WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
The State Historical Society of Wisconsin • Vol. 72, No. 3 • Spring, 1989 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN H. NICHOLAS MULLER 111, Director Officers MRS. L. PRENTICE EAGER, JR., President GERALD D. VISTE, Treasurer GEORGE H. MILLER, First Vice-President H. NICHOLAS MULLER III, Secretary MRS. B. L. BERNHARDT, Second Vice-President
THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is both a state agency and a private membership organization. Founded in 1846—two years before statehood—and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest American historical society to receive continuous public funding. By statute, it is charged with collecting, advancing, and disseminating knowledge of Wisconsin and of the trans-Allegheny West. The Society serves as the archive of the State of Wisconsin; it collects all manner of books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, relics, newspapers, and aural and graphic materials as they relate to North America; it maintains a museum, library, and research facility in Madison as well as a statewide system of historic sites, school services, area research centers, and affiliated local societies; it administers a broad program of historic preservation; and publishes a wide variety of historical materials, both scholarly and popular. MEMBERSHIP in the Society is open to the public. Individual membership (one person) is $25. Senior Citizen Individual membership is $20. Family membership is $30. Senior Citizen Family membership is $25. Supporting membership is f 100. Sustaining membership is $250. A Patron contributes $500 or more. THE SOCIETY is governed by a Board of Curators which includes twenty-four elected members, the Governor or designee, three appointees of the Governor, a legislator from the majority and minority from each house, and ex officio, the President of the University of Wisconsin System, the designee of the Friends Coordinating Council, the President of the Wisconsin History Foundation, Inc., and the President of the Administrative Committee of the Wisconsin Council for Local History. A complete listing of the Curators appears inside the back cover.
The Society is headquartered at 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, at the juncture of State and Park streets on the University of Wisconsin campus. The State Historical Museum is located at 30 North Carroll Street. A partial listing of phone numbers (Area Code 608) follows: General Administration 262-3266 Library circulation desk .... . 262-3421 Affiliated local societies 262-2316 Maps , 262-5867 Archives reading room 262-3338 Membership .262-9613 Contribution of manuscript materials 262-3248 Microforms reading room . . .262-9621 Editorial offices 262-9603 Museum tours . 262-7700 Film collections 262-0585 Newspapers reference . 262-9584 Genealogical and general reference inquiries . 262-9590 Picture and sound collections . 262-9581 Government publications and reference 262-2781 Public information office . . . . 262-9606 Historic preservation 262-1339 Sales desk . 262-8000 Historic sites 262-9606 School services . 262-7539 Hours of operation 262-8060 Speakers bureau . 262-9606
ON THE COVER: University of Wisconsin—Madison crew practicing on the Yahara River with Tenney Park on the left, the Yahara River Parkway on the right, and the Sherman Avenue bridge and the tower of the former Hausmann Brewery (then a warehouse) at the upper left. Development of the parks and the crew's use of the river led, in 1905, to one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most heralded designs, the unbuilt Yahara River Boathouse, whose previously untold story begins on page 163. [UW Archives X25 2162] Volume 72, Number 3 / Spring, 1989 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
Published quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 816 State Street, Madison, Cudworth Beye, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Wisconsin 53706. Distributed Yahara River Boathouse, 1905 163 to members as part of their dues. (Individual membership, John O. Holzhueter $25; senior citizen individual membership, $20; family senior citizen individual, $20; family, $30; senior citizen family, $25; In Service to the State: supporting, $100; sustaining, $250; patron, $500 or more.) Wisconsin Public Libraries Single numbers from Volume During World War I 199 57 forward are $2. Microfilmed copies available through Wayne A. Wiegand University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106; reprints of Volumes 1 through 20 and Book Reviews 225 most issues of Volumes 21 through 56 are available from Book Review Index 232 Kraus Reprint Company, Route 100, Millwood, New 233 York 10546. Wisconsin History Checklist Communications should be 236 addressed to the editor. The Accessions Society does not assume responsibility for statements Contributors 240 made by contributors. Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Wisconsin Magazine of History, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Copyright © 1989 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Magazine of History is indexed annually by the editors; cumulative indexes are assembled decennially. In addition, articles are abstracted and indexed in America: History and Life, Historical Abstracts, Index to Literature on the American Indian, and the Combined Retrospective Index to Journals in Editor History, 1838-1974. PAUL H. HASS Photographs identified with WHi negative numbers are Associate Editors from the Historical Society's WILLIAM C. MARTEN collections. JOHN O. HOLZHUETER MADISON AND THE FOUR LAKES REGION Improvements made by the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association, 1905. To depict its accomplishments and the region 'sfour lakes on a relatively .small map (only a portion of which is published here), the association adjusted the orientation by 45 degrees. Frank Lloyd Wright's Yahara Project, commissioned for the university's rowing club by a youthful friend of his, was to have been built just southeast of Tenney Park. University of Wisconsin grounds are on the Lake Mendota shore directly below the legend "Picnic Point." The fourth lake is not Lake Wingra, but Lake Kegonsa, which appears on the original map below Lake Waubesa. Wasmuth Portfolio, Plate L\' Cudworth Beye, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Yahara River Boathouse, 1905
By John O. Holzhueter
HEN it comes to dating Frank discredit on Hitchcock, for he did the very best w Lloyd Wright's executed work he could with what information was available and unbuilt projects, scholars and enthusiasts to him in the 1930's, the decade when he con everywhere still rely largely upon Henry- ducted most of his research. Only subse Russell Hitchcock's chronological list pub quently have his successors come to question lished in 1942.' As with most pioneering some elements of the chronology he estab works of history, Hitchcock's inevitably has lished, and several have expressed special res been and will continue to be revised as new evi ervations about the 1902 date assigned to what dence comes to light. Such revisions reflect no Hitchcock calls the "Yahara Boat Club, Lake Mendota, Madison, Wis." On the basis of style AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am grateful to Paul Sprague, who pushed me to explain why the Yahara Project was initially delights of living or working in the spaces he created. Her called the University of Wisconsin Boat Club Project, bert, rest in peace. Katherine, long life! This article is thereby prompting the discovery of Cudworth Beye's scheduled to appear in substantially the same form in the commissioning the boathouse; to Barry C. Noonan and catalog for the autumn, 1988, exhibition at the Elvehjem Anne Biebel for newspaper research; again to Anne Museum of Art, "Frank Lloyd Wright and Madison: Eight Bipbel for all of the University of Wisconsin Archives re Decades of Artistic and Social Interaction," under the search; and to Alfred D. Beye, the son of Cudworth Beye, general editorship of Paul E. Sprague. for his co-operation, patience, and generosity. In all mat 'Henry-Russell Hitchcock, In the Nature of Materials: ters related to Wright, I owe a large debt to Herbert and The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1887-1941 (New Katherine Jacobs, whose hospitality from 1961 through York, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1942; reprint, New York, 1963 enabled me to learn that the facts about a Wright de DaCapo Press, 1973), 105-130. The Yahara Project ap sign or structure pale in comparison to the ever-changing pears on p. 112.
Copynghl ©1989 by The State Historical Soeiet\ of Wisconsin 163 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 alone, they have suspected that it was a later "Boathouse for the University of Wisconsin project. As it turns out, they were right.^ Boat Club." Wright described it there as a The issue is significant because Hitchcock "shelter for rowing shells on the ground floor assigns the Yahara Project great importance, with floating landing piers on either side. The and his assertions about it have influenced floor above is utilized as a club room with lock Wright scholarship ever since. He sees it as ers and bath." He also featured it prominently one of the turning points in Wright's artistic in important 1930 and 1931 traveling exhibi development, the benchmark for his passage tions in both the United States and Europe for into the realm of the abstract and the point at which he captioned it "Boat-House University which he successfully reduced shapes to their of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. / 1902 / Con basic geometry. He writes: crete. For long light rowing shells." This cap tion doubtless deserves the credit for the sub Despite the great production of exe sequent dating and description of the project.^ cuted work in the Oak Park years [1897— 1911], some of Wright's finest architec Wright also included the Yahara project in the tural conceptions found expression at 1907 Chicago Architectural Club show and in first only in projects. The little Yahara his last major book, A Testament, published two Boat Club was the first design in which years before his death. In short, he considered Wright carried to its logical conclusions it one of his more important early designs.'^ his interest in abstract composition, un At least one other scholar, Vincent Scully, less perhaps the lost Universal Portland Jr., has followed both Hitchcock and the archi Cement pavilion at the Pan-American tect in attributing special significance to the Exposition in Buffalo of the previous year was similar, as seems probable. project. Scully uses it to describe Wright's ar Here in embryo we have the spirit of tistic leaps in the year 1902, the year fre some of the most famous work of this quently used as a watershed by Wright decade and the next, the formal symme scholars. He writes: try and emphasis on the cantilevered slab of Unity Church, 1906, and the dexter ous and subtle elaboration of thickened •'Readily available descriptive material about the 1930 planes and voids in space of the Coonley exhibition (which appeared in Princeton, Chicago, Madi kindergarten project, 1911, and the exe son, Salem, Oregon, and in part in Milwaukee) appears cuted Coonley playhouse, 1912, which mostly in newspapers and organizational newsletters. The lead up to the Midway Gardens, 1914.^ archives and libraries at the Chicago Art Institute, Prince ton University, and the State Historical Society of Wiscon Elsewhere in the same book Hitchcock de sin (SHSW) have thus far failed to yield lists of items ex clares that "this project initiates a new sort of hibited. More information survives about the 1931 European exhibition which was shown in Holland, Brus design which, in light of what was to follow, it sels, and Cermany. The principal sources are an illus is not absurd to call monumental. It is, how trated scrapbook of the European tour and two sets of ever, the boldly cantilevered slab roofs . . . captions, all in the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives, Taliesin which gives [sic] the Boat Club its particular West, Scottsdale, Arizona (FLWA). Wright or his staff ap- significance.'"' parendy prepared one set of captions for the American tour and a second set for the European. The first is type Wright, too, recognized the boathouse as written with handwritten amendments. These amend important, for he chose to include it in his ments appear as typewritten entries on the second ver famed Ausgefiihrte Bauten und Entwiirfe von sion, which is in English, French, and Cerman. It thus Frank Lloyd Wright (Studies and Executed Build appears that Wright expanded the 1930 captions for the ings by Frank Lloyd Wright), the Wasmuth port 1931 European audience, in this case adding "concrete" to the Yahara Project caption. The caption for the European folio of 1910, in which it appears as Plate LV, exhibition mistakenly says that the project was executed. Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Taliesin archivist, kindly supplied photocopies both of the captions and of a photograph of ^H. Allen Brooks to the author, February 23, 1974; the Berlin installation, in which a Yahara Project illustra Paul E. Sprague and Narciso Menocal, conversations with tion appears prominently. the author, early 1980's. •"Chicago Architectural Club, Annual Exhibit Catalog 'Hitchcock, In the Nature of Materials, discussion ac (1907), item 423, microfilm. Library, SHSW; Frank Lloyd companying fig. 79. Wright,/! Testament (New York, Horizon Press, 1957), fig. nbid., 45. 42. ' 164 HOLZHUETER: CUDWORTH BEYE AND FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
A" N:VE^riTvc^W'bCC 90 2: WHi(W6)23736 Redrawing of the Yahara Project for 1930 and 1931 traveling exhibitions with the mistaken 1902 date Wright then assigned it. The print is from one of several original negatives made by the University of Wisconsin photo laboratory for Wright at the time; the photographer failed to include the far left part of the drawing in the frame.
