Gaylord Nelson’s Wisconsin Idea

Wisconsin has produced a number of remarkable political figures, both famous and infamous, but one of the most influential Wisconsin politicians in recent history was Gaylord Nelson.  He enjoyed a long and productive political career, serving as a Wisconsin State Senator (1949-59), Governor of Wisconsin (1959-63), and U.S. Senator (1963-81).  Nelson is probably best known for his passion for environmental issues and was the principal founder of Earth Day in 1970.  He also was an advocate for civil rights, the fight against poverty, safety standards in the automotive and tire industries, and accountability in the pharmaceutical industry.  He was one of only three senators to oppose the Vietnam War.  His colleagues called him the conscience of the Senate.

Gaylord Nelson holding a hearing regarding abuses by the pharmaceutical industry, 1968.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has Gaylord Nelson’s papers, and in honor of the recent completion of the first phase of the project to process these papers, WHS released an online gallery of selected images from Nelson’s life and career.  Some of these images appear here, and the complete gallery can be viewed here. 

Gaylord Nelson at the Apostle Islands, 1967.

Processing the Gaylord Nelson Papers was no easy task.  The Wisconsin Historical Society’s website describes the difficulties in dealing with this sizeable and historically significant body of material as follows:

Nelson donated a portion of his senatorial papers to the Society in 1974; the rest of the materials arrived in 1980 upon Nelson's defeat in the Senate. These two accessions constituted the bulk of the Nelson collection, totaling 1,040 boxes of paper, audio recordings, films, photographs, scrapbooks and video recordings. The papers remained unprocessed, however, until 2006 when the Society received a generous grant from the Evjue Foundation. In addition to the grant, the Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been a major financial contributor to the project. Since then, the work to identify, organize and describe the materials in the collection has been ongoing. And now the most significant portion of the collection has been preserved, organized and, lastly, described in a finding aid now available online  through the Society's website. The Society also holds Nelson's official papers as governor of Wisconsin (1959-1963).

Kennedy campaigning in Wisconsin with Governor Nelson on his left, 1960.

Creating Menominee County, 1959.

WHS has digitized a number of original documents and primary sources relating to Gaylord Nelson and the environmental movement and made them available online as part of their Turning Points in Wisconsin History online collection.

Gaylord Nelson receives the Presidential Freedom Award, 1995.

Gaylord Nelson’s impact on Wisconsin and the country at large would be hard to overstate.  The Wisconsin Historical Society’s efforts to process and digitize the Nelson Papers are another great example of celebrating Wisconsin’s ideas and ideals.

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Images of the Progressive Era Political Participation

This year Archives Month in Wisconsin celebrates “100 Years of the Wisconsin Idea.”  The Wisconsin Idea, which advocates community involvement by universities to help create good public policy, has its roots in the Progressive Era of American politics at the beginning of the 20^th century.  In light of the political side of the Wisconsin Idea and the upcoming election, I wanted to share some images depicting the people of Wisconsin engaging in political activities during the Progressive Era.  The images, which can be found online in Wisconsin Historical Society's Historical Images Collection, show citizens engaged in activities as simple as voting or as courageous as standing up for women's suffrage.

A poster from 1914 in favor of using schools as polling places.

A political cartoon from Milwaukee showing Hercules chopping off the heads of a snake representing the Democratic and Republican parties with a sword representing the ballot.

A photograph showing the members of the Oshkosh Equal Suffrage League in their 4^th of July float in 1912.  In addition to the 100^th anniversary of the Wisconsin Idea, 2012 marks the 100^th anniversary of a failed attempt to gain voting rights for women through a statewide referendum. Despite this failure, Wisconsin went on to become the first state to ratify the 19^thAmendment granting women suffrage nationwide.

