Wisconsin Historical Society, Collections, 19:375 (1910)
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WISCONSIN MAGAZINE 0/HISTORY •• s • • A i .1 Published Quarterly by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN December 1949 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE of HISTORY CLIFFORD L. LORD, Editor LILLIAN KRUEGER, Managing Editor CONTENTS Chats with the Editor Clifford L. Lord 129 Appleton William F. Raney 135 Chautauqua and, the Midwest Harrison John Thornton 152 A Madison Man at Nome Carl L. Lokke 164 William George Bruce Edward A. Fitzpatrick 184 When the Railroads Came to Kenosha Carrie Cropley 188 Letters of ]ames Stark Georgia Dow Townsend 197 Wisconsin in 1847: Notes of John Q. Roods Earl S. Pomeroy 216 BOOK NOTES 221 WISCONSIANA—HERE AND THERE 248 ACCESSIONS 253 OF WIDER INTEREST 255 The WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN, 816 State Street, Madison 6, Wisconsin. Distributed to members as part of their dues (Annual membership, S3.50; Contributing, $10; Business and Professional, $25; Life, $100; Sustain- ing, $100 or more annually). Yearly subscription, $3.50; single numbers, 90 cents. Communications should be addressed to the editor. The Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. Entered as second-class matter at the post office at Madison, Wisconsin, under act of August 24, 1912. Copyright 1949 by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN. Paid for in part by the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund. DISCOUNTS are allowed from Society book list prices to the following membership classifications: Contributing, 15 percent; Business and Professional, 25 percent; Institutional, 25 percent; and Life, 25 percent. This discount is allowed on the member's personal copy only. Sustaining members receive all publications free. THE COVER Madison's MONONA LAKE ASSEMBLY grounds, still recalled by some as a tented religious and intellectual Chautauqua center, has become a pleasant rendezvous for community picnickers. Instead of distinguished educators, clergymen, and statesmen delivering soul-stirring lectures to Chautauqua audiences, this spacious and beautiful area, on the outskirts of Madison, serves as a place of recreation. Without a doubt " Chautauqua and the Midwest"— in this issue—will bring about the reliving of Monona Lake Assembly days to more than a few. WISCONSIN MAGAZINE of HISTORY 3^* Volume 33 December, 1949 Number 2 Chats with the Editor ITHIN the past month, the Society's endowment has been increased by nearly $24,000 by the Maud L. Hurson Wbequest. This gift will be used, in accordance with the donor's wishes, for the general purposes of the Society. This is the largest single bequest received by the Society since the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund established in 1922. It is an important milestone on the road ^ which we hope will ultimately decrease both our dependence and our demands on the State treasury and yet expand our research and publication program. The files for 1926 contain an interesting letter from a then member of our Board about this bequest. It reads in part: I was recently called upon by an unmarried woman and, since I have not told you her name, I may tell you truthfully that she is just past her sixtieth birthday. She has no near relatives and most of her property has been or will be in annuities, so that she will probably be in moderately comfortable circumstances for the rest of her life. Her remaining property she proposes to dispose of by will, first by making a few minor bequests and secondly by providing a small income to her old housekeeper should the housekeeper survive her She has always been mildly interested in historic work and, as I was urged to make suggestions, I felt no hesitancy in telling her of the work of the State Historical Society. She thinks now that she would like to leave her residuary estate to the Society It is this suggestion which has now borne fruit. The Society at the time of the donor's death in 1933 was by her will given first choice of the furnishings of her house and received a valuable col- lection of china, glass, jewelry, and furniture. Now it receives the residue of the estate. Miss Hurson's "mild interest in historic work" has thus assured the perpetual brightness of her name, and it surely must now give peace and pleasure to her soul to know that her sav- 129 130 CHATS WITH THE EDITOR [December ings are about to be put to use in the very special task to which we are dedicated. In acknowledging this double generosity, what it symbolizes as to faith in the importance of preserving and analyzing the record of our people, what it promises for the future of our program, the Society also gives a grateful bow to the thoughtful member of the Board who insists on anonymity but who thus set so helpful a precedent for his colleagues and successors. As THIS ISSUE goes to press, the Society is launching an ambitious project. The almost total lack of scholarly publications in the economic history of this State since the Civil War is one of the _ . major gaps in our understanding of how we have come Business , , , . wr. T , , to be what we are here in Wisconsin. In the past three years the Society has started four projects to help remedy this situation. The first, undertaken with the cordial cooper- ation of the State Federation of Labor, was to gather the manuscript records of organized labor and individual labor leaders to supple- ment the rich John R. Commons Collection of labor publications. The second was Mr. Heinemann's series of negotiations, still in pro- gress, to organize the resources for a history of the paper industry in Wisconsin. The third was Mr. Everest's offer of an annual prize of $1,000 for each of ten years for the best book-length work in Wis- consin economic history. The fourth is now under way. It takes the form of a questionnaire—one page long—which will be sent to one Wisconsin industry after another. The questions in eSect ask each company what types of records it still has in its possession and up to what dates and under what conditions they would be made available for historical research by competent scholars. It is our belief that the central list of extant business records which this should produce will, just by its availability, encourage a number of graduate scholars each year to explore some phase or phases of the business and industrial history of Wisconsin. We hope that business will cooperate in the project and that the resulting catalog will prove to be a research tool which will meet our fondest hopes for its use. If the plan works, it can be extended to those sectors of organized labor which have not transferred their non-current 1949] CHATS WITH THE EDITOR 131 records to us and perhaps to retailing establishments, resorts, and professional associations. FOR MANY YEARS one of the chief duties of our Society specified by law throughout our first century was " to procure from the early pioneers narratives of their exploits, perils and adventures." This Tr . , admonition was heeded in several ways, chiefly by Voice of , • r i-u J- • i J r _. gathering tor our library diaries, letters, and manu- a the Ptoneer . \ r i . , i script memoirs, a number of which were subse- quently published from time to time in the Collections or the Magazine. Now modern technology has been enlisted in our at- tempts to preserve this type of historical data. We have purchased a tape recorder. It is a portable, high fidelity machine with which we can record either dictated autobiographies and reminiscences or interviews with pioneers and leaders in all types of endeavor. The tapes can be edited to eliminate rough passages and false starts and the net embossed on vinylite disks for inexpensive yet perma- nent preservation in our library. Used for several years for the gathering of folk music, folklore, and the recording of speeches, State occasions and conferences, the tape recorder is now to be put to use in Wisconsin to solve in small part the perennial problem of the wealth of historical fact never committed to writing that dies with every leader of politics, labor, business, education, or other major calling and with every local historian. An example of the utility of this type of quite literally "re- corded" history is our first project: the reminiscences of Professor William H. Lighty, first director of correspondence courses at the University. Closely integrated with the growth of the "Wisconsin Idea" during the administration of President Van Hise, this pio- neering effort was important not only in our State but as a model for others elsewhere. Yet the records of the Extension Division of the University are reported to have been destroyed up to 1925. There remained only a set of catalogs and the private files and memories of a few of the staff occupied with early correspondence courses. The necessity of Professor Lighty's conserving his limited 132 CHATS WITH THE EDITOR [December eyesight precluded the possibility of a written manuscript. Into such a situation steps the tape recorder. The pioneers are inter- viewed, their voices recorded, and the " narratives of their exploits, perils, and adventures" are preserved at least in this form for posterity. It is to be granted that these disks will have certain limitations. They will not be as polished and complete as the carefully worked out autobiography would be. They will not be as convenient to use as a book, though they can, if necessary, be transcribed into a type- written or printed manuscript.