During the same year, the roof as Architects, makes the same point, saying the volume-defining hip disappeared en project was "one of the first designs where tirely in the Yahara Boat Club Project, Wright abandoned the low-pitched hip or ga . . . designed for masonry con ble roof of his 'prairie houses' and used rein struction. . . . The lower walls advance forced concrete flat-slab structure."** upon their broad platform, and those supporting the long, flat roof stand be The project also is a favorite of Bruce hind and rise above them, so that the ex Brooks Pfeiffer, the Wright archivist, who in tended horizontal of the roof plane not cluded it in his 1985 Treasures of Taliesin: only unifies the solids and voids below it Seventy-Six Unbuilt Designs, and who notes in but also seems to float free above the the 1987 Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph 1902— plane of the platform itself." 1906 that "Mr. Wright singled out this Yahara project as a most seminal work."^ In sum, the Like Hitchcock, Scully emphasizes the intro duction of the slab roof as a unifying force. A "Sir Banister Fletcher Library, Royal Institute of Brit 1984 British publication, the Catalogue of the ish Architects, Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Drawings Collection of the Royallnstitute of British Royal Institute of British Architects, ed. Jill Lever (Amersham, Buckinghamshire, Avebury Publishing Co. Ltd., 1985), vol. T-Z, 274, and fig. 94 (misnumbered 93 in 'Vincent Scully, Jr., Frank Lloyd Wright (New York, the entry). Ceorge Braziller, Inc., 1960), 19. 'Yukio Futagawa, ed. and photographer, and Bruce 165 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989
architect, his successors at Taliesin, and the and 1905, however, dredging transformed it scholarly community all have regarded the into a straight, widened, and adequate boating Yahara Project as a landmark in modern stream, one which for the first time could ac American architecture because of its sophisti commodate large craft. Before, even canoeing cated level of abstraction, its slab roof, and its along it would have been difficult, not to men early use of concrete. tion unpleasant, because Madison residents That much is simple to establish. What is and businesses used it as a dump for organic more difficult to rationalize is Wright's appar wastes. Furthermore, a dam at the Mendota ent regression from the abstract after his 1902 end and eight low bridges impeded boat Yahara "breakthrough." How could it be that traffic. Before the Yahara was dredged, no between 1902 and 1905 the architect failed to one would have thought of inviting Frank reach the same level of abstraction already Lloyd Wright or any other architect to design achieved in this project? Such regression is il a clubhouse for its banks. Nor is it likely that logical for an artist of Wright's caliber. As it Wright's busy Oak Park career and orienta happens, the historical facts related to the de tion to Chicago would have allowed him time velopment of Madison, the University of Wis to design gratuitous improvements for his consin, the university's athletic and crew pro hometown. The Yahara was the sort of urban gram, and Wright's own career all bear out nuisance that people usually try to ignore." these stylistically based suspicions that the Some leading Madisonians, however, 1902 date is wrong. refused to ignore it. They were members of the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Associa tion, then fortunate to have as its president a civic-minded attorney, John M. Olin. In Janu HE first decade of the twentieth ary, 1903, Olin set the wheels in motion for T' century was a busy one for dealing with the Yahara problem. The associa Madison. The city nearly doubled in size be tion concentrated, as its name implies, on tween 1895 and 1905 (from a population of building "pleasure" roadways and developing 13,426 to 24,301), so there were great de parks, both inside and outside the city. The mands to expand services in general.'" It is pleasure drives led along the city's lakes and to logical to expect, therefore, that some time af scenic overlooks so that residents could travel ter the turn of the century there might have comfortably to attractive spots. The two parks been a proposal for a boathouse along the under the association's control in 1903 were Yahara River on Madison's east side. Boating Owen, outside the city limits, and Tenney, the had been a popular Madison pastime from at first major open space developed within the least the 1850's, but until 1905 it was confined city. Located on the south shore of Lake Men principally to Madison's two largest lakes, dota where the Yahara River exits, Tenney Mendota and Monona. Before then it could Park was conceived in 1899 and was near com not have taken place on the Yahara River, pletion in 1902. As with all Park and Pleasure which links the two, because the Yahara was Drive park projects, the organization owned little more than a circuitous, shallow, swampy, the land and paid for building the park, the mile-long industrial waterway. Between 1903 city of Madison agreeing to assist in its mainte nance and operation once it was completed. Olin was disturbed that Madison's elected of Brooks Pfeiffer, text, Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph 1902— ficials seemed reluctant to undertake further 1906 (Tokyo, A.D.A. Edita, 1987), fig. 84. In his discus park development at city expense, so in Janu sion Pfeiffer misquotes the annotation on the bottom ary, 1903, he proposed that the association dnwing on item 0211.09 in the FLWA, and he errs in re marking that the boathouse was to have been "simply a tackle the Yahara. His plan was ambitious. It storage facility." See also Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Treasures of Taliesin: Seventy-Six Unbuilt Designs (Fresno, Press at Cal ifornia State University, 1985), text for pi. 2; and note 40 ' 'This paragraph and much of the next two are based below. upon David V. Mollenhoff, Madison: A History of the Forma '"For population figures see Wisconsin Blue Book, 1901, tive Years (Dubuque, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., 1982), p. 461; ibid., 1911, p. 60. 68, 113, 230-232, 329-332, 466. 166 u..^,.
Dredging the Tenney Park lock on the Yahara, 1903 or 1904. The lock opened in 190j as pail of the extensive Yahara River Parkway project undertaken by the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association, enabling true boating on the Yahara for the first time. From a lantern slide. called for acquiring property for a half-block- erty from injury and destruction, which would deep parkway along both sides of the river, result if the lock were attempted to be oper dredging the stream to deepen and straighten ated by the general public."'^ it, building a lock next to the dam at the Men A missing element in the Yahara undertak dota outlet, and raising all eight bridges to ing was a boathouse, which was a matter of provide eight feet of clearance for boaters. considerable interest to members of the Power Olin's proposal met with immediate and Boat Association whose treasurer raised the is widespread approval, and he pressed ar sue with Olin in March, 1905. Olin assured rangements rapidly. Dredging began by June, him that "our board of directors, or at least. . . 1903. He arranged to rehire the designer of certain members" had been considering a Tenney Park, landscape architect O. C. Si- public boathouse "for some time," but one monds of Chicago, a leading figure in the pro "that would accommodate the people gener fession who would subsequently design both ally," not just powerboat operators. Olin went Vilas and Brittingham parks, Madison's other on to ask if the new club could not construct a major projects of the decade. Preliminary building on private property on the east side dredging proceeded through 1904, and by the of the Yahara, the bank opposite the city spring of 1905 the new lock was in place. De lighted powerboat owners immediately formed an organization that agreed to employ '^On the boating club, lock, and dam, see the Madison a lock attendant "to protect the valuable prop Democrat, April 15, May 6, 1905. 167
TENNEY PARK AND YAHARA PARKWAY
The 1905 -1906 plan for Madison's Tenney Park and Yahara Parkway; the Yahara lock and dam and .spillway not long after completion; and John M. Olin, the head of the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association whose vision and energy were the crucial elements in developing Madison's park system and transforming the narrow, shallow Yahara River into a boating stream. The landscape architect was O. C. Simonds of Chicago, a leader in the field. Olin appears to have promised the university crew a boathouse site on the Tenney Park side of the river bank just to the right of East Johnson Street, but the crew failed to realize its hopes. Accordingly, Simonds prepared this final drawing without provision for a boathouse. The drawing appears in the Park and Pleasure Drive Association's 1906 report.
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Above, one of many incompletely identified views made by Charles N. Brown, secretary of the Park Hi{X3)4488w 5 and Pleasure Drive Association, for the association. John M. Olm (seated, foreground), William F Vitas (standing, right), and others appear to be considering a potential park site—perhaps that of Henry Vilas Park (donated by William F. Vilas) with Lake Wingra in the background, c. 1905. Belrnr. the results of the association's work at Tenney Paik. L. 1910.
170 WUi(X3)4491() Above, the Yahara River at East Washington Avenue before Yahara Parkway and bridge WHn\:!,44hh2 developments. Below, thesamesite, lookmgtowards Lake Monona, after construction oftheparkway and the Steensland Bridge (designed by architects Ferry and Clas of Milwaukee, 1905). Madison banker Halle Steensland donated the bridge m honor of his fiftieth anniversary as a local businessman. Both photographs by Charles N. Brown.
WHi(X3)44884 171 • •• •• • m ^TT--'^ •dP* 1 «n'••^''::!l' r - IV' r' - p.- 9
^hove,TenneyParkloch,probablyphotographedshortlyafteritsopeningmthespnngof 1905 with the Sherman Avenue bridge and the Hausmann Brewery m the background. Below, the powerboat Yahara on the Yahara. The advent of such launches helped spur deepening, widening, and straightening of the river. HOLZHUETER: CUDWORTH BEYE AND FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
proper. "Whatever building is put up, it ought tion went for naught. No other group in Madi to be approved, architecturally, by our board son was blessed with an organizer like John M. of directors. It would have to be built by peo Olin, and the records of Olin's group contain ple clubbing together," he wrote, because the no mention of Frank Lloyd Wright and his association "could not meet the expenses . . . boathouse design for the Yahara.'^ nor attend to the details of running it." Olin suggested that erecting a boathouse "could be done very easily by a small company being or ganized, of people who are specially interested XAMINING University of Wis in the boat-house and were patrons of it."'^ E consin records for official men Despite some initial enthusiasm, the Power tions of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Yahara Boat Association accomplished nothing about Project proves equally frustrating. Like the a boathouse in 1905. The club raised the issue city in which it was located, the university was again early in 1906, but this time through Ro growing rapidly (from an enrollment of 1,598 bert M. Lamp, a Madison insurance and travel in 1895-1896 to 3,659 in 1906-1907), and it, agent, a club member, Frank Lloyd Wright's too, required expanded facilities.'^ In Octo closest friend in adolescence and his recent cli ber, 1906, the university regents authorized ent. Lamp tried to persuade Olin that the Park undertaking a large plan for future campus and Pleasure Drive Association should help architectural development. Through the urg with a boathouse, suggesting "one of the ing of President Charles R. Van Hise, Warren things that we need very much is a public land Powers Laird of the University of Pennsylva ing and boat house on Third Lake [Lake nia was hired, along with his young associate Monona], preferably near the East Madison Paul Philippe Cret. Laird, Cret, and university Station [foot of Hancock Street]. This is one of architect Arthur Peabody formed a commis the schemes that I wish to work on, my idea be sion that by 1908 had submitted a scheme for a ing to erect something that will be an orna fifty-year expansion of the university. It called ment and also a place where people can sit out for a new boathouse west of the lower campus on a veranda. In connection therewith, in or area near a projected athletic complex at the der to get the city's co-operation, it might be distant edge of campus, but in none of the cor advisable to have a bath house in connection." respondence or sketches is an off-campus Olin replied coolly: "I assure you that any boathouse mentioned." thing that our association can do along the There was good reason why the university lines suggested in your letter will be done. I would not have commissioned a boathouse in have had in mind this matter referred to by you for a number of years."'* Meanwhile, Si monds' Yahara parkway plans were released '•'"Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association, An in the spring of 1906 without provision for ei nual Report, 1906, engraving opposite p. 34; iiirf., 1907, p. 29. See also the extensive letters to Simonds in the associa ther a bathhouse or a boathouse of any sort. A tion's letterbooks (Olin was virtually the only writer); Wis year later the association's board officially op consin State Journal, October 18, 1905, which reports a Si posed any boathouse along the parkway and monds visit to lay out walkways; Bert Ainsworth to Olin, again suggested that a private organization March 17, 1906, in the Olin Papers, also about a boat- might erect one on land behind it. The sugges- house for the Yahara. The author searched the entire body of the Olin Papers for mentions of Frank Lloyd Wright in any context and found none. '<^Wisconsin Blue Book, 1897, p. 436; ibid., 1907, p. 772. ^^Daily Cardinal (University of Wisconsin student i-'Olin to N. W. Ellefson, March 27, 1905, in the John daily), November 23, 1905, and January 17, 1906, for the M. Olin Papers (letterbooks of the Madison Park and Plea appointments; Laird, Cret, and Peabody plan in the Uni sure Drive Association), Archives, SHSW; undated clip versity of Wisconsin Archives (UWA). This paragraph is ping from the Wisconsin State Journal (Madison) ca. April, based principally upon unpublished research and conclu 1905, in the Olin scrapbooks, rare books, SHSW. sions fjy Anne Biebel concerning campus development, '••Lamp to Olin, April 21, 1906, and Olin to Lamp, 1905-1908. She has thoroughly searched the papers of April 23, 1906, both in the Olin Papers. Lamp may have Van Hise and Peabody in the UWA for details about an been referring to a boathouse along the lines of the one off-campus boathouse plan and has found none. No pub Wright designed for Lake Monona in 1893. lished account about the Laird and Cret plan exists. 173 f,r\rRAI, \IIV.