These images are close to 100 years old, but the people of Wisconsin have remain politically active, as shown by events like the 2011 protests in the Capitol Building and campaigns for and against the recall of Governor Scott Walker. As Wisconsin prepares to go to the polls in a couple weeks, and as someone who is not a native of Wisconsin, I found it interesting to learn more about the Wisconsin Idea as well as the state's long history of politically active citizens.

Thank you to the Wisconsin Historical Society for helping me find these images and allowing me to us them.

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Drought Relief and the Agriculture Extension and Education Records

This year marks the centennial of a paragon of the Wisconsin Idea, the UW’s Cooperative Extension, a partnership between Wisconsin counties, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Wisconsin, which provides education to people where they live. Cooperative Extension applies UW research to everyday contexts, helping people understand and solve the problems affecting them. This summer, when southern Wisconsin faced a severe drought, Cooperative Extension maintained a blog with posts on resources to help farmers cope with the extreme weather conditions. 

During the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, Wisconsin farmers faced a devastating drought as well and Cooperative Extension also lent farmers a hand then. The Drought Relief Records, 1930-1938, just one Hollinger box in the Agriculture and Extension Education’s massive 300+ box collection, documents drought relief efforts. The documents are mainly surveys and reports, most of them from county agent Robert Amundson. County agents are Extension employees who provide education to farmers throughout the state.

One large survey that extension workers undertook was a study of the severity of the drought and its effects on crops and feed supplies. Based on the results, extension staff designated areas severely impacted by the drought, making farmers from those areas eligible for emergency livestock feed loans

Wisconsin Feed Survey Maps, 1934

The collection also contains Amundson’s report on soil conservation education in Outagamie County. With assistance from the UW Soils Department, Amundson and agents throughout Wisconsin educated farmers in areas with poor soil quality about drought resistant crops and methods to enrich the soil. Amundson held demonstrations on the benefits of growing alfalfa and using lime and phosphate as fertilizers, activities he documented in a photograph-rich report. 

First page of Amundson’s report 

Photograph from Amundson’s report 

Section of a page from Amundson’s report

The principal of Cooperative Extension’s blog from last summer and the surveys and demonstrations from the 30s are largely the same: using UW research to help farmers get the most out of their farms in difficult times. 

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Odd Wisconsin Archives

One of my favorite pages to browse on the Wisconsin Historical Society’s website is Odd Wisconsin – a collection of archival documents and artifacts that tell a strange but true story about Wisconsin history.  Some of the strangest objects (ex. an X-ray shoe fitting machine, the “Monster Knife” of John Fox Potter, and skunk grease medicine) even made their way to the Wisconsin Historical Museum on Capitol Square as part of an exhibit of the same name.

 However, the artifacts are just part of the oddities.  The Odd Wisconsin archive also includes reflections written about the bizarre documents and manuscripts housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society.  The stories are incredible, humorous, and thought-provoking, and must certainly be fun for the archivists at the Society to put together on a regular basis.

In honor of Halloween, I will share Odd Wisconsin’s post about “The Giant Rat of Fond du Lac” (originally posted on October 14, 2010):

Back in 1879, a saloon-keeper in Fond du Lac exploited a customer's weakness in order to save him from bad habits.

According to the press, a prominent citizen of that city had been coming into the bar a bit too often for his own good. The owner of the tavern appreciated the patronage but thought that his friend ought to pay more attention to his business than his benders. So he executed a fantastic plan to curb his customer's over-indulgence.

A large rat had got into the habit of sneaking into the tavern in the afternoon to scrounge for crumbs left on the bar after lunch, and the good-natured owner had tolerated it. The next time that the businessman came in for a few drinks, the barkeep kept him there until the rat appeared.

Seeing the giant rodent on the bar, the man was naturally disturbed and called his host's attention to it. The bartender, however, protested that he didn't see anything at all. The businessman, alarmed that he was hallucinating about gigantic rats, hurried out and didn't touch another drop for a long time.

