CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

University of Wisconsin–Madison

public research university in Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ838330
Source-derived summary

The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved statehood and is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. The 933-acre (378 ha) main campus is located on the shores of Lake Mendota; the university also owns and operates a 1,200-acre (486 ha) arboretum 4 miles (6.4 km) south of the main campus.

UW–Madison is organized into 13 schools and colleges, which enrolled approximately 34,200 undergraduate and 14,300 graduate and professional students in 2024. Its academic programs include 136 undergraduate majors, 148 master's degree programs, and 120 doctoral programs. Wisconsin is one of the founding members of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". UW–Madison was also the home of both the prominent "Wisconsin School" of economics and diplomatic history. It ranked fifth among U.S. universities in research expenditures in 2024.

As of March 2023, 20 Nobel laureates, 41 Pulitzer Prize winners, 2 Fields medalists, and 1 Turing Award recipient have been affiliated with UW–Madison as alumni, faculty, or researchers. It is also a leading producer of Fulbright Scholars and MacArthur Fellows.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “University of Wisconsin–Madison” is public research university in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through University, Wisconsin and Madison, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1848, 2024, 2023—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1848. For this dossier, University, Wisconsin and Madison is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “public research university in Madison, Wisconsin, USA” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q838330. VIAF identifies the subject as 138019887. The Library of Congress control number is n80126277. Authority coordinates are 43.075, -89.404. 4 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1848, 2024 and 2023.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “University of Wisconsin–Madison”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow University of Wisconsin–Madison primary sources, University of Wisconsin–Madison archive and University research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “University of Wisconsin–Madison”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from University of Wisconsin–Madison” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.