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UW .Archives X25 1733 Fifty-year expansion plan for the University of Wisconsin, 1908, by Warren Powers Laird and Paul Philippe Cret, both of Philadelphia, and Arthur Peabody, university architect. The plan never was realized, but called for a boathouse and dock shown as a projection into Lake Mendota near the center of the image. 1902 or later: its crew was already housed in a groups. At Wisconsin the students called their boathouse which the university controlled but group the University Athletic Association. did not own, a seemingly adequate structure The university's interests were represented by on Lake Mendota, built in 1892, which served a distinct athletic council composed of faculty the crew, student body, alumni, and the public members. The student association ran the until the late 1960's. While in the late twend- teams and contests and hired the coaches; the eth century this ownership arrangement may faculty council kept an eye on all of this and re seem peculiar to anyone familiar with conven ported concerns and recommendations to the tional American government and public edu faculty. This was the situation until 1907 cation, it was reasonable when considered in when, after a stormy two-year fight over foot the context of intercollegiate athletics during ball abuses which also affected all other sports, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu the university assumed control over intercolle ries. Except for baseball, intercollegiate ath giate athletics in general and began hiring the letics came into being principally in the 1880's. coaches and handling finances.'** By the early 1890's, rowing, football, baseball, and field events were exceedingly popular with students and the public. The teams were '"Merle Curti and Vernon Carstensen, The University of not generally managed by the universities but Wisconsin: A History, 1848—1925 (Madison, University of instead by students through independent Wisconsin Press, 1949), 1:693-710,2:533-548. 174 The 1892 University of Wisconsin boathouse with the fortress-like red-bricit gymnusium on the right, U\V .Archives M146 V3 as they appeared in the 1920's or 1930's. Students and an independent corporation connected with the university erected the boathouse; the university assumed control of it in the wake of a 1905-1906 intercollegiate athletic scandal. Rowing figured more prominently on the was overwhelming, and nearly $1,700 was collegiate athletic scene in the 1890's than to subscribed at a campus-wide meeting held to day, often ranking second in popularity to announce the plan. By the autumn of 1893 the football. Wisconsin's rowing program began new company had acquired ownership of the in the spring of 1891 when students organized property from the student boat club and had the University of Wisconsin Boat Club in imi completed construction.'^ tation of the successful crew organizations at eastern universities. A year later the club an nounced plans to build a shingle-style boat- ^maily Cardinal, April 11, 20, December 14, 16, 1892; house on Lake Mendota at the east edge of the February 2, April 26, 1893; Wisconsin Secretary of State, campus and launched a subscription cam corporation division, incorporation papers, domestic cor paign to pay for it. The drive met with imme porations 1848-1945, file U90, series 356, Wisconsin State Archives, SHSW; University of Wisconsin Badger, diate success, and construction soon began, 1894, p. \'i\;ibid. 1895, p. 197. A stock certificate for the then halted during the summer when the corporation, which was called the University Boat-house $1,500 in donations had been exhausted. Company, appears in the Breese J. Stevens Papers, Ar The faculty then stepped in with a plan to chives, SHSW. One of the three incorporators was H. H. Jacobs, father of Herbert A. Jacobs, for whom Wright finish the building under the auspices of a later designed two Madison-area dwellings (see the essays university-controlled corporation with capital on the Jacobs House I and II in the forthcoming catalog of $4,500 and shares at $5 each. Enthusiasm edited by Paul E. Sprague menuoned above in the Au- 175 t.di;.-
Varsity Football S Sit , ^. HOLZHUETER: CUDWORTH BEYE AND FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT Three of the elements that led to Frank Lloyd Wright's Yahara Boathouse design: the university student body's independent intercollegiate athletics program dominated by its football team; the mechanical rowing machine used by crews when Lake Mendota was too rough or covered by ice; and Cudworth Beye of Oak Park, commodore of the rowing team who tried to honor rowing coach Andrew O'Dea's request for an off-season facility on the Yahara by commissioning a design from Wright. O'Dea appears with the football team, top row, fourth from the right. The crew next required a coach and proper equipment. By 1895 it had both. The coach was Andrew O'Dea of Australia's Yarra Yarra Club, and the equipment was a cedar shell made by a leading firm in Cambridge, Massa chusetts. The crew prospered under O'Dea, and in 1899 and 1900 it astonished the na tional rowing community by taking second place in the Poughkeepsie regatta, at that time the principal collegiate race in the nation. The "Haymakers," as the Wisconsin men were known in the East, maintained their position through 1903, taking third place twice and an other second at the Poughkeepsie races. But in 1904 and 1905 they faltered and came in last.20 In O'Dea's opinion the crew declined be cause it had too little practice in comparison to the teams from the East that practiced on open water for two or three months longer than Wisconsin could. Lake Mendota was often too rough for rowing in the fall, and winter ice prevented practice until spring. From Novem ber until April the men worked out on rowing machines, honing technique and gaining strength; but machines were no substitute for coordinated, eight-man rowing in shells on open water. O'Dea began looking covetously at the relatively (but not always) ice-free, newly f\V Archives X23 2168 deepened, widened, and straightened Yahara and early-spring practice might help put his River, where some supplementary late-fall crews on a par with the eastern teams. The "commodore" or student manager of the Wis consin team, a young man from Oak Park, Illi thor's Note.) Two-thirds of the shares had to be held by nois, named Cudworth Beye, agreed with faculty, students, or alumni; and the board's prescribed O'Dea: "When he was unable to take his crew membership effectively guaranteed university control. out day after day—twtj and three times a week ^"Badger, 1897, pp. 142-143; ibid. 1908, p. 503; on an average—because Mendota was too Charles Thomas Anderson, "The Story of Crew at Wis consin," in The Wisconsin Magazine, 10:13—15 (April, rough, and when he realized that at the East I9I3). ern Institutions thev were rowing their ten 177 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 and fifteen miles a day, he felt somewhat put where Wright's uncle, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, was out we imagine."^' minister. That same year the Beyes moved to Oak Park where they were soon active in Unity Church. Theirs was a large family of eight children, one of whom, Hannah Beye (born HETHER Beye had the ap 1876), was a friend of Wright's youngest sister w proval of the rowing organi Maginel (born 1877). By 1896, when Hannah zation or O'Dea is not known, but in late Octo gave a "corn party" for "Miss Wright," the two ber or early November he was in touch with his were very close, and it is said in the Beye family family's friend, Frank Lloyd Wright, to ask that Hannah later served as Maginel's maid or him to design a supplementary rowing facility, matron of honor. Hannah was friendly as well not to replace the existing boathouse and Lake with "Madame Wright," as the architect's Mendota for most practice but merely to make mother was called by the Beyes. Wright's other Yahara practice possible and convenient. sister, Jane, often gave picnics to which she Wright responded briefly but enthusiastically frequently invited Hannah and her family. on November 2, 1905: Hannah herself married an architect, James Fyfe, who with his partner, Herman Von My dear Cudworth:— Hoist, acquired Wright's Oak Park practice in We are always ready when "Alma Ma ter" calls— 1911.23 We will desingn [sic] any thing for the Thus, Cudworth Beye (born March 21, W.U. from a chicken house to a cathe 1884) must have known Frank Lloyd Wright dral, no matter how busy we may be. for most of his life. Although much younger Yours truly, than the architect, he shared Wright's interest Frank Lloyd Wright.^^ in sports and engineering and considered The Beye family's ties to Wright's family Wright his friend. He followed in Wright's went back at least to 1883, when Cudworth's footsteps as a civil engineering student at Wis father, William Beye, was on the building consin (class of 1906) but was considerably committee of Chicago's All Souls Church, more active in campus affairs than Wright. He rowed with the boat club during his freshman and sophomore years, then became its com modore as a junior and senior. He also helped ^'Cudworth Beye, "Review of the Crewing Season of 1905," in theBadger, 1907, p. 440 (quote); Andrew O'Dea, manage his junior prom—the principal social "Boating at Wisconsin," in the Badger, 1908, pp. 503-505; event on campus then—and he was a member reports of fall training in the Daily Cardinal, October 13, of Psi Upsilon fraternity. His efforts were re November 2, 10, 1905. warded by election to the highly selective sen ^^Wright to Beye, November 2, 1905, in the Cudworth ior men's honorary society, Iron Cross. Beye's Beye Collection, Archives, SHSW (a gift in December, 1987, from Beye's son Alfred D. Beye of Rockville, Mary interest in sports and in their importance for land). The inadequate typing suggests that Wright him proper development of youngsters continued self typed this letter. According to Paul E. Sprague, the throughout his life. In his later home of Litch chicken house-cathedral phrase occurs in a letter written field, Connecticut, he served for decades as a by H. H. Richardson to John Jacobs Glessner of Chicago in response to Glessner's query asking if Richardson would design a house for him. Although Richardson's re ply ("I'll plan anything a man wants, from a cathedral to a ^'William Beye Fyfe, conversations with the author, chicken coop. That's the way I make my living.") never March 29, May 7, 1987; All Souls Church, Chicago, build seems to have been published, it is likely that the story cir ing committee records, 1883-1887, in the church ar culated in Chicago architectural circles and eventually was chives, courtesy of Paul E. Sprague; Oak Park Vindicator, related to Wright, perhaps by Louis Sullivan himself. Ar August 28, 1896, April 16, 1897 (William Beye obituary); rangements for the boathouse and strategy for improving Oak Leaves (Oak Park, Illinois), June 19, 1947 (Mrs. Wil the crew's performance were made without publicity. No liam Beye obituary); William Beye file. Oak Park Public mention of the Yahara plan was made publicly before Library; Charles R. Beye, conversation with the author, March. See the Daily Cardinal, March 1, 1906. Wright's let March 29, 1987. Notes from or copies of these items are in ters to Beye clearly demonstrate that O'Dea, Beye, and the the Beye Collection, SHSW. The Beyes and the Wrights student boat club had set improvement plans in motion ei were not near neighbors; they lived about a half-mile ther in late summer or early fall, 1905. apart. 178 U« .\rthi\esM148 Above, members of the Psi Upsilon chapter at the University ofWisconsin, 1904; below, the red-brick gymnasium decorated for the 1903 prom. A campus leader, Cudworth Beye appears in the second row, second from the left in his fraternity picture; he headed the refreshment committee and served on the decoration and arrangements committee for the 1906 prom. L'W Archives M14.5 :i^ ^ °* , "^^^g^^'y- -^ .„'• "l.'T^jWjl" ^^ Sl»«MW^Wi , JT Library in the university's engineering building, corner of North Park Street and Observatory Drive UW Archives M147 where Helen C. White Hall now stands. Beye, an engineering student like Wright, would have used this library, while Wright was a draftsman for the supervising architect, Allan D. Conover, when it was built along with Science Hall and two other buildings in 1885—1886. Boy Scout leader. Professionally he became a ingetting [sic] started but will try and road builder, working largely in New York make up forlost [sic] time. and New England.2'' The data came duly to hand;was [sic] Cudworth Beye's ties to Unity Church did well worked out and complete. not escape Wright, who at that time was work Yours truly, ing with the congregation on plans for a new Frank Lloyd Wright. building. He alludes to their common interest [holographic postscript] Building committee have [has?] finally in the church in his next letter, dated Decem accepted plans for church—("Unity"-)^'' ber 12, 1905, and he also acknowledges that Cudworth's "data" about the site elevation and Wright was true to his word and he mailed size had arrived: the plans exactly a week later on December 19.2*^ Despite the speed with which he had My dear Cudworth:— Fhe sketches for the boat house will 25wright to Beye, December 12, 1905, in the Beye Col be forth-coming soon. Somedelay [sic] lection. Typographical errors again make it appear that Wright typed this letter himself. For a discussion of Unity Temple see Brendan Gill, Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright (New York,C,. P. Putnam's Sons, 1987), 173- 2''Alfred D. Beye to the author, September 16, 1987 183. Gill misidentifies the congregation as Unitarian at (which refers to Wright and Beye as friends); Badger, the time; it was then Universalist. 1907, p. 86 (senior sketch for Cudworth Beye); Litchfield ^''Wright evidently submitted five different drawings: Enquirer, January 14, 1965 (Cudworth Beye obituary), (1) ground-floor plan, now lost; (2) second-Hoor plan, the courtesy Susan Krnic, The Oliver Wolcott Library, Inc.; right-hand drawing on drawing 0211.01; (3) an elevation, notes on conversation vvith Alfred D. Beye, March 30, drawing 0211.02; (4) a side perspective, the left-hand 1987. Originals or copies of these are in the Beye Collec drawing on drawing 0211.01; and (5) a perspective, draw tion. ing 02 ij .03, all drawings in the FLWA. 180 HOLZHUETER: CUDWORTH BEYE AND FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT worked, the letter which accompanied the does not survive in the Wright archives, the plans makes it clear that he had devoted a budget he specified for this supplementary fa good deal of thought to a crew's practical cility is not known. But the figure must have needs, rowing equipment, and its storage and been modest, since that spring Beye had all he maintenance. He wrote: could do to raise only $1,800 in subscriptions to send the crew to the Poughkeepsie re My dear Cudworth:— The sketches forthe [sic] boat-house gatta.^^ are herewith. They represent a building somewhat more expensive than contem plated, I am afraid, but may be built with modifications. RIGHT'S description of the It appears that the ground allotted to w building in his December 19, this purpose by the Improvement associ- 1905, letter leaves no doubt that he is refer ation^^ is not long enough to permit the ring to the Yahara Project, which for decades double end arrangement of floating has been dated 1902. The project is not, there piers unless they would give you another fore, the design in which Wright "broke 55 or 60 feet along the Yaharra [sic]. They might be willing to do this if con through to abstraction" as Henry-Russell vinced of the desirability of your im Hitchcock characterized it. Instead it is the provement. You might show them the outgrowth of some earlier germinations. The sketches. most obvious antecedent is the Larkin Build The scheme is very simple,- tar and ing in Buffalo, whose final drawings were gravel roof, plastered walls and hemlock completed about June, 1903.'"' Its monumen frame. The toilet arrangements are ex tal size and ornamentation immediately distin cessive and could be limited for the guish it from the Yahara Project, but it never present to the arrangement at one end theless achieved a relatively high degree of only. abstract simplicity in its massing. If the Improvement Association proves obdurate we can get along with a Wright's final step towards full-blown ab single float. straction seems to have occurred after his re Skylights light the aisles between the turn from Japan, where he visited from Feb shells, so that they may be overhauled ruary through April, 1905, suggesting that his there; and provision has been made for a trip somehow catalyzed various elements with flue at either end,so [sic] that two stoves which he had been experimenting for some may be used if heat were necessary. time. During the next year his studio churned If you are to be down in the near fu out a plethora of related, abstract designs. Be ture run in here and we will talk over the sides the Yahara Project and Unity Temple (a details. more obvious descendant of the Larkin Build Yours truly, ing and preceding the boathouse by only a Frank Lloyd Wright—^s Since Beye's portion of the correspondence ^^Maryjane Hamilton of Ooss Plains kindly arranged for an archival search for Beye's letters to Wright in the Getty Museum microcopies of the FLWA holdings. None 27Wright's reference to the "Improvement associa were found. On the crew's finances, see the Daily Cardinal, tion" barkens back to his first public commission as an in April 1 1, 24, 27, May 14, 16, 17, 25, 28, 29, 1906. Beye dependent architect: the two boathouses for the Madison personally rai.sed subscriptions, and campus groups held Improvement Association in 1893. The Improvement As benefits to send the crew to the East. sociation still was technically in existence in 1905, but its ""'The date of the final preliminary design of the functions and many of its members had been embraced by Larkin Building was provided by Paul E. Sprague. Other the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association. related early work from the 1902—1904 period includes Wright's use of the earlier association's name was a natural Hillside Home School at Spring Green, Little Residence mistake. and Stable (especially the stable) at Peoria, the Walser Res 28Wright to Beye, December 19, 1905, in the Beye Col idence in Chicago, and the Lamp Residence in Madison, lection. Wright evidently had someone type this letter for to name some executed designs: and such projects as the him, since it contains few typographical errors or era Lake Delavan Clubhouse and the Scudder Summerlodge sures. near Desbarats, Ontario. 