Or so it was told by Milwaukee journalist George Peck. But he was known for his comic tales and humorous exaggerations. In fact, Peck became so widely known for telling stories like this that his fame carried him all the way to Wisconsin's executive mansion. You can read more about Gov. Peck here.

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Green Bay Packers Memorabilia, 1944-1968

When thinking about important aspects of Wisconsin history, admittedly the rise of professional sports in the 20^th century does not immediately come to mind. However, browsing the Wisconsin Historical Society’s website led me to a handful of professional sports collections, including a collection of Green Bay Packer memorabilia.

There is no denying that the Green Bay Packers are an important part of Wisconsin’s past. In 1919, Earl “Curly” Lambeau and George Calhoun organized the Green Bay Packers with support from a local packing company. Since then, the team has won more league championships than any other professional football team, twice three-peating from 1929-1931 and again from 1965-1967. The Packers are also unique in that they remain the only publicly owned professional sports team in the nation, which basically guarantees that the Green Bay Packers will never leave Wisconsin.

By visiting the Wisconsin Historical Society website, any Packer fan has access to the Green Bay Packer Memorabilia collection available through the generosity of the Green Bay Packer Organization. The memorabilia collection covers the years from 1944-1968, with special emphasis on the glory years of legendary coach Vince Lombardi. Some items from the collection include souvenir booklets, schedules and rosters, and other assorted memorabilia. The collection can be viewed here: 

Below are some examples from this collection:

Page from Titletown U.S.A. ’61, a special edition of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, 1961

Image available at Wisconsin Historical Images, Image ID: 81766

Salute to Vince Lombardi tickets, August 7, 1968

Image available at Wisconsin Historical Images, Image ID: 81791

Just as one cannot deny the significance that the Green Bay Packers’ existence and success has had on the Wisconsin social culture in both the past and present, one can also not deny that the team will continue to be a part of the Wisconsin experience in the future.  The continued collection and preservation of Green Bay Packer memorabilia combined with open access to these items is one of many examples of the Wisconsin idea at work.

More collections covering the Green Bay Packers and other Wisconsin sports can be found here. 

Special thank you to the Wisconsin Historical Society for permission to use images for this blog post.

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Exploring the Aldo Leopold Archives

Aldo Leopold was a professor at UW Madison beginning in 1933 in the Agricultural Economics Department.  27.6 cubic feet of the Aldo Leopold Archives are housed at the University Archives and have been digitized and put online.  I also examined Special Collection’s smaller Aldo Leopold manuscript collection, collected by Robert McCabe, Leopold’s former student and friend.

From the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections:

Aldo Leopold is considered by many to have been the most influential conservation thinker of the 20th Century. Leopold's legacy spans the disciplines of forestry, wildlife management, conservation biology, sustainable agriculture, restoration ecology, private land management, environmental history, literature, education, esthetics, and ethics. He is most widely known as the author of A Sand County Almanac, one of the most beloved and respected books about the environment ever published. The Leopold Collection houses the raw materials that document not only Leopold's rise to prominence but the history of conservation and the emergence of the field of ecology from the early 1900s until his death in 1948. 

Aldo Leopold and students participating in a prairie burn.  Leopold planted pine trees in this area of Sauk County.

Aldo Leopold with students.

Aldo and Starker boating near the Shack, Sauk County, Wisconsin, autumn 1943

The online collection was very user friendly; it was easy to browse subject headings and search by keyword.  I found that the best use of this was looking through photographs and paging through journals and essays.  The finding aid for this collection is very detailed, and is explained in the “How to Use The Collection” portion of the website.  Again, from the website:
The digitization of the Leopold Collection will serve scholars, policy leaders and the general public who look to Aldo Leopold for insight and inspiration on how to deal with complex conservation challenges facing society in the 21st Century.

