Orson Welles and His Masterpiece: Born in Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research is on the fourth floor of the Wisconsin Historical Society, and is accessible to anyone. The collection houses papers from celebrities like director John Ford, Groucho Marx, and Alan Alda, among others. In addition to these, it has some holdings related to Orson Welles, a Wisconsin native born in Kenosha on May 6^th, 1915, well known for his work in radio and film. In 1938, Welles did a radio production of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, which was so convincing that it caused a national “panic” where people believed that Martian invasion was actually happening. In 1941, Welles wrote and directed a screenplay of the film Citizen Kane. Other notable films include The Third Man and Touch of Evil. He died in 1985.

When I visited the Wisconsin Historical Society, I knew I needed to take a look at the final draft of the Citizen Kane script. I am a film buff, and reading that draft was a defining moment for me. I only read a portion, but I gained a deeper understanding of the film. Citizen Kane is about the life and last word (Rosebud) of Newspaper mogul, Charles Foster Kane. The film is loosely based on the life of Randolph Hearst, a media mogul.

Reading the final draft allowed me to understand the locations and plot of the film better. Xanadu, the famed estate of Charles Kane, is located in Florida. The nightclub scene with the last wife of Citizen Kane was incredibly written; the nightclub is located in Atlantic City, and Orson described the wife as “cheap.” When I saw the film, I didn’t notice her appearance as cheap, rather the dingy nightclub as sad. Orson’s description in the script was very accurate.

In the beginning of Citizen Kane, after the death of Charles Foster is announced, five newspapers are shown. Orson Welles notes in the script that he wants four newspapers from the United States, and one international paper to flash across the screen. This minor detail demonstrates Orson Welles’s masterful use of imagery; Charles Kane’s death is seen as an international event and this gives insight into the persona of Kane. By examining the script, which archives like the Wisconsin Historical Society allows us to do, we can more intimately understand the scope of the film in ways that aren’t always as obvious to the casual movie-goer. These archives help us not only to touch the past, but to think about it in new ways.

[Post written by Katherine Stotis.]

The Gollmar Bros: Stewards of the Wisconsin Circus

While the most famous circus owners associated with Wisconsin may be the Ringling Bros., their cousins the Gollmar Bros. also form an important part of the Born in Wisconsin archives. The Gollmar Bros. started their own circus in 1891 and operated until 1916, spending the winters in Baraboo, Wisconsin. After 1916 the Gollmar name was leased to other circuses, and last used in 1926. UW-Madison alum and Circus World Archivist Pete Shrake provided both images of and information about this fantastic collection.

The records of the Gollmar Bros. Circus are located at Circus World in Baraboo, Wisconsin. The ten cubic foot collection is primarily comprised of the business records of the Gollmar Bros. Circus. While a few years are not represented, the records provide fascinating documentation into how the increasing size of the circus required more specialized occupations such as canvas-men, hostlers, and property men. By 1916 the records show that the Gollmar Bros. Circus had nineteen different payroll classifications, with other records documenting how the circus used railroad transportation to travel bring their show to their audience. Records also detail the distribution of advertising materials and include commissary ledgers, showing how the circus interacted with the public and part of the daily life of circus workers.

The Gollmar Bros. collection is an important part of Circus World, which houses what may be the largest collection of circus artifacts in the world. Over 210 original vehicles and wagons are on the grounds, as well over 9,500 multi-colored circus posters. Also included are thousands of journals, manuscripts, business records, original oil paintings, hand bills, programs, and rare photographs and negatives documenting the legacy not just of circuses, but of circuses that were born in Wisconsin.

[Post written by Pete Shrake with the assistance of Eric Willey]

The Board of Commissioners of Public Lands

The archive of the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands (BCPL) preserves a set of records that touches every mile of Wisconsin territory, documents much of the state's funding of education, and helps provide books for every school age child in the state. BCPL, the first state agency in Wisconsin, has had many incarnations over the years, but has always managed Wisconsin's land holdings held in trust for public projects and education. (State parks and other natural reserves, on the other hand, are not held by the agency, but by the Department of Natural Resources.) BCPL has played a role in Wisconsin's history in often unique ways -- from loaning Wisconsin the money to equip the first Wisconsin units of Union Soldiers to providing early settlers with the only loans available at a reasonable rate. The chilly archives room in a state building off of the Capitol Square contains the records that document the land transfers that funded these loans -- and continue to pay about $27 per child to each school district a year for their school libraries. Taken together, the archive documents the history of a unique expression of dedication to education that was, as this year’s theme says, “born in Wisconsin.”