181 VVHi(\V6)31399 Above, the Larkin Company's headquarters building in Buffalo, New York, designed by Wright in 1903, and, below. Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, designed in the fall of 1905, only a month or so before the Yahara Project. These two buildings are the most obvious artistic predecessors of the Yahara Project, which perfects the level of abstraction towards which Wright had been heading for several years and which jelled after his return from Japan in April, 1905. Wright originally specified brick for Unity Temple, as he had for the Larkin Building, then later switched to concrete. Despite its small size, the boathouse project achieves the monumental appearance that distinguishes its evolutionary predecessors. WHi(W6)3I399 182 \Vllii\V())2K61() Above, Wright's "Fireproof House for $5,000" from the April, 1907, Ladies' Home Journal, designed in concrete. It is another of the important 1905-1906 designs from his studio and duplicates the Yahara Project's slab roof. Below, a perspective view of the boathouse, which Wright originally designed with "tar and gravel roof, plastered walls and hemlock frame," not concrete. r- c- 183 p^ V & P^ Yahara Project floor plan drawn by J on Buschke from the German version in the Wasmuth portfolio. The top half of the plan depicts half the ground floor (72 by 40 feet), whose full size can be visualized by mentally reversing (left to right) and "flipping" the top half to the bottom half of the drawing. Boats and shells would have been stored on racks in the center of the ground floor, with light coming from skylights in the deck overhead. The bottom half of the plan month or so), Wright also worked that year on that respect it retains an element of innova the Hardy House in Racine, the Richard Bock tion. In most other respects it is a part of a studio project in Chicago, the Pettit Mortuary group of buildings that represents the culmi Chapel in Belvidere, Illinois, and the famed nation of several years' design work, perhaps Ladie.s' Home Journal "Fireproof House for catalyzed by Wright's Japan sojourn. $5,000" design published in April, 1907. All, The boathouse depicted in the 1905 draw especially Unity Femple, bear a strong resem ings and the one shown in those prepared for blance to the boathouse in their massing and the 1910 Wasmuth portfolio are very similar. use of materials. Cantilevered roofs, either flat The building was to have rested on wooden or hip; abstract massing of cubes and rectan pilings protected by stone riprap, a standard gles; and, with the exception of the Fireproof waterfront construction technique. The first- House and Unity Temple, the use of plaster story dimensions, 72 feet by 40 feet, easily and wood as basic materials are features of would have accommodated two eight-person these designs. All have a certain Japanese shells (which measure 65 to 67 feet in length flavor, the wood-trimmed paper screens being by about 20 inches in width) plus smaller shells transformed into wood-trimmed plaster sur and other gear. The first-fltjor space resem faces more appropriate for northern winters, bles a basement, being little more than a large though this feature had appeared in Wright's storeroom with a series of posts down the cen work long before he visited Japan. By doing ter to support the second story. Three win away with even a low gable in some of these de dows at each end of the main facade and one signs, Wright rid himself of the one element— in each of the four large doorways along with a bothersome "top"—which kept his earlier ef two skylights above were to have provided forts from becoming sculptural abstractions. light. Desire for privacy, security, and keeping The Yahara Project stands apart from this late untidiness out of public view may have had 1905 and 1906 outpouring for its lack of orna something to do with Wright's placement of ment. Wright kept the wood trim to a mini first-floor fenestration. The doors were almost mum on the boathouse, perhaps to keep costs of warehouse size (9 feet by 5'/2 feet) to pro low. Its unrelieved surfaces make it the most vide adequate clearance for oarsmen to carry stark of this fertile period's designs, and in shells through them overhead, as is custom- 184 L I Ca H T 5 depicts the upper story (72 by 20 feet), which occupies the entire center of the structure. Again, by reversing and flipping the plan its complete features can be visualized. Lockers and dressing rooms are at the head of the stairs with a lounge in the middle for University Boat Club members. Wright's desire for symmetry led to duplication of stairs, lockers, and even piers, with the boathouse occupying the middle third of a symmetrical ground plan. ary. Stairways at both ends of this room were house would have bracketed the boathouse, to lead to a domestically scaled second story. each terminated by a stone abutment. The The second floor was as long as the first but three units—boathouse and two piers—were only half as wide (20 feet maximum). Ribbons symmetrical, 75 feet each.^' of leaded casement windows along both major A desire to achieve absolute symmetry in facades and a pair of them in each stairwell the project led Wright to some excess. His last would have provided more than ample light, letter to Cudworth Beye acknowledges that he clearly demarking the second story as a space had included one too many toilets and sug for human activity. Dressing rooms measur gests eliminating one of the "toilet arrange ing 14 feet square occupied the spaces at the ments" and presumably also the dressing top of the steps. The center lounge, 20 feet by room that the toilets served. The second set of 30 feet in size, was reached by corridors that doorways and the second stairwell, too, can be would have provided dramatic entrances to considered superfluous, since, as Wright this well-lighted space. pointed out in the same letter, the Madison The roof was to have overhung the side en Park and Pleasure Drive Association had pro trances by 10 feet on both ends (the original vided riverbank sufficient only for this boat- drawing shows 9 feet at the left, 11 feet at the house and one pier, not two. Indeed, the asso right). Two chimneys pierced the roof at ei ciation already had allotted enough space for a ther end, each supporting a flagpole, whose flags or pennants presumably would have been run up through holes in the roof, since "The measurements were made by Paul E. Sprague no stairs to the roof are provided. From foun who worked with a 2'/2-foot measurement center-to- center for the posts between the second-story casement dation to roofline, the building reached a windows. He used drawing 0211.02 (a side elevation) and height of 20 feet. The distance to the top of the the drawing paired with 0211.01 (the second-floor plan) first-story parapet was 13 feet, with another 6 in the FLWA. The floating piers to which Wright refers in feet to the underside of the roof. The tops of his letter, and which have sometimes been mentioned to the small, square windows in the first story the author as Wright innovations, were actually standard features. The 1892-1893 University ofWisconsin boat- were 9 feet from the ground. A pair of floating house already had one, designated as a "landing float" on piers like the one at the 1892 university boat- the 1892 architect's drawing. 185 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 second pier in front of the building where a mation of the building material to concrete. crew could have carried a shell with only slight The metamorphosis began in the winter of inconvenience, but such placement would 1929 at the suggestion of Heinrich or Henry have violated the esthetic integrity of the de Klumb, a Wright apprentice from Germany. sign. The flagpoles required little money but He thought that reducing Wright's "delicate necessitated potentially troublesome holes in renderings of his best-known buildings to a the roof, and to reach the attachments to run two dimensional black-on-white graphic pre up a pennant would have required using a lad sentation" would please modern architects der. Wright did not indicate how he intended who were "addicted to" this drawing style. to handle the second-floor interior, but one Wright approved, so Klumb and another man difficulty seems apparent: how were stove in Wright's studio, Takehiko Okami, redrew pipes to be attached to the chimneys, and to six early structures, using ink on window- which chimney? It may have been that stoves shades. (These six drawings were hung on the were intended for both the first and second entrance wall of the 1931 Berlin exhibition.) stories. In that case, four chimneys were rea The results, Klumb said, "emphasized the sonable. If Wright intended stoves only in the depth of his [Wright's] poetry and the power dressing rooms, then two of the chimneys also of the third dimension. Nothing 'Interna were superfluous. His insistence upon symme tional Architecture' had to show could equal try created impracticalities for a club with a it."33 small budget, no matter how sophisticated the In the Klumb-Okami redrafting, the foun design. dation becomes a solid mass and the four small The plan does, however, seem to adhere to chimneys become large central piers, repeat Wright's later pronouncement about how di ing the rhythm of the first-story piers. Leaded mension lumber ("sticks," in his phrase) dic windows give way to obliquely set louvers, tate a building's form: "A wood plan is slen even in the first-story doors. These modifica der: light in texture, narrower spacing."^^ The tions cause the structure to appear more second-story fenestration especially bears this firmly wedded to the earth than it had origi out. The spaces between the windows are in nally and to make it look more contemporane deed narrow, and the slab roof appears to float ous with 1930 despite its being much earlier. above the windows with little or no support. As As a last touch, Wright added a date of 1902 in a surface over the space-defining "sticks" the lower right-hand corner, creating confu Wright intended to use plaster, about whose sion about the chronology of his work for properties he never wrote extensively. It is ob nearly sixty years to come. vious, however, that plaster shares not only a The changes harmonize nicely with ideas root with the word plastic, but that it possesses Wright expressed in 1928 about the proper those qualities as well, being suitable for either ties of concrete. He believed that it had "as yet flat or curvilinear planes, and like wood it is found no medium of expression that will allow "light in texture." Wood and plaster together it to take plastic form. So far as it is now used it would have given the Yahara Project the light might be tallow, cast-iron or plaster, poured weight, elegant appearance which the Was into molds and at the mercy of their shape." muth drawings make obvious. He maintained that concrete possessed some of the properties of stone, plaster, cast iron. UBSEQUENT redrawings of the "Donald Hoffmann, Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House: S Yahara Project alter this impres The Illustrated Story of an Architectural Masterpiece (New sion dramatically. What had been lightweight York, Dover Pubications, Inc., 1984), 25, 27. The six were the Robie House, Winslow House, Yahara Project, Bock becomes blockier, befitting Wright's transfor- Studio, Unity Temple, and Larkin Building. Paul E. Spra gue kindly provided this reference. See note 5 above for evidence for the Berlin exhibition. Four of the drawings '^Frank Lloyd Wright, "In the Cause of Architecture: illustrate Frank Lloyd Wright, Modern Architecture: Being I. The Logic of the Plan," in Architectural Record, 63:50 the Kahn Lectures for 1930 (Princeton, Princeton University (January, 1928). Press, 1931). 186 c; WHi(VV6)28588 Redrawings of the Larkin Building (above) and Unity Temple (below) from 1929—1931, similar to that of the Yahara Project on page 165. These drawings resulted from a 1929 suggestion made by one of Wright's draftsmen that his earlier work would please modem architects more if depicted in the style of the time. Besides having the Yahara Project redrafted, Wright changed its basic material to concrete from wood and plaster; accordingly he made the foundation blockier in shape and transformed the four slender chimneys into broad piers, adapting the design to what he perceived as the nature of concrete. WHi(W6)28627 187 A musical evening at Taliesin, Wright's Spring Green home, about 1930. From left, Wright, Mr. WHi(W6)28.530 and Mrs. Richard Neutra and infant, Vienna; Mr. and Mrs. Takehiko Okami, Tokyo (he had helped update the early drawings); and Mr. and Mrs. Werner Moser, Basel (with instruments). and brick and tile, but was not precisely like dustry magazine and the 1905 Unity Temple any of them. Concrete, he wrote, lent itself to plan, both of which began as brick and then plans with "massing as is felt to be adequate to soon became concrete.^^ Since Unity Temple the sense of block and box and slab." It pro and the Yahara Project were virtually simulta vided an opportunity for "more freedom in neous works (both late 1905), Wright's charac spacing," unlike the narrow spacing dimen terization of the latter probably entered some sion lumber suggested to him.'^'' limbo in his memory many years before he Just when Wright began to apply these publicly prtjnounced it concrete in the 1931 principles to the Yahara boathouse and to European exhibition label. That some linger think of it as a concrete building is not known. ing doubt must have existed about the in That he failed to designate a material for it in tended material is proved by the fact that the 1910 Wasmuth caption indicates that he was ambivalent even then. He had already performed at least two transformations of this ^^Studies and Executed Buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright. Ausgefiihrte Bauten und Entwiirfe von Frank Lloyd Wright sort: a bank plan published in a 1902 brick in- (1910; reprint, Palos Park, Illinois, Prairie School Press, 1975), pi. XII, "Study for a concrete bank building in a small city. Illustrating an article contributed to the Brick- 3'i\Vright, "In the Cause of Architecture: I. The Logic builder under the caption,'A Village Bank.' "PaulE. Spra of the Plan," 50; and "In the Cause of Architecture: VII. gue has discovered that Unity Temple had originally been The Meaning of Materials—Concrete," in Architectural Re designed in brick but was changed to concrete in earlv cord, 64:102 (August, 1928). 1906. 