US Library of Congress to place Dairyland Patriot story on trans woman into its LGBTQ+ archives
Though the Dairyland Patriot’s launch in February of 2025 coincided with the launch of the second Trump term in the White House, it was no coincidence.
In the autopsy of the 2024 election, conservative dominance in non-legacy media was listed as one of the key culprits in that stunning Democratic defeat. And while we harbored no illusion that we would single-handedly upend that media trend, we decided it was time to stop ceding all that landscape to right-wing voices.
Thus was born the Dairyland Patriot from a small team that included two writers, a marketing specialist, a couple of social media wizards and a tech savant who built our site. Over the past 20 months we learned to crawl, then to walk until we hit our stride. Even now, though, we are still figuring out who and what we are.
We still are not sure about our readership – beyond local allies – nor are we sure how to expand beyond that. Until then we’ll keep doing what we’re doing and trust that it will eventually hit its mark. We count largely on word of mouth. But it hasn’t hurt that a large media organization like Civic Media has recognized us and highlighted some of our stories nor that the press secretary of the Wisconsin Assembly Democrats thought enough of our candidate profiles that he commissioned us to feature a pair of Democratic candidates in the top-targeted races in the state up in the Green Bay area.
On Monday, we received an email from the United States Library of Congress and nearly went right past it, thinking, what could this possibly have to do with the Dairyland Patriot? Well, in this case it turned out that it had everything to do with us. It read:
The United States Library of Congress has selected your website for inclusion in the LGBTQ+ Politics and Political Candidates Web Archive, which is part of a larger collection of historically and culturally significant websites that have been designated for preservation.
It went on to say:
The Library hopes that you share its vision of preserving digital content and making it available to current and future generations of researchers. As the internet has become an increasingly important and influential part of our lives, we believe the historical record would be incomplete if websites like yours are not preserved and made a part of it.
The story it referred to was about Rachel Maes, the first trans person to ever serve on the Brown County Board and only the sixth overall in Wisconsin. Her story is an amazing one.
The Library of Congress LGBTQ+ Politics and Political Candidates Web Archive began collecting material for its site in 2018 and lists as its core objective, preserving a representative sample of campaign websites, digital media, and public rhetoric. The collection explicitly emphasizes lesser-known local and state politics, serving as a vital record for candidates attempting historic firsts in American governance. The collection serves as an active primary source for researchers studying political science, queer history, and communication strategy.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is among political figures whose stories now reside in the archives. And now, so will one on Rachel Maes bearing the Dairyland Patriot byline.
It’s not a Pulitzer or an Edward R. Murrow award. We couldn’t be prouder if it was.
All we know is we’ve been seen. And that means everything.