Last week, I returned the BCPL archive, where I was previously a research assistant, to get my hands on some of the favorites of their collection. The agency is moving to a new location early next year, but for now, a typical shelf is shown below.

I made the mistake of wearing a light colored shirt: by the end of the day, it was covered with red rot. The agency has managed, at one point or another, more than ten million acres, and it did so without computers. As you might expect, the ledger books, with thin line after thin line of land parcels, are large enough to crush a small human being. They certainly did a number on my fingers. These massive volumes, about 6 inches thick and wrapped in cloth to help protect users from red rot, are housed horizontally on rollers.

The BCPL archive holds the field notebooks of the original survey of Wisconsin by the United States General Land Office (GLO). The surveyors criss-crossed the state, marking trees and rocks to divide the western territories of the United States into square-mile sections. The markers they placed were, and remain, the basis for all legal land descriptions. In Wisconsin, winter held a distinct advantage for this work -- the surveyors could haul their measuring chains straight across the lakes on the ice. Indeed, when the surveyors came upon Madison, they were able to walk straight across Lake Monona and Mendota. An example of the Madison survey, complete with the very common “Entered March” … “Left Marsh.”

The field notebook above is one of hundreds, each carried along across hundreds of miles of Wisconsin territory, and now kept safely in fireproof cabinets in the archive. The survey notebooks, digitized and online, are used for a variety purposes, including studying Wisconsin's original tree cover and helping decide legal conflicts between land owners.

The field notebooks and a sketch map of the territory surveyed were sent back to a Surveyor General’s office, where plat maps like this one were created:

Every so often, a piece of land would have to be resurveyed, as happened to Picnic Point on the UW campus in the 1880s. The half-century between the original survey and the resurvey had witnessed both the alteration of the lake shore and the arrival of settlers in the City of Madison. The surveyor in the 1880s took the opportunity to note that a formation in the area "is occasionally used as a picnic ground.”

One of the reasons the GLO surveys were so important was that government revenue at all levels was dependent on land, through the sale of public land or the taxation of private land. Indeed, BCPL was founded to manage the millions of acres of land given to Wisconsin by the federal government. As a state, we received between 5 and 6 million acres to support the construction of railroads, 3.2 million acres of swamp land to promote swamp drainage and education, and 1.7 million acres to support local K-12 schools and the University of Wisconsin. Including other smaller land grants, Wisconsin received about 10,000,000 acres from the federal government.

Many of the educational lands were individually appraised before being put on the public market. These appraisals can show a snapshot of the economic activity in the area. Here, we have a map of a square-mile section in Grant County, a county with rich mineral deposits. The appraisal map shows a house, a stable and two furnaces situated at the intersection of a river and a local road, as well as, of course, a number of ink splotches. This section is now home to the UW Platteville campus, and Pioneer Stadium sits just north of where the bottom right furnace once was.

The educational lands were sold to the public, and buyers typically were given some kind of payment plan. At a time when banks were scarce and unwelcome, the state was often the only source of a mortgage. The records of these sales sometimes bring out interesting characters. There are lands held by women and rights to land that were transferred more than ten times between different members of the community before being paid off. When the owner managed to pay the balance on the land, he or she would receive a patent from the state, shown below.

There was little restriction on how the money that came in from educational lands was to be spent, and in the early years many financial policies failed miserably. With few banks to provide loans, the state decided that the balance of the educational fund could be used to provide loans to any Wisconsin citizen who was willing to put up their land as collateral. In theory, this policy would have helped Wisconsinites while the fund received 7% interest on its loans (a very reasonable rate in the early days of statehood). Although it was a useful service for early settlers, this loan program failed when settlers began defaulting and the mortgaged lands they forfeited sold poorly on the market. In response, the loan program began loaning money only to school districts and municipalities. Below, a school district in Taylor County, a sparsely populated area at the time, applied and received a loan for $250 in 1877. Part of the fun of working with these records is determining what they mean – was this loan interest free, or have we simply not yet found the second document that deals with the interest payments?

And here, a loan of $48,000 was approved in 1953 to help a school district serving Marquette and Oconto Counties build an “addition of classrooms to the present Coleman High School.”

This program continues to this day. The interest provided by these loans allows BCPL to distribute more than $30 million a year to local school libraries.

[Post created by Amy Unger.]