188 HOLZHUETER: CUDWORTH BEYE AND FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT Henry-Russell Hitchcock remained silent on of riverbank corresponds with the shoreline the point in his 1942 In the Nature Materials. represented in the Wasmuth perspective. Ad Only more recently, in Vincent Scully's study ditionally, Madison's city fathers later selected and in the Royal Institute of British Architects precisely the same stretch of river for munici catalog, has the Yahara Project's "concretiza- pal boathouses that were built directly across tion" been completed. Had Wright failed to the river from the presumed Yahara Project adjust the original wood and plaster design in site. The conclusion seems inescapable that some significant ways, it would be easy to ac the Yahara Project was intended for the two cuse him of violating his own commandments. blocks between the Johnson Street bridge and But since he did rework the plan, at worst he is a railroad bridge to the south. The parkway is guilty only of having misled by failing to ex fifty to seventy feet wide there, exactly the plain the Yahara Project's development. right width for the building Wright de Exactly where along the Yahara the boat- signed.3'' house was to have been built is somewhat un certain. John Olin of the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association was in touch with landscape architect O. C. Simonds regularly O matter how brilliant Wright's throughout the fall, winter, and spring of N' conception or how pure the 1905—1906, but their correspondence does Park and Pleasure Drive Association's inten not mention the University Boat Club's hopes tions were to let the University of Wisconsin for a clubhouse. Cudworth Beye evidently Boat Club build its new facility, the likelihood handled his negotiations with Olin in person, of a successful conclusion was doubtful from and Olin characteristically kept his counsel the start. The 1905-1906 period was among until he was certain plans had matured and the most troubled in the history of University funds for construction had been raised. In of Wisconsin athletics. Scandal had tainted short, not a scrap of paper has surfaced which collegiate football nationally and, by associa details the location. tion, intercollegiate athletics in general. Dur Several clues exist, however. First, the per ing the 1905 season, eighteen American col spective drawing for the Wasmuth portfolio lege and high school students were killed indicates the state capitol and a church in the while playing football and 159 were injured. background to the left, so the site must have Statistics like these led historian Frederick been on the downtown side of the Yahara. Sec Jackson Turner of the University of Wiscon ondly, practical considerations, transporta sin to tell Madison alumni that they were too tion routes, and the Yahara Parkway's design enthusiastic about football. Human values, narrow the possibilities. For the crew's pur Turner said, were "put in wrong perspective poses, it would have been sensible to keep the and the fundamental purpose of the Univer boathouse at one end or the other of the river sity is lost sight of." Matters culminated at Wis to maximize rowing distances. It also would consin in January, 1906, just after Wright have been sensible to select the Lake Mendota finished the sketches for Cudworth Beye. On outlet since it is nearer the university and was January 9 the faculty recommended suspend served conveniently by the Johnson Street ing football for two years, after which it would streetcar line. Tenney Park already occupied be reorganized under university, not student, the riverbank between Lake Mendota and auspices. Johnson Street. That leaves the three blocks Students, faculty, the administration, and between Johnson Street and East Washington the intercollegiate athletic conference argued Avenue as the only site with a suitable orienta for weeks about various solutions to what all tion towards the capitol. The width of the agreed was a problem. During this period parkway and the locations of railroad and street bridges in those three blocks further limit the choices to the two-block stretch of '^The streetcar lines appear in Mollenhoff, Madison, river immediately south of the Johnson Street 368. See also photographs of the area when it was under development, Charles N. Brown Collection, vol. IV, Vis bridge. An existing indentation in that stretch ual and Sound Archives, SHSW. 189 Full Wasmuth portfolio perspective of the Yahara Project with the dome of the state capitol in the background, indicating the intended .site on the city side of the river. The two views below are of the river below the Johnson Street bridge. The boathouse was doubtless designed for the bank on the left, which is still parkland. The bank on the right now accommodates a substantial municipal boathouse. WHi(X3)44883 190 3EDRU0KT i!>!0 VERLE3T VON ERNST WASMUTH A-G., BERLIN Wasmuth Portfolio, Plate LV while private housing now faces the park on the left, an undeveloped area in 1906. Both views were made by Charles N. Brown for the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association not long after completion of the Yahara Parkway, the view on the right being the earlier by a year or two. WHi(X3)44398 191 University of Wisconsin football game at Camp Randall around the turn of the century. Bascom UW Archives X25 2158 Hall and South Hall are to the right of center. Scandal about money, unnecessary mayhem, and professionalism in college football was rife in 1905-1906 and helped doom Wright's Yahara Project. Beye and Coach O'Dea had to keep the crew able for O'Dea. Only two weeks after the en going without the usual financial help from couraging March 1 announcement, he re the student athletic association. On March 1, signed effective the end of the academic year, in an obvious effort to encourage further gifts explaining that he had been frustrated by the for their program, the rowing team an rowing program's failure to secure necessary nounced that a rich lumberman (and U.S. equipment and facilities. Senator from 1907 to 1909), Isaac Stephenson O'Dea's decision left Cudworth Beye with of Marinette, had given $500 for a new motor the immediate task of raising money, not for a launch so that O'Dea could travel alongside new boathouse, but for the Poughkeepsie re the crews as they practiced. According to the gatta. The crew's participation was essential to campus newspaper, "early practice on the guarantee the rowing program's future dur Yahara will make the construction of some ing such bleak times. He spent most of April, sort of suitable building for sheltering the May, and June appealing for funds but raised shells and equipment a necessity. This is also only $1,800 compared to the $11,000 that the planned in connection with other crew equip Columbia University crew had for the same ments." This, the first and last public refer regatta. Beye at the same time was trying to ence to a boathouse project for the Yahara, ev finish his courses in order to graduate in June. idently refers to Wright's design. Numerous factors combined to defeat the Negotiations for the boathouse failed, since boathouse: national and local circumstances the student-run rowing team could not hold surrounding intercollegiate athletics; archi its own against the two bureaucratic leviathans tectural developments on the University of it faced: the University ofWisconsin adminis Wisconsin campus; Coach O'Dea's frustra tration and the Madison Park and Pleasure tion; the Park and Pleasure Drive Associa Drive Association. The situation grew intoler tion's need for swift action; and Cudworth 192 University of Wisconsin varsity crew, 1905. Coach Andrew O'Dea (second row, nglit) badly wanted CW Archives, X25 2167 the supplementary boathouse on the Yahara, but the university's inability to respond to this and other of his requests prompted him to resign in March, 1906, effective with the close of the .sea.son. Beye's own hecdc schedule. By mid-March it Fyfe acquired a share of Wright's Oak Park was clear that Frank Lloyd Wright's Yahara practice, and in 1932 his nephew William Beye Project would not be realized.^^ Fyfe became one of Frank Lloyd Wright's first Beye returned the sketches to his friend in apprentices, staying at Taliesin until 1934. In Oak Park. His correspondence with Wright, the nearly two years when he saw Wright al unremembered in the family except by most daily as an apprentice, young Fyfe heard Cudworth and his wife, was relegated to files the architect mention their families' connec of keepsakes. Even their son Alfred did not tions only twice. But he never mentioned to know about the letters (or that his father had Fyfe or evidently to anyone the circumstances commissioned the boathouse) until his wife surrounding the genesis of the Yahara Pro discovered them in the mid-1960's in a waste- ject. Even William Beye Fyfe, an architect for basket into which Alfred's mother had dis more than fifty years and keenly interested in carded them. Once retrieved, the Wright let Wright's work, was unaware of the design's ters became prized possessions, but they were not much discussed outside the immediate family.•** Back in the Midwest, other Beyes contin ued to be attached to the Wrights in a variety of ways. Cudworth's brother-in-law James OVERLEAF.- Pages from the 1905 and 1908 Badger yearbooks of the University of Wisconsin showing crew activity. The 1908 •"Curti and Carstensen, University ofWisconsin, 2:536- Badger belatedly published views of the 1906 Poughkeepsie 543; Daily Cardinal, March 1, 14, April 9, 17, 1906. regatta, fund raising for which diverted Cudworth Beye's •'"Alfred D. Beye, conversations with the author, attention from the Yahara Project. (Beye is sixth from the left in March 30, June 12, 1987. the top row of the large group picture.) 193 , n'.\.:.f " NlEV^<.jtsl »;- (-. ^, c AT ForcauvKKrHiK AND OX TIIK HUDHOX WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 connection to his uncle Cudworth Beye until nique in such small, flat-roofed buildings as 1987.39 the Fireproof House (1906), a house for Mrs. As for Wright, he never seems to have been Thomas H.Gale in Oak Park (1909), and the bothered by an obvious contradiction in the Coonley Kindergarten or Playhouse of 1911- dating of the boathouse contained in the facts 1912, as well as other unbuilt projects and in he himself supplied, nor have other scholars the designs executed after his return from seized upon it although they long suspected Europe in 1911. something amiss. Wright knew that he had de As a historical episode, the Yahara Project signed the boathouse after he designed Unity is part of larger contemporary developments Temple in about September, 1905, since he in Madison and at the University ofWisconsin. unambiguously annotated a drawing of the In this case, an Oak Park boy named boathouse to the effect that it followed the Cudworth Beye happened to be in the right church. But when pressed for a date, he said place at the right time, and a combination of 1902. Perhaps he associated the Yahara Pro personal and local circumstances allowed him ject with other work he was doing in Madison to become the link between the famous archi about that time for his friend Robert M. tect and both the town and gown communities Lamp. Or perhaps, late in life, he felt a need to in Madison. Were it not for him, neither the push back the date when he first embraced ab design nor the riddle of its origins would have stract geometry to a period before he designed existed; and were it not that he saved his corre the Larkin Building and Unity Temple. What spondence, the Yahara Project puzzle could better design to use than one for an unrealized not have been so neatly solved. To give project bereft, so far as Wright knew, of sup Cudworth Beye his due, the project should be porting documentation?'"' designated henceforth in the lists of Wright's The findings in the Beye letters do not di work as "The Yahara River Boathouse for minish the boathouse's significance as a de Cudworth Beve, December, 1905." sign. Though the Yahara is not the break through project it was once considered, it represents a logical development of the style ••"The annotated drawing is 0021.09 in the FLWA. It of the Larkin Building and remains a work of was created for the Wasmuth portfolio and it bears a holo graphic amendment, evidently printed by Wright him architectural genius. In the boathouse Wright self, since it bears the hallmarks of his prose style: demonstrates how the abstract style of more Apropos of "A Style" monumental works can be extended to lesser Hou,se on the Yahara at Madison Wis. for Rowing Shells buildings constructed of common materials— Concrete—the Slab—Again. "tar and gravel roof, plastered walls and hem A second party, whom Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer iden lock frame." He further developed this tech- tifies in the Monograph as Wright himself (see note 9 above), amended the hand-printed first line with a phrase in cursive script, defining "A Style" as "from the style of Unity Temple." Some evidence exists that Wright did link ''^William Beye Fyfe, conversation with the author. Lamp to the design, since in Treasures of Taliesin, text for May 7, 1987. The references were to a ceiling plan, of pi. 2, Pfeiffer maintains tliat Lamp "sponsored and pro which Wright remarked that Fyfe's father would not ap moted" the project. Wright may have told Pfeiffer this. prove (the idea did prove unworkable; the ceiling gave Lamp's own letter to the Park and Pleasure Drive Associa way), and to the friendships among the Wright and Beye tion (see note 14) proves that he could not have been girls. aware of the Yahara Project. 196 How the Beye Letters Were Discovered Prior to 1987 scholars and others interested in Frank Lloyd Wright had conducted occasional and uniformly fruitless searches in the archives and libraries of both the University of Wisconsin- Madison and the State Historical Society of Wisconsin for records which would definitively date and explain the origins of the Yahara River Boathouse. These inquiries (which spanned about two dec ades) had made the archival staffs at both institutions keenly aware of the Yahara Project, so for years they were alert to the possibility of a serendipitous discovery. Their efforts, too, were unavailing. As an employee of the State Historical Society, I was among those to whom inquiries had been directed. Well aware of the archival and scholarly frustrations associated with the Yahara Project, I was reluctant to prepare an essay about it for the Elvehjem Museum of Art exhibi tion catalog but acquiesced because I could think of no one else to recommend and because I am, as my friends and colleagues con stantly remind me, a pushover. I began my research with the assumption that the previous re searchers had exhausted all the possibilities in official records and decided to turn my attention to municipal, as opposed to university, developments. Through my work as a historian, I have learned that no matter whether an event is local or national, it inevitably is part of a web of related events. Confident that I would be able to determine a period of time during which the Yahara Project must have been designed, I examined local historical evidence which did indeed re veal that the Yahara Project would have been feasible only between mid-1905 and mid-1907. At this point, correspondence in the papers of the Park and Plea sure Drive Association president had led me to dream up a possible scenario that ran along these lines: a local powerboat association, of which Wright's friend Robert Lamp was a member, asked Wright to design a boathouse; Wright mistakenly created something for ca noes or shells, not powerboats, thinking that boating in Madison had remained frozen in the state he had observed it in the 1880's. Then Paul Sprague rightly challenged my conclusion by pointing out that it failed to explain why Wright initially called the project the University of Wisconsin Boat Club Boathouse Project in his 1907 Chicago exhibition and in the Wasmuth portfolio of 1910. As the Yahara name seems to have been used in print first by Henry-Russell Hitchcock for his 1942 list of Wright's work, Sprague reasoned that Wright's earliest name for the project proved, despite a lack of man uscript evidence, that the University of Wisconsin, or a boat club with the university's name prefixed to it, had to be involved. He found references in the university's archives and in the Dane County courthouse to a group known officially as the University ofWiscon sin Boat Club (others had preceded him in that discovery; the club's records, however, do not exist in any archive—few university stu dent organizations' records do); and he insisted that I continue to search for an additional link between the university and the Wright project. I thereupon began the work of researching first one possibility, then another. The first I decided to pursue was the Spalding Com pany, which makes sporting goods. I guessed that it might have com missioned the project because in the early 1890's the University Boat Club had asked the company's founder and president, A. G. Spald- 197 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 ing, for financial support. Neither the company's archives nor the family yielded any relevant information (although there were con nections between Mrs. Spalding and Wright in the early twentieth century), but the search proved an interesting excursion into various Spalding family branches. Then I thought that perhaps the coach, Andrew O'Dea, might have asked Wright to design the clubhouse. (O'Dea ultimately had gone to work for Spalding in New York—a tantalizing red herring.) O'Dea's niece, whom he raised, survives in New York City; but she assured me her uncle never mentioned the project, and she had no records concerning it. I then turned to the crew itself, hoping that some member of it would have had ties with the Yahara Parkway