Passport
History can be misunderstood as something distant — preserved behind glass or tucked away in an archival vault. But for more than 25 years, PBS Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Historical Society have worked in extraordinary collaboration to make Wisconsin’s heritage immediate, accessible and personal.
Launched during Wisconsin’s 1998 sesquicentennial celebration, this partnership has transformed how audiences encounter the past. Together, the organizations have produced some of the state’s most treasured documentaries, series and educational initiatives — weaving diverse threads of Wisconsin’s story into a collective experience.
The Wisconsin History Partnership was established in 1998 as a bold experiment to bring together the state's flagship public television station and historical society to tell Wisconin's history through the medium of television."
Jon MiskowskiDIRECTOR OF TELEVISION
A foundation in shared storytelling
The collaboration began with Sesquicentennial Minutes — a series of 52-second television segments combining interviews, manuscripts and archival imagery to reveal signature moments in the state’s history. It soon expanded into the multi-part Wisconsin Stories documentary series, which explored how varied populations transformed both the land and themselves while shaping the region.
From those early projects, the partnership grew into a model of public service media and historical scholarship.
Landmark series with statewide reach
Since 2003, Wisconsin Hometown Stories has chronicled 17 communities — from Green Bay to La Crosse, Appleton to Door County — offering a deeply local lens on the state’s evolution. Wisconsin War Stories preserves firsthand veteran accounts from World War II, Korea and Vietnam, culminating in the landmark “LZ Lambeau” event at Lambeau Field, which brought together 70,000 Vietnam veterans and their families in 2010.
Innovating for the next generation
The partnership continues to evolve through new approaches and technologies. Tribal Histories features Native storytellers sharing oral traditions in ancestral landscapes. Recent productions like Shipwrecks! and Wisconsin Lighthouses combine documentary storytelling with immersive 3D environments, in collaboration with the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.
As PBS Wisconsin Director of Television Jon Miskowski and Wisconsin Historical Society Director Christian Øverland describe it, the partnership remains “a bold experiment.” After 87 co-produced programs and counting, it continues to deepen public understanding of Wisconsin’s past — and its meaning for today.
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