Ada James

Inspired by the recent political activities in Wisconsin’s capital, I turned to the Wisconsin Historical Society to find other instances of social reform and political activity born in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Historical Society was founded in 1846 and was originally located in the Capital Building in Madison. As WHS began to outgrow its quarters, a move was planned to a larger location on the University of Wisconsin’s campus to better serve the society’s main user base at that time, university students. WHS is now housed in an impressive building opened in 1900.

Not to be missed on a trip to WHS is the second floor reading room and the many paintings that grace the staircases.

Newly renovated reading room.

WHS is open to researchers and the public alike. If a trip to Madison is not an option, WHS has a fantastic website with a variety of digitized collections and virtual reference available.

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/

The WHS archival collections are rich with materials of social reform and political unrest; varying from the papers and photographs of Edward Alsworth Ross, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin concerned with immigrant rights, federal health care and education; to film and manuscripts collections of anti-war protests from the Vietnam era; to the more recent Wisconsin Bureau of Community Health and Prevention Family Planning Program papers documenting family planning funding and education in the 1970’s and 1980’s. However, one collection in particular piqued my interest as an example of political reform born in Wisconsin.

The Ada Lois James collection chronicles the work of Richland Center, Wisconsin native Ada James as she worked to bring political equality to women and better the lives of Wisconsinites. Ada was born into a politically active family; her parents were David G. James, a Wisconsin state senator that among other accomplishments introduced a suffrage referendum bill to the state senate at the urging of his daughter in 1911; and her mother Laura Briggs James who was involved in the Wisconsin Woman’s Suffrage Association with her daughter. Throughout her life, Ada was involved in many organizations and social movements. Her papers contain correspondence with other social activist in the Midwest, correspondence from politicians as well as personal correspondence.

Below is the hand drawn cover and inside page of the Political Equality Club 1909 member log. Ada was president of the club from 1911-1918. She was also active with the Wisconsin Women’s Suffrage Association, and the National Women’s Party.

President-Marila Marshall, Vice-President-Gracie Harn, Secretary-Marcia Bliss, Treasurer-Mary McCormick

The suffrage movement began in Wisconsin in 1846 and was not fulfilled until June of 1919 when Wisconsin became the first state to ratify the 19^th amendment. Below is a letter from state senator Harlan P. Bird to Ada explaining why he is unable to support women’s suffrage. Although Senator Bird appears to hold women in high esteem, he explains to Ada that he cannot allow women to carry a man’s intellectual burden of voting. He also writes that he cannot foresee a time when the suffrage movement will catch on at a national level. The letter is dated April of 1909, some ten years before women won the vote in Wisconsin. You can click on the images for a closer look.

Ada and her fellow suffragist traveled around Wisconsin holding gatherings and trying to win the public’s support for women’s suffrage.

A group of suffragists in 1911 or 1912. Ada is in the center, wearing a sash.

A gathering in support of women’s suffrage in 1912 at Sister Bay, Wisconsin.

Although the suffrage movement was of great importance to Ada, she found time to be involved in other political movements. During World War I Ada became involved in pacifism and prohibition movements. After women secured the vote, Ada remained involved in social and political reform. In 1922 Ada was the Vice-Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee and in 1923 became the President of the Wisconsin Progressive Association. In her later life Ada became involved with social work within Wisconsin.

Ada was born in Wisconsin, and so was her determination and perseverance to bring about political equality.

[Post created by Laura Farley.]

New Glarus Historical Society and the Swiss Historical Village

Nestled in the rolling green hills of Green County Wisconsin, sits the quaint village of New Glarus. Proclaiming itself as America’s little Switzerland, the downtown resembles a series high roofed chalets rather than tar-papered brick structures ubiquitous in small towns. The landscape pales compared to the snow-capped mountains in the Swiss Canton of Glarus from which the town’s first settlers came but New Glarus has never forgotten its roots. The ornate Gothic typeface Fraktur which fell out of favor in the Germanies shortly before World War II peppers storefronts selling Swiss foods or knickknacks. Not all goods are created equal as far as their authenticity is concerned; it is an open secret that a bygone bride shortage caused rampant Scandinavian inter-marriage. Non-Swiss residents, drawn by the enthusiasm and environment of the town, continue to arrive at odd intervals but like in any small town they serve an informal probationary period before they are adopted.