development. Morris Fuller Fox fit the bill because his family has been active in the Madi son area for more than a century, but the most likely descendant to have records was Fox's son, Ripley D. Fox, who lives in Paris. While he is proud of his father and knows a great deal about his family, he had never heard of a connection between the Foxes and the Yahara Project. Acting on the supposition that some crew member other than Fox might be the link, I made a card file of the names of each member for the appropriate years (the university yearbook supplied them), and I began checking their hometown and Madison addresses. The name of Cudworth Beye was the second or third alphabetically, and Beye turned out to have been from Oak Park. Acting on instinct, I began immediately to concentrate on him. Within an hour or two, standard biographical indexes and publications led me to some of Cudworth Beye's nephews. Later, the staff of the Oak Park Public Library put me in touch with another, William Beye Fyfe, who turned out to have been a Wright apprentice. The library staff also supplied abundant biographical material about the family. In a day or two I located Cudworth Beye's son, Alfred D. Beye, and telephoned him. He very calmly told me that he did indeed know about the boathouse project and that he had three letters from Wright concerning it. The rest of the story appears in the text. As a result of this research, Alfred D. Beye presented the letters to the State Historical Society ofWisconsin in December, 1987. The let ters, my correspondence and notes related to the Beyes and the let ters' acquisition, and a tape-recorded interview with Alfred Beye are now all part of a State Historical Society of Wisconsin manuscripts holding designated as the Cudworth Beye Collection. As a memorial to his father, Alfred Beye has requested that Cudworth Beye, not the University of Wisconsin Boat Club, hereafter be designated as responsible for the commission of this important design. His request merits heeding by the Frank Lloyd Wright Memorial Foundation and by Wright scholars everywhere. I am glad to have found the letters and to have helped make them available in a public archive. Now it is up to others to undertake simi lar searches for more documents about other early work of Frank Lloyd Wright so that a more precise chronology can be established for it and his artistic development can be put in a more accurate framework. J.O.H. 198 In Service to the State: Wisconsin Public Libraries During World War I By Wayne A. Wiegand FTER April 1, 1918, anyone en particular, entertained no thought of channel A tering or exiting the Kellogg ing wartime energies away from their institu Public Library in Green Bay, Wisconsin, had tions. Quite the contrary. The profession was to pass a sign located at the main entrance. determined to bring more people into public The sign read: "This library and each and all libraries, and Hbrarians looked upon the war of its employees are pledged to the national as a unique opportunity to harness the power administration to conduct all educational af of a state at war to extend their services and cli fairs committed to their care in the library and entele and to increase their professional au elsewhere with wholehearted and uncondi thority. And because public libraries repre tional loyalty to the United States."' sented a convenient, efficient, and readily The intensity so evident in this statement available means to disseminate information may seem unusual to a late-twentieth-century about the war, federal, state, and local govern observer. Today, most Americans look upon ments welcomed their initiatives. In Wiscon their local public library largely as an innocent sin, as elsewhere in the nation, the services symbol of a democratic culture which provides public librarians provided, the materials they politically neutral social services and occasion collected, and the facilities and institutions ally resists local censorship pressures. Librari they managed during World War I all showed ans themselves have claimed these as princi a particular goal: "wholehearted and uncondi ples of service ever since 1939, when they tional loyalty to the United States." The story codified them into a Library Bill of Rights. But of Wisconsin's libraries in wartime represents a generation earlier, priorities were quite dif a significant and largely untold chapter of so ferent. The Kellogg Public Library's reaction cial and institutional history during a particu to its wartime service responsibilities was not larly turbulent period.^ unique. Rather, it mirrored the response of the vast majority of public libraries in the United States, and it characterized the re ^See, for example, the cursory treatment given Wis sponses of the entire Wisconsin public library consin public library service during World War I in Ruth community throughout the Great European erford B. Pixley, Wisconsin in the World War (Milwaukee, War. 1919), and Frederick L. Holmes, Wisconsin's War Record (Madison, I9I9). Recent scholarship on American society While the U.S. was a belligerent power in during the Great War has continued to ignore the role of World War I, American public librarians in the American public libraries in the domestic war effort. general, and Wisconsin public librarians in See, for example, David Kennedy, Over Here: The First World W ar and American Society (New York, 1980), and Neil A. Wynn, From Progressivism to Prosperity: World War I and American Society (New York, 1985). Arthur Young's admi 'Green Bay Press-Gazette, March 30, 1918. rable Boofa/or Sammies: The American Library Association and Copyright © 1989 by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin 199 Alt rights of reproduction in any form resented American library Assoclalion United War Work Campaign - Week of NovembwIIWtt WIEGAND: WORLD WAR I LIBRARIES On the eve of the outbreak of World War I the total population of 2,632,067 was foreign- in Europe, American librarianship was just born, and some 41 per cent was of foreign or emerging from a period of tremendous mixed parentage. By far the largest of Wiscon growth, fed in large part by the multimillion- sin's ethnic minorities were the Germans, who dollar benefactions of Andrew Carnegie. numbered 151,250, while a total of 188,083 Since 1876, with the formation of the Ameri out of 460,128 foreign-born residents of the can Library Association (ALA), librarians had state claimed German as their mother tongue. been working to hone their expertise and run Many more than those nearly 200,000 could the institutions under their care as efficiently comfortably conduct their daily affairs in Ger as possible. Most public library collections man, and many of these certainly preferred were organized by the Dewey Decimal Classi German to the English they heard or read fication scheme and cataloged by rules agreed daily. Only in tightly knit and self-contained upon by the English and American library German neighborhoods in the largest cities communities in 1908; and most public li and in the countryside would it have been pos braries subscribed to the Reader's Guide to Peri sible in 1920 to get along almost exclusively in odical Literature. American public libraries, in the language of their birth.'' cluding those in Wisconsin, were among an Although many of these German- army of turn-of-the-century social service Americans undoubtedly favored the Central agencies battling for reform. Public librarians Powers in the war, most appeared to want felt it was their professional responsibility to their newly adopted country to stay out of it al foster an informed citizenry by making infor together. They were in large part responsible mation easily available. In that spirit, they for returning Robert M. La Follette, out pushed their services to new client groups, in spoken opponent of preparedness and an ad cluding children, immigrants, and especially vocate of strict neutrality, to the U.S. Senate in the rural populace. By I9I5, Wisconsin I9I6. They were also in large part responsible boasted 184 independent public libraries, for voting many anti-war socialists into office: sixty of which had been donated by Andrew fifteen to the state assembly, two to the senate, Carnegie. Wisconsin's rural residents bene and one—Milwaukee's Victor Berger—to the fited from a traveling library system run by the House of Representatives. Wisconsin Free Library Commission (WFLC), which served as a model for the rest of the na tion. By 1916, the WFLC supplied 1,693 li ETWEEN August, 1914, and brary stations with 3,267 traveling library col B April, 1917, Wisconsin public li lections containing 169,968 volumes.'^ brarians made valiant attempts to remain neu Because the U.S. was a neutral power be tral, yet serve the needs ofWisconsin residents tween August, 1914, and April, 1917, the who wanted to read about the Great European Great European War presented some difficult War. In the context of a turn-of-the-century challenges to the goals of political neutrality service philosophy, that meant acquiring print among American public libraries. Nowhere materials on all sides of a controversial issue. were these challenges more difficult than in But carrying out that professional charge to a Wisconsin, where in 1920 some 17 per cent of user community suspicious of any attempt to World War I (Pittsburgh, 1918) does treat American public 'Census figures are cited in Karen Falk, "Public Opin library service during World War I, but only insofar as it ion in Wisconsin During World War I," in the Wisconsin influenced ALA book and fund drives for training camp Magazine of History, 25:391-395 (June, 1942); Fourteenth and overseas library services. (Census of the United States, 1920: Population, Volume III, 'Statistics cited in Eleventh Biennial Report of the Wiscon 1124, 1135; Niles Carpenter, Immigrants and Their Chil sin Free Library Commission: Biennial Period Ending June 30, dren, 1920: A Study Based on Census Statistics Relative to the 1916 (Madison, 1916), 4, 15. See also George S. Bobinski, Foreign Born and the Native White of Foreign or Mixed Parent Carnegie Libraries: Their History and Impact on American Pub age, published as Fourteenth Census of the United States, lic Library Development (Chicago, 1969), and David Mac- 1029, Census Monograph VII, 366-367; and Wisconsin Blue leod, Carnegie Libraries in Wisconsin (Madison, 1968). Book, 1923, pp. 21-22. 201 WHi(X3)449l2 The Wisconsin Free Library Commission's display at the state fair, 1917. bias the public towards any belligerent power, left the city to return to their native lands for or towards the war itself, proved to be no easy military service." Matthew Dudgeon, secre task. For example, the British blockade of the tary of the Wisconsin Free Library Commis European continent bottled up German- sion, pressed the point to ALA president Wal language books and periodicals which nor ter Brown. "We are starved for Ger mally came through Leipzig, thus cutting off man-language books in Wisconsin," he wrote Wisconsin's supply. Early in 1916, the La Brown. "Do you know anywhere that we could Crosse Public Library complained that it could buy, borrow, beg or steal any new, second no longer get German titles from the Wiscon hand, bound or unbound?" Brown responded sin Free Library Commission. That same year that he had despatched an ALA committee to Cora Frantz, director of the Gilbert M. Sim talk with officials at the British embassy in mons Library in Kenosha, reported that her Washington, but to no avail.^ foreign-language book circulation had de creased by 50 percent. "This decrease is due to the fact that no new books were purchased," ''Gilbert M. Simmons Library, Keno?,ha, Annual Report, she wrote in her annual report to her board of 1916 (public library annual reports hereafter referred to as name of public library, AR [year(s)], page number); trustees, "and also that many of our borrowers Dudgeon to Brown, November 6, 1916; and Brown to 202 WllilX:i)44<,lll The large sign on the top shelf between the column and Abraham Lincoln's picture designates Fine Wanderbibliothek/rom the Wisconsin Free Library Commission. The traveling library of books in German became a casualty of the war. Wisconsin public libraries may not have man "information service" in New York under been able to get the German-language books Karl Alexander Feuhr, some through national they ordered while the U.S. was neutral, but organizations supporting the German cause, they did receive other material they had not and some through active local groups of citi solicited. Between 1914 and 1917 the German zens of German heritage. In November, 1915, and British governments vied to influence for example, the Kellogg Public Library of America's official neutrality through insidious Green Bay received from the Green Bay propaganda cainpaigns conducted in part German-American Society free copies of Al through public libraries. The German effort bert Beveridge's What Is Back of the War? and was diffuse, decentralized, and largely uncon John Burgess' The European War of 1914. Be- trolled. Some materials came through a Ger- veridge, a former Republican senator from Indiana and life-long advocate of American imperialism, laid blame for the war's outbreak Dudgeon, November 11, 20, 1916, in Box 40, Wisconsin at the doorsteps of all major warring parties, Free Library Commission Records, General Correspon not just Germany. Burgess, a recently retired dence, Series 1076, Wisconsin State Archives, State His Columbia University faculty member, argued torical Society ofWisconsin, Madison. (Hereinafter cited as WFLC, Gen. Cor.) that in the heat of the moment Americans 203 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 should not abandon respect for Germany's War was published in London by His Majesty's numerous contributions to western culture. Stationery Office. The accessions books at At about the same time, the Sheboygan Public Green Bay show that "Sir Gilbert Parker, 20 Library received an anonymous $50 donation Carlton House Terrace, London," donated "for the purchase of German books on the the copy. What Green Bay librarians probably war," the Platteville Public Library received a did not know was that Parker was the head of 125-volume collection of German war books the American unit at Wellington House.^ donated by Fritz Schroeder, and Matthew Wellington House showed particular inge Dudgeon received a list of pro-German books nuity in getting copies of Belgian Professor recommended for public libraries that was Emile Waxweiller's Belgium Neutral and Loyal: prepared by Rolp Dressman, associate editor The War of 1914 (which was released simulta of the Germania-Herold in Milwaukee.*' neously in three separate editions) into Wis Britain's propaganda effort was tightly con consin public libraries. Two of the editions trolled by a secret agency which became were published in French by Payot and Com known later by the location of its activities: pany out of Lausanne, Switzerland, one of Wellington House in London. There the Brit which carried a report of the chief of the Bel ish established a special unit to deal with the gian General Staff on confidential interviews United States, recruited a Canadian to man with a British military attache in 1912. (The age it who had traveled widely in the U.S., and agreement reached later became a point of directed him to take special note of regional contention when Britain declared war on Ger population variations. Britain obviously did many for attacking Belgium in order to get to not want to offend Wisconsin residents of Ger France.) The American edition, published man origin, so Wellington House chose mate from New York by G. Putnam's Sons, carried rials and methods of distribution very care the same report, but with the French and En fully. For example, Germany's Violations of Laws glish versions in opposite columns. Because of War was a semiofficial French publication is the work discussed the violation of Belgian sued out of New York by G. Putnam's Sons neutrality, and was written by a Belgian na and translated by an American. The thirty-six- tional and translated from a French text pub page pamphlet bore no mark indicating it had lished in Switzerland, Sir Gilbert Parker had come from or through Great Britain and was no reservations about sending copies to areas recorded as a "gift" in the accessions list of of the United States heavily populated by public libraries in Oshkosh, Appleton, and German-Americans. Public libraries in Wis Green Bay in 19[6. f'accuse!, an English trans consin, which had the largest German- lation of a 45-page work authored "By a Ger American population in the country, received man," was issued in New York by the George numerous "free" copies.