athletic Director from 1969-1987.

These are some great images of his days as a Badger!

Spring on campus seems to be a great time to celebrate. This week, April 17-23, is All Campus Party. The Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA) and the Wisconsin Alumni Student Board (WASB) along with student organizations, businesses and national corporations to sponsor All-Campus Party to celebrate the end of the school year, the onset of spring and the enthusiasm of the campus community.

Although we don't have images from past All Campus Party celebrations, we do have images of past campus events.

The image on the left shows a toga party sponsored by the Wisconsin Student Association in 1979. There were approximately 10,000 people in attendance that night.

The image on the right shows the bed race at UW Madison in May of 1971.

Our University of Wisconsin-Madison collection contains great images of all past Madison events such as Homecoming, football games, rush week, and much more. Take a look at the collections and see how the UW used to party!

Moorish architecture and decoration can be found in various regions in Spain. James Cavanah Murphy spent the last 12 years of his life preparing notes and drawings for a publication on this Moorish architecture. The resulting book, The Arabian Antiquities of Spain, was only partially published at his death in 1814.

Thomas Hartwell Horne added text descriptions to Murphy’s measured drawings, and the whole was reprinted in 1815. Murphy’s careful documentation of the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the Alhambra in Granada are appreciative acknowledgements of the Moors’ artistic achievements.

The large format illustrations in the book conveyed details of Islamic-influenced ornament to help fuel the Romantic fascination with non-Western cultures. Moorish Revival style became popular in both Europe and America throughout the 19th century.

This book contains beautiful hand drawn images that show the ornamental decoration on these buildings, it is almost like seeing them in person.

GO BADGERS! It's time to get in the mood for football! This Saturday, April 17th, the Wisconsin Badgers will hold their Spring Game at 2p.m.

The Wisconsin Athletic Communications Office has for years produced media guides for all of the sports at the UW-Madison. In our UW-Madison Athletic Department Collection we have digitized football programs dating back to the 1950s!

They once were intended solely for use by the media as factual reference guides. They have since become "yearbooks," publications designed to assist in the recruitment of student-athletes to the UW. Regardless, they are filled with biographical and historical information that Badger fans will enjoy.

I hope everyone gets to come out tomorrow and see the game!

The Dane County Farmer's Market officially starts this Saturday, April 17th! The farmer's market on capital square has been a tradition since 1972.

Our State of Wisconsin Collection has images of farmers dating back to the early 1900s! The image on the left is of a celebration for farmers at the Farmers Supply Company in Slinger, Wisconsin in 1910.

Also from the State of Wisconsin Collection, on the right is an image from "Fair Day" in Denmark, Wisconsin. On this day farmers in the surrounding territory would bring in their hogs and ducks, geese and even dogs to sell. They would trade among themselves, however, there were also quite a few cattle buyers there.

Take a look at our old time farmer's images and get ready for a great summer at the Farmer's Market!

Our Decorative Arts and Material Culture Collection has something for anyone who appreciates art. One Collection in particular, the Johann Hienrich Ramberg pictorial guide to drawing the human figure, is perfect for anyone who loves to draw or sketch.

Ramberg (1763-1840) was one of the most popular illustrators in Germany. He worked in a variety of media but his strength was in linework.

This compendium contains variously-dated plates, including studies of heads, limbs, and bodies in

multiple views.

The guide demonstrates the various ways to sketch multiple parts of the human figure. One page contains images over 100 ways to draw a hand and foot.

Anyone who has ever tried to sketch the human figure will appreciate the techniques found in this book.

We recently went live with the Forest Products Lab Atlas Collection. The Forest Atlas of the National Forests of the United States was originally published in 1913. The forest distribution information was compiled from a vast number of published records, partly from numerous unprinted reports, notes, and the knowledge of individuals whose observations were still unrecorded.

Most of these maps are hand colored but a few of the later maps were mechanically reproduced.

George B. Sudworth, along with his assistants in the Section of Forest Distribution, W. H. Lamb, Georgia E. Wharton, and Mary C. Gannett, compiled on separate cards many thousands of locality records for individual species, based upon published botanical lists, unpublished notes, and herbarium specimens. For each species these localities were plotted by number on a large cloth-backed contour map of North America.

Take a look at the maps and you will see the research that these foresters collected.