A few blocks west of Highway 69, bisecting the small but lively downtown, lies the Swiss Historical Village maintained by the local historical society. A Swiss village at the edge of a Swiss village, authentic and authentically reproduced settlement structures abut the Swiss Cemetery and educate tourists, many of them Swiss nationals, of the transcendent American spirit of exploration and hardship.

Tucked above and below the village’s gift shop are the Historical Society’s heart. Inaccessible to most visitors, I needed to enlist the credibility of the Swiss Center of North America’s President and former local news anchor Beth Zurbuchen on Durst Road to gain access.

The first items which caught my eye were the metal edged stacks of original New Glarus newspapers. I immediately noticed the German language newspaper Deutsch Schweizerzerischer Courier changed its name to the New Glarus Post shortly after the Great War, switching not only its language but typeface as well.

My inner student archivist could not help but marvel at the well intentioned but seemingly haphazard cataloging and preservation. Newspapers were laid flat between non-acidic tissue paper in metal edged boxes while heavy Swiss 78 rpm records were stacked, harming their grooves. Many photographs are cataloged and arranged by subject but photos of the annual William Tell play were simply placed in a box.

I immediately recognized the name on the stylized family tree nearby. Going back into the 17^th century, the tree is too complex for me to find the leaves representing the famous Dürst family that settled in New Glarus in the 19^th. I remember the traveling trunk sitting on display in the Swiss Center of North America with “Dürst” fastidiously hand painted in Fraktur. Its literal weight sinks into my consciousness as I try to fathom carrying my worldly possessions to an unknown land; suddenly the sturdy, metal braced trunk seems so fragile. This moment of reflection is banished when I again wonder how Durst Road, which is also the Swiss Center’s street, is unrelated to the members on that tree. Perhaps it is but street signs are not allowed to have non-English characters; that would be a true shame since “Dürst” without the umlaut means “thirst,” very apropos for any street adjacent to the legendary New Glarus Brewery.

The basement houses their rotating objects collection. Cold and dry compared to the upper floor, the care and cataloging is more evident. Items donated by the community include shadow boxes of war medals, 19^th century firearms, musical instruments, and their newest, unprocessed acquisition—a bell from the Swiss Reformed church. Having become the United Church of Christ in the 1960s, the new church would have no use for an instrument engraved with the Swiss Reformed identifiers. I noticed thumbnail-sized gems encircling these Swiss Reformed markings and quickly realized they were not original; my guide could not tell me who donated the bell.

Evidently someone in the donor’s family felt the pristine instrument was not pretty enough and so bedazzled it with a dozen pieces of costume jewelry. It was upon this conjecture that I understood the position of this place; since they were charged with the preservation of the village’s history and culture, they accepted countless small donations from the community because few else would.

Every picture and object indicated their commitment to maintain the uniqueness of their town. A Swiss-German is a political and ethnic distinction rather than a racial one yet the New Glarners sustained themselves and their identities across the Alps, an ocean, half a continent, and within an enveloping immigrant population. The archive above the gift shop held the spirit of New Glarus as if some kind of reliquary; the uniqueness of the town and its community—and thus the tourist draw—is sustained by the psychic power of the archive.

My heart sank as I left. As a proud Minnesotan I never allowed myself the spiritual comfort of belonging to this state but New Glarus sneaked into my unguarded soul. For that brief moment I too was born in Wisconsin.

[Post created by Alex Champion]

Celebrate American Archives Month with SAA-SC!

Welcome to the 4^th annual Archives Month Blog! The Society of American Archivists-Student Chapter of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is proud to welcome you to share in another month’s worth of posts and pictures in honor of American Archives Month.

This year’s theme, “Born in Wisconsin,” invites people and organizations around the state to reflect on the meaning of archives in their lives and society, and to discover the wealth of fascinating materials held by archives in Wisconsin. Throughout the month members of the SAA-SC will be traveling around the state of Wisconsin (and beyond!) to highlight unique collections and organizations, all the while writing blog posts illustrated with photographs of the archives and materials we see. We will report on a variety of archival materials “born,” originating or having roots in Wisconsin: native peoples, individuals, places, ideas, events, products, industries, hoaxes and much more.

We hope you will join us throughout the month to learn about archives, read about the great organizations who preserve them, and share engaging stories about anything and everything “born in Wisconsin!” Check back often, and we’ll see you in the comments.

To read more about American Archives Month, visit this page on the Society of American Archivists website. To see what’s going on around Wisconsin throughout October, find suggestions for events for your organization, and learn more about Archives Month in Wisconsin, visit the Wisconsin Historical Society’s website.