** H. Doran Company in I9I5. Wellington While most British propaganda literature House officials thought it was particularly ef was commissioned and specifically produced fective because it included three self- incriminating speeches given by high German 'The story of the British propaganda effort, based on officials during the first month of the war. The research at the Public Record Office in London, is told in Oshkosh and Green Bay public libraries pur more detail in the author's "British Propaganda in Ameri chased copies in the fall of 1915. In the spring can Public Libraries, 1914-1917," in the ] ourncil of Library Mitorv', 18:237-2.54(1983). of I9I5, the 561-page Collected Diplomatic Doc "See John Otway Percy Bland, trans., Germany's Viola uments Relating to the Outbreak of the European tions of the Laws of War (New York, 1916); [Richard Grell- ing], I Accuse! (J'accuse!) (New York, 1915); Great Britain, Foreign Office, Collected Documents Relating to the Outbreak "For a discussion of the German propaganda effort, of the European War (London, 1915); and Emile Wax- see David W. Hirst, "German Propaganda in the United weiler, Belgium Neutral and Loyal: The War of 1914 (New States, 1914—1917" (doctoral dissertation. Northwestern York, 1915). See also accessions books in the archives of University, 1962). See also accessions books at the public put:)lic libraries in Oshkosh, Green Bay, Appleton, and libraries in Green Bay and Sheboygan; "Round the Cir Sheboygan. The author wrote to other Wisconsin public cle," in the Wisconsin Library Bulletin, 11:134, 291 (1915) libraries known to exist before World War I about their (hereinafter cited as WLB); and Dressman to Dudgeon, accessions books; unfortunately, none had saved these February 11, 1916, Box 40, WFLC, Gen.Cor. valuable records. 204 War posters hanging in the Fort Atkinson public library, 1918. The poster just to the left of the \VHi{X:j)44918 grandfather clock is reproduced on page 219. for Wellington House, Parker frequently tween 1914 and I9I7 is impossible to judge, bought whole lots of pro-British or anti- but when the United States declared war on German literature already published and dis April 6, 1917, secret propaganda efforts tributed them as gifts. He sent a copy of Mi ended abruptly. On that day the American chael McDonagh's The Irish at the Front to the public library community readily abandoned a Oshkosh Public Library in April, 1916, a copy policy of neutrality in library collections and of Mrs. Humphrey Ward's England's Effort: services. In Wisconsin, the Free Library Com Letters to an American Friend to the Appleton mission quickly made a point of it. "Patriotism Public Library in July, 1916, and several cop is now the paramount issue," the commission ies of a pamphlet entitled From Dartmouth to the told readers of the Wisconsin Library Bulletin in Dardanelles: A Midshipman's Log to the Sheboy its issue of May, 1917. Within weeks, Wiscon gan Public Library in May, 1916.-' sin's public librarians openly and willingly sep arated themselves from any appearance of ac cepting the position taken by their own Senator La Follette, who continued to oppose OW much influence these se the war. H cret propaganda efforts Library literature, and especially the an wielded through American public libraries be- nual reports for public libraries across the na tion, show that the war occasioned a kindred spirit and an augmented sense of professional 'Michael McDonagh, The Irish at the Front (London, community among librarians. Like other insti 1916); Mary Augusta Ward, England's Effort: Letters to an American Friend (New York, 1916); From Dartmouth to the tutions seeking to aid the state, public libraries Dardanelles: A Midshipman's Log (London, 1916). relied upon the sentiment of the American 205 Part of the Town of Genesee's war effort. WHi(X3)44917 public to carry forward their self-perceived tional services and enhancing them by focus war activities. ing on the war. The intensity of the American public li In Wisconsin, the public library community brary's response to the opportunity presented had to adjust its services and collections to con by the Great European War varied from re form to the structure of state agencies which gion to region, from state to state, from library evolved during the first few months of the to library, and even from branch library to war. Most powerful was the State Council of branch library within the same city public li Defense, established by the legislature on brary system. Because existing tax structures April 12, 1917. Wisconsin was the first state to tied public libraries closely to the communities organize such a council. Its purpose was to which they served, they reflected these varia "educate" residents about the causes, princi tions directly. Within their communities, how ples, and issues of the war, to advise on ef ever, the role they played remained a question ficient methods of functioning within a war of leadership. In some communities which time economy, and to identify "slackers" and had relatively few institutions vying for a place suspected subversive influences. The State among branches of more than 150 national Council of Defense was supported by an army wartime agencies, the library served as a major of county, city, town, and even single-industry center for activity. In others, however, where defense councils. It carried out its work strong agencies with traditions of service con through a series of committees, including tested the public library, public library leaders Publicity, Americanization, History, Informa contented themselves with accelerating tradi- tion, Liberty Music, and Speaker's Bureau, 206 iu«i ^^ ~^^jfj'.rjr** **»' The display windows of the Prairie du Chien public library in 1918 with pictures from the front, of VVHi(X3)9784 war leaders, and of aviators beneath a bell for the Third Liberty Loan drive. and disseminated its opinions to Wisconsin Aiding (and sometimes competing with) residents through a weekly publication enti the State Council of Defense was the Wiscon tled Forward. The council quickly became a sin Loyalty Legion, a broad-based citizens' powerful mechanism upon which the federal group under the able leadership of Algie Si government could count to get its messages mons, a leading American socialist who had across to Wisconsin residents about the Lib broken with the party after its opposition to erty Loan and War Savings Stamp campaigns. U.S. entry into the war. The Loyalty Legion It also assumed responsibility for ensuring also had a battery of local chapters assisting its that fund drives were adequately subscribed. efforts to coordinate Wisconsin's response to "Slackers" were often identified, interviewed, the federal government's Committee on Pub and politely asked to reconsider. Sometimes lic Information, which issued vast amounts of those who continued to refuse would have war-related literature and coordinated a their property posted with a large yellow plac speaker's bureau of "Four-Minute Men"— ard which read: "The occupant of these prem organized volunteers who ordinarily deliv- ises has refused to take his just share of Liberty Bonds. Do not Remove."'^ toral dissertation. University of Wisconsin, 1967), 145- 157. State councils of defense throughout the country are discussed in more depth in William J. Breen, Uncle Sam At '"See Falk, "Public Opinion in Wisconsin During Home: Civilian Mobilization, Wartime Federalism, and the World War I," 25:402, and John D. Stevens, "Suppression Council of National Defense, 1916—1919 (Westport, Con of Expression in Wisconsin During World War I" (doc- necticut, 1984). 207 I he Jefferson County Council of Defense meeting in Watertown, August 4, 1918. A panoramic Wlli(X:i)44922 photo by Panzer of Lake Mills. ered brief pro-war speeches at theater per sembly place for every meeting having a patri formances or movie shows." Other agencies otic purpose." These might include the Red operating within the Badger State included Cross, state, county, and city councils of de the Red Cross, the National Security League, fense, the Wisconsin Loyalty Legion, the Boys' and the Boys' Working Reserve. Working Reserve, and a variety of other orga The existence of these state wartime agen nizations. Libraries should also volunteer staff cies imposed obvious limitations on the Wis time for "organizing, filing, recording and in consin public library community's ability to re dexing" information which would help in the spond to the war, limitations evident in an work of these agencies. internal memorandum circulated by the Finally, the commission recommended that WLFC which prescribed wartime functions Wisconsin's librarians set up bulletin boards for Wisconsin public libraries. First, the com identifying the nearest recruiting station, post mission said the public library should "act as lists of opportunities for national service in the an agency of patriotic publicity" and post and armed services, identify members of the na distribute any government war literature. tional and state councils of defense, and pass This included the President's messages and out the address of the nearest Red Cross mem war proclamations, federal government legis bership.'^ lation (including the Selective Service and Se dition Acts), any state decrees concerning the war which emanated from the governor's office, all bulletins bearing upon the war is IVE your citizens the books sued by any federal or state departments, and "G'tha t they need if they are to useful information from the Red Cross and have an all-around knowledge of the 'war for other voluntary associations. If this informa tion was not freely available, the public library had a responsibility to get it. The WFLC also "See Kent and Gretchen Krueter, An American Dis senter: The Life of Algie Martin Simons, 1870-1950 (Lex advised that all public libraries should furnish ington, Kentucky, 1969), chapter 8. reading material on patriotism, the flag, mili '••^"The Librarian in War Time," WLB, 13:134(1917); tary and naval training, and the "truth" about "4/22 Council of Defense, War Liberty Work," Box 1, the war. Folder 1918, Wisconsin Free Library Commission Re cords, Reports and Correspondence on World War I Li Second, the commission urged each public brary Service, Series 34/1/18, Wisconsin State Archives, library to "open the library building as an as- Madison. (Hereinafter cited as WFLC, WWI.) 208 WIEGAND: WORLD WAR I LIBRARIES democracy' for which they are being asked to tion for nurses. The Black River Falls Public sacrifice their own flesh and blood," the Wis Library regularly hosted one of the seventy- consin Library Bulletin admonished its readers five speakers sent by the Patriotic Speakers' in October, 1917. Wisconsin public librarians Bureau of the State Council of Defense in responded enthusiastically. The La Crosse Madison to address the causes and issues of Public Library noted that circulation of history the war and emphasize "its righteousness." doubled in three months. "Since we feel that In Kenosha, the librarian distributed book books on the causes of the war are more im marks printed with national hymns to be sung portant for awakening patriotism than any during National Song Week in 1918. The Wis other kind," the librarian reported to her consin Library Bulletin announced in its issue fjf board of trustees, "short reviews of the best of April, 1918, that the manufacturing firms of these have been prepared and published in Rueckheim Brothers & Eckstein and the Dow the local newspaper." The Appleton Public Li ney Farrell Company of Chicago had printed brary reported a circulation of 1,649 books thousands of free booklets giving the words of about the war, an increase of 879 from the the national songs. These booklets were avail previous year. To make sure that smaller li able to libraries, although, the Bulletin warned, braries in rural districts had sufficient help in they also contained advertising for the firms. identifying appropriate war books, Elva Bas One librarian, the author continued, had dis com, head of the WFLC Selection and Study tributed the pamphlets at "a community war Club Department, selected a variety of titles meeting to be held in the library."''' chosen by the Wisconsin Loyalty Legion. She Some libraries opened up space for local had titles distributed throughout the state to exhibits. The Kellogg Public Library in Green areas where Legion officers were planning Bay placed a large war map on its bulletin loyalty discussions.'-^ board and recorded Allied advances daily. In Madison, the public library sponsored a (American advances were identified by a red, group of eighth-grade children who in 1917 white, and blue line.) "All posters sent out by made 1,000 Christmas scrapbooks for use in the United States and the State have been war hospitals. In Wausau, the librarian used posted as conspicuously as possible," reported an invitation from the Red Cross to invite the La Crosse Public Library. In addition, li schoolchildren to the library to make candles brarians posted war pictures cut out of the for use in European trenches. They also knit Sunday New York Times on a special bulletin ted squares for blankets for Belgian children, board in the children's rotjm. and exhibited them at the library in Decem Indeed, children received a large share of ber, 1917. The Appleton Public Library the Wisconsin public librarian's wartime atten opened its doors to the local Committee on tion. Delavan's Aram Public Library admitted War Service and the Wisconsin War History the necessity to concentrate on child welfare in Commission for Outagamie County, and wartime, and cooperated with a special com hosted a class for the Home Services Section of mittee to exhibit books on the child and dis the Red Cross. In Manitowoc, the public li tribute bibliographies on child welfare. The brary developed a "soldier boys' directory," Sheboygan Public Library conducted contests identifying the last known addresses of all for children during the spring of 1918 on re Manitowoc County soldiers. Librarians then cognition of flags "representing people who asked county residents who wished to write are going to help us win the war." The WFLC "Sammies" to call or come to the library for built upon this sentiment by urging librarians their most recent addresses. The Aram Public to cooperate actively with local schools; the Library in Delavan served as a recruiting sta '"Madison Public Library, AR, 1918, pp. 5-6; "Round ''WLiJ, 13:248 (1917); Minutes, April 25, 1918, Board the Circle," WLB, 14:17-19, 246-250 (1918); Appleton of Trustees, La Crosse Public Library Archives (hereinaf Public Library, AR, 1917-1918, p. 42; Aram Public Li ter cited as LCPL Archives); Appleton Public Library, AR, brary, AR, 1917-1918, p. 4; Pixley, Wisconsin in the World 1917-1918, p. 42; Bascom to Dudgeon, August 20, 1918, War, 320; "Being Done in Wisconsin," WLB, 14:100- Box 48, WFLC, Gen. Cor. 106(1918). 209 j^^idi' Students from Randall School marching m a "Hammer the Hun" parade in Madison, 1917. Photo VVHi(X3)44915 by Meuer Photoart House. commission recommended that librarians ried the service of the commission with the suggest theme subjects to English teachers, public and rural schools of the state to create poster subjects to art teachers, and food ex what he called "valuable patriotic and instru hibit subjects to domestic science teachers. Li mentalities." In Galesville, for example, librar brarians might also talk directly to children ian L. D. Kneeland reported that she had about conservation and patriotism, and try to made good use of materials sent her by the use these contacts to distribute literature to commission, and that she had worked closely their parents.'^ with the local school system on getting chil dren to sign pledge cards for food conserva tion and war savings stamps. The library N part, the Wisconsin Free Library served as the final exhibit location for posters I Commission had an advantage in and original stories that had been assigned carrying out its self-perceived wartime re students in the early fall of 1918. The commis sponsibilities to children that many other state sion later forwarded the best of the posters commissions did not enjoy. By law, one of its and stories to Washington for exhibit."^ members had to be state superintendent of Collecting books for the American Library public instruction. The man who occupied Association's campaign to stock thirty-six li that position, Charles P. Gary, had long been braries at training camp facilitates across the an advocate of cooperation between public nation also occupied the attention of Wiscon- schools and public libraries. He willingly mar- "'Twelfth Biennial Report of the Wisconsin Free Library ''^Green Bay Press-Gazette, ]u\y 27, 1918; Minutes, De Commission: Biennial Period Ending June 30, 1918 (Madi cember 4, 1918, Board of Trustees, LCPL Archives; son, 1918),4;KneelandtoC. B.Lester, October 21, 1918, Aram Public Library, AR, 1917, pp. 4-5; Jessie Welles, Box 4, WFLC, WWI; "Round the Circle," WLB, 14:248 "Unifying for War," WLB, 14:42-44 (1918)'. (1918). 210 \VHi(X3)4492l A camp library in St. Nazaire, France, operated by the American Library Association through the YMC^A and other organizations. sin public librarians." For these campaigns, ried that Badger State librarians would be vul the WFLC became the ALA's chief advocate nerable to accusations of insufficient patriot within the state. "It is up to the public libraries ism if their collecting efforts fell below to make good," the commission told Badger ALA-imposed state quotas. He also worried State librarians in a general circular. "If the about librarianship's low profile, and looked job is well conducted every public library in upon the war as an opportunity to show "the the country will gain prestige and become MEN of America that library work is a profes recognized as it never was before. If we sion." In a circular of August 9, 1917, he fail,—. . . ." wrote: "The prospects for the gift of books for WFLC secretary Matthew Dudgeon, one the camp libraries to be conducted by the ALA time Republican member of the State Assem is not as promising as we had hoped. We are bly who had been a forceful advocate of public anxious that Wisconsin should show its patri utility regulation in Wisconsin, openly wor- otism by furnishing a large number of books." He asked librarians to "redouble your ef forts." Charles E. McLenegan of the Milwau kee Public Library was made director of the "The ALA book campaigns are summarized in Young, Books for Sammies, chapter 2. campaign, and Lutie Stearns, formerly a com- 211 VVHi(X3)44920 Two other camp libraries operated by the ALA in St. Nazaire, 1917—1918. WHi(X3)44919 WIEGAND: WORLD WAR I LIBRARIES mission staff member but at the time an inde knocked on doors for donations. Elroy hosted pendent lecturer, began pumping the cause as a baseball game, and Fond du Lac a card party, she travelled the state. C. B. Lester of the Mad while Manawa met some success by conduct ison Public Library wrote Wisconsin clergy ing "library teas." When the first fund-raising about including an appeal for books and and book-collection campaigns were over, money in sermons they would deliver on Sep Wisconsin found itself ranked seventh in the tember 23. nation for its contributions.'^ Stearns wrote Wisconsin's city school super Wisconsin public libraries also willingly intendents and school principals on Septem participated in the Liberty Loan and War Sav ber 24 to enlist their assistance. On the 27th ings and Thrift Stamp campaigns. The Madi she wrote Matthew Dudgeon that she had son Public Library regularly forwarded a por made twenty-two talks in seventeen towns tion of its liberty loan literature to the local over the previous week, but in the course of schools. In Kenosha, the board of trustees of her travels she discovered that McLenegan the Gilbert M. Simmons Library invested "had done nothing with the state press, $10,000 in the third Liberty Loan from a fund schools, clubs, etc.—that he had only circular set aside for the construction of a branch li ized and sent receipt books to the library list." brary in the western part of the city. The Stearns knew things were not going well. Mary Oshkosh Public Library did the same with a Smith of the Madison Free Public Library told special fund of $1,500 it had accumulated.^^ Dudgeon, "It is not coming easy," in part, she Many government agencies sought to tap suggested, because the campaign reeked of the library as a resource for circulating infor "ALA laudations." Implied in her comment mation they wanted to place before the public. was an antagonism on the part of directors of Over the eighteen months of the war, Wiscon small and rural public libraries against the as sin libraries collected and distributed the War sociation, which they viewed as being run by Publications series issued by the Committee on and for directors of large public libraries. Vi Public Information in Washington, D.C., the vian Little of the Watertown Public Library War Garden Series issued by the Extension identified a familiar problem. "The work has Service of the College of Agriculture at the progressed very slowly," she told Dudgeon on University of Wisconsin, and a pamphlet se August 27, 19I7,"onaccountof the many Red ries issued by the United States Food Adminis Cross and Food Conservation activities."'** tration. They distributed 119 circulars and Despite such problems, however, Wiscon 500 bulletins sent out by the United States De sin public libraries did score several successes. partment of Agriculture which demonstrated In many towns and cities the library enlisted substitutes for vital foodstuffs like wheat, volunteers to canvass members of the commu sugar, and meat, as well as selected lists and nity. In Cumberland, Oshkosh, and Wausau, bibliographies prepared by the American Li high school students donated their time; in De brary Association's Committee on Food Infor Pere, Spooner, and Ripon, Boy Scouts went mation. "War brings to every one new oppor from house to house; in Port Washington and tunities and new duties," noted a Wisconsin Stoughton, members of local women's clubs Library Bulletin editorial in July, 1917. "In the crisis which the country faces, librarians have '^General Circular, Box 3, WFLC, WWI; Dudgeon Circular of August 9, 1917, Box 12, WFLC, WWI; Lester "To the Pastor Addressed," September 21, 1917, Box 5, in ''>WLB, 13:271-272 (1917); Milwaukee Public Library, the Matthew S. Dudgeon Papers, State Historical Society AR, 1917, p. 10. Subsequent campaigns went better. In ofWisconsin; Stearns "To City School Superintendents," March, 1918, for example. Boy Scouts in Milwaukee com September 24, 1917, Box 6,'WFLC, WWI; Stearns to mandeered wheelbarrows and baby carriages to move the Dudgeon, September 27, 1917; Smith to Dudgeon, Sep books collected to the public library. See Milwaukee Free tember 27, 1917, Box 5, Dudgeon Papers; Little to Dud Pra,s, March 30, 1918. geon, August 27, 1917, Box 5,'WFLC, WWI. See also Ted ^"Minutes, April 3, 1918, Proceedings of the Board of Samore, "Dudgeon, Matthew Simpson (1871-1949)," in Directors of the Madison Free Library, Archives, Madison Bohdan S. Wynar, ed.. Dictionary of American Library Biog Public Library; Gilbert M. Simmons Librarv, AR, 1918, raphy (Littleton, Colorado, 1978), 145-147. n.p.; "Round the Circle," WLB, 14:249 (1918). 213 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 an opportunity which never presented itself a group whose patriotism it would be well to before—an opportunity to serve and impress fortify." Dudgeon made a similar request in upon the public the fact that it does serve and February, 1918, to University of Wisconsin can serve effectively and patriotically."^' Wis professor W. G. Gleyer, encouraging him to consin public librarians took the charge seri make use of the commission to distribute the ously. University of Wisconsin War Pamphlets series, whose publication Bleyer supervised. To Al gie Simons, director of the Wisconsin Loyalty Legion, he offered the commission's services '^HEN Henry Atwater, director to distribute loyalty literature to the 200 li w of the Division of Distribution braries "accustomed to receive and follow di for the federal government's Committee on rections given by this commission." Simons Public Information, sent Dudgeon copies of a gratefully accepted Dudgeon's invitation.^^ poster entitled "Why Germany Wants Peace" Wisconsin public librarians took even more with a request that it be hung in "a conspicu seriously their charge to disseminate the food ous place" in Wisconsin public libraries. Dud conservation information being generated out geon responded enthusiastically. "Following a of the Library Section of the Education Divi campaign inaugurated by this office," he sion of the United States Food Administra wrote Atwater on January 28, 1918, "The tion, under the direction of the hyperactive public libraries of Wisconsin are now, almost Edith Guerrier of Boston. As early as May 2, without exception, willing and anxious to dis I9I7, the Wisconsin Free Library Commission tribute all patriotic literature which can be urged librarians to take advantage of "a placed in their hands." He requested that the chance to help your country" by pushing for committee routinely send Wisconsin libraries food conservation. On a postcard, the com copies of its official bulletin, all issues from its mission reminded its readers that President war information series, and any pictures it Woodrow Wilson had called upon the farmers produced. "Wisconsin is accused, falsely we of the nation to increase production to feed believe, of a lack of patriotism," Dudgeon told the fighting forces of the United States and its Atwater. "It is our purpose to make it an ex allies. The commission said that custodians of ceptionally patriotic state and to force recogni traveling libraries had a special role to play in tion of our patriotism."^^ this effort by providing Wisconsin farmers On occasion, members and employees of with information and encouraging them with the commission made suggestions to federal publicity. A month later the commission and state government agencies to fit needs urged librarians to work with local house specific to Wisconsin public libraries. In Janu wives, who seemed "intensely interested in ary, 1918, Elva Bascom asked University of preventing waste and conserving the food Wisconsin history professor Frederick L. Pax- supply." Librarians ought to develop special son to help her obtain more patriotic literature exhibits of books, bulletins, and periodical ar in German. She noted that a man in charge of ticles on the preservation of fruits and vegeta a library station in Langlade County had com bles. "Use an attractive poster; see that news plained about "a bad bunch" of German litera papers note it in advance; get it talked about ture, and she needed suitable substitutes. by the women in the community," the circular Dudgeon suggested to Creel in the same month that "some carefully selected patriotic utterances of Carl Schurz, reproduced in Ger man, would constitute splendid patriotic ^'Bascom to Paxson, January 9, 1918, Box 67, Series 30A1, Record Group 63, Records of the Committee on propaganda and would have great weight with Public Information, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Dudgeon to Creel, January 29, 1918; Dudgeon to Bleyer, February 22, 1918; Dudgeon to Simons, April 2, ^'"Modern Warfare in Libraries," WLB, 13:191 1918, Box 50; and Dudgeon to Simons, March 27, 1918, (1917). Box 49, WTLC, Gen. Cor. Neither Paxson nor C^reel re ^^Dudgeon to Atwater, January 28, 1918, Box 50, sponded to requests for German-language literature WFLC, Gen. Cor. "suitable" for circulation in libraries. 214 An exhibit jirepared by the home economics department of the County Council of Defense urging WHi(X3)21492 conservation of food for the war effort, Kenosha, May, 1918. urged. "This seems to be a legitimate opportu day, Lester wrote Superintendent of Public nity for each librarian to make a 'splash.' "^'' Instruction Gary to see if the library and the Wisconsin public librarians were as aggres school could enter into a partnership on food sive as any public library community in the conservation publicity. Using franking privi country in disseminating food conservation leges extended by the USFA, on December 19, literature for the federal government. By fall, 1917, the commission sent all Wisconsin li when Guerrier had developed the Library braries copies of a circular from Magnus Section of the Food Administration into an Swenson, Federal Food Administrator for agency of centralized directives delivered to a Wisconsin, exhorting children to shun holiday system of public libraries which reflected de sweets as their Christmas present to the chil centralized application, Wisconsin librarians dren of Belgium and France. The library com were ready to "do our bit." A committee con mission also asked all Wisconsin public li sisting of C. B. Lester of the Madison Public braries to act as information and enrolling Library, Mary A. Egan of the Janesville Public stations for the Boys' Working Reserve.-' Library, and Vivian Little of the Watertown Public Library began its campaign in Decem ber. "Fhe help of each librarian in Wisconsin ^"Postcard dated May 2, 1917, Box 1, VV'isconsin Free is urgently needed now by the Food Adminis Library Commfssion Records, Administration, American tration," the committee wrote to Wisconsin li Library Association Correspondence, 1916—1943, Series brarians. "We shall be asked sotjn to report 34/1/12, Wisconsin State Archives (hereinafter cited as what Wisconsin libraries are doing this period. WFLC, Ad.); circular dated June 4, 1917, ibid. ^'Lester, Egan and Little, "To the Librarian," Decem We don't want to leave out a single name. Be ber 14, 1917; Lester to C^ary, December 14, 1917, Box 3; sure that yours may be included." On the same Wisconsin Free Library C^ommission circular, December 215 ^. • THEY ARE GIVING ALL • WILL YOU SEND THEM WHEAT? U-S-FOOD ADMINISTRATION WHi{X3)44874 UTTING the USFA's campaign dures were printed in the Wisconsin Library P into effect in Wisconsin was rela Bulletin, while circulars and pamphlets were tively easy. Not only was Swenson the state distributed through the commission's Travel food administrator, he also served as chair ing Library Department. Selected publica man of the State Council of Defense. Since the tions also were included with parcel post pack library commission worked under his supervi ages containing books sent to people in remote sion, the entire campaign had a centralized di rural areas. Thirty students at the commis rection that minimized duplication of effort. sion's library school in Madison were assigned For example, Swenson had asked the Wiscon two months' field work. "We are asking them sin Library Association to appoint a library all to consider themselves missionaries in the publicity committee to work with him; the food conservation movement, and we expect WLA responded by appointing Lester, Egan, each one to develop as far as possible the food and Little. The committee then turned to the publicity work in the locality where she may be commission's well-established methods for stationed." Before sending them out, the com distributing information. Elva Bascom or mission arranged lectures by Abbie Marlatt, dered materials on wheat and sugar substi state home economics director.^'' tutes recommended in USFA Uterature by To this structure Wisconsin librarians Guerrier. Recommended publicity proce added their own creative energy. By Febru- 19, 1917, Box 2; Lester to Clara Baldwin, June 17, 19U ^^These procedures are explained in Lester to Guer Box 11, WFLC, WWI. rier, January 17, 1918, Box 3, WFLC, WWI. 216 "Will you h^jp the Women of France? •.S^A^j SAVE m^.S ^^v^Mtf^sK WHEAT if' ^>t They are struggling against starvation and trying to feed not only themselves and children: but their hysbands and sons who are fighting in the trenches. WHi(X3)44873 ary, public libraries at Boscobel, Prairie du hibit was more elaborate. Librarians cooper Chien, Sheboygan, Black River Falls, Eau ated with the local women's club, the domestic Claire, Galesville, and Oshkosh had built rec science department of the high school, and ipe files. At Boscobel, the effort came with the county food demonstration against Eleanor help of the local women's club, which met reg Enright to set up a table inside the library's ularly in the library. At Galesville, it came main entrance. Besides the USFA literature, through a cooperative effort with the high the display also contained samples of food school's domestic science department. In Eau "tastefully displayed on a slab of glass . . . sup Claire, librarian Laura M. Olson used her reg ported by two glass fish globes. Elevating the ular newsletter to local schools to ask children glass and decorating it with dainty paper doi to forego sweets and eat foods made from lies serves to bring the exhibit into a promi wheat and meat substitutes. "The Library is nent position on the table where it immedi planning an exhibit of food which has been ately catches the eye." Each food sample was made from materials which patriotic boys and accompanied by a recipe prepared by the local girls are willing to eat at this time," she told high school typewriting class. readers of the newsletter. "The food promises In Antigo, the public library sponsored an to be so good that we will wish to keep our exhibit which drew 200 people on a Friday wheatless and meatless days after this war is evening in early March. Fhe high school's do over. Bring your mothers to the Library any mestic science class displayed several "model day this week to see the new dishes and to war meals." The exhibition was in the refer learn how to make them." ence room on a large round table "covered At the Oshkosh Public Library the food ex with snowy cloth and centered with pink can- 217 Sow the seeds/VictoiT! ^./JLCIAAV C/ your own vegetables J4HIE* MCWrffiomEKx -»cij«£G "Every Garden a Munition Plant" Charles Lathrop Pack, President \«rf *« We must not only teed our Soldiers at the Tronf but the niillions of w^omen fe- children behind our lines'' Gen. John J. Pershing l^STE KO^FHING UNITED STATES' FOOD ADM I Ml SXRATION WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 dies and a large bouquet of sweet peas." around one of the following themes: "Cleanli Among the foods sampled were "Over the ness is next to patriotism, 1918," "Food saved, Top Bread," "Rookie Cookies," and "Over men saved," "Sow the seed of victory [gar There Pie Crust." "Patriotic Punch