As much as I liked exploring the collection online, I wanted to go to the actual repositories around campus to look through the collections. I visited Special Collections first, since this is a smaller Leopold collection.  These papers, collected by Robert McCabe, range from 1920-1940.  There were many photographs and course materials here as well, but I enjoyed looking through Leopold’s early drafts of published and unpublished essays with notes scrawled in the margins.  Susan Stravisnki showed me the detailed finding aid that they have on file for this particular collection. 

Next I went to the University Archives, located in Steenbock Memorial Library.  David Null helped me identify some interesting papers, journals, and artifacts that would work well for a blog post.  I looked through Aldo Leopold’s field journals, some memorabilia, and (surprisingly) his artwork.  I spent most of my time there reading journals, which described canoeing and hunting trips around Wisconsin.

One of the most interesting folders was labeled “Contents of A.L.’s Pockets Upon His Death.”  Leopold died at  61 of a heart attack as he was fighting a fire on his neighbor’s property.

Journals/Diaries

Page from Wisconsin Journal 1924-1935

Box of memorabilia, including Yale scarf, Estella’s archery medals & bow tips, and pipes.

Page from journal, “Winter Visitants”

I just scratched the surface of this fantastic collection.  Aldo Leopold’s contributions to conservation and ecology are so influential to UW Madison and the state of Wisconsin.  To find out more, check out the archives online, at the University Archives, or at Special Collections.  One area that I did not explore are the Oral Histories involving Leopold, also at the University Archives. 

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The Emile de Antonio Collection

The Emile de Antonio Film collection at Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research


The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) was recently awarded a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to support processing of the Center’s important archival collection on documentarian Emile de Antonio.

Here is an overview from the WCFTR website about the filmmaker:

Emile de Antonio (1919-1989) was an innovative documentary filmmaker, an art agent, and a political activist who was a force in the New Left movement of the 1960s-80s. The de Antonio collection documents the personal life, professional associations, political experiences, and filmmaking activities of an American polymath from the New Deal, through the radical 1960s, to the Reaganite 1980s. It constitutes a complete picture of the business of independent film production and distribution during the most fertile era of American independent cinema. His films addressed the major events of the Cold War era, including the McCarthy phenomenon, political assassinations, and the anti-war movement. The collection thus includes extensive research files and footage documenting post-War America, from the McCarthy hearings to the release of FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act, from the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and both Kennedy brothers to the Nixon administration, from the members of America's most influential art movements to the members of its most radical political groups.
The de Antonio collection is the most complete of the WCFTR’s personal manuscripts collections, but unfortunately it is also the most disordered. This processing project seeks to improve access to the collection by updating the tools for intellectual access, rearranging the manuscripts, and reducing duplicate moving image holdings. Increased use of the collection is the primary goal for both manuscript and moving image materials. 

The materials in the de Antonio collection are vast and varied. They include copies of his films and outtakes, pre-print materials, unedited audio recordings, and diaries. There are also unique correspondences and gifts from some of the most prominent figures of American art in the 20^thcentury such as Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, John Cage, Diane Arbus, and others. These materials colorfully illustrate the feeling and energies of the leftist movement among artists in the 1960’s and 1970’s (de Antonio chose Madison as the repository for his archives because of the active Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] chapter here at the University of Wisconsin campus). 

The core of this collection is film and social activism and is a reflection of the importance WCFTR has in preserving some of the richest records of American film history.  These kinds of collections serve to introduce researchers, scholars, and film fans to the fantastic resources here in Wisconsin, and help to keep Madison on the map as a city that donates its care and resources to preserving our cultural heritage.
The processing of this collection made possible by the NHPRC grant will have not only a great impact on organization and accessibility within the archives, but also a cross-over impact for outreach and education in the wider community. Following the processing of this collection, there will be a retrospective and exhibition to showcase its unique content.  In this way, the archive will work to bridge the past with the present through collection, preservation, and education. Something we should all appreciate during Archives Month!
For more information on the resources and holdings at WCFTR, or to learn more about the Emile de Antonio collection, check out the following link: http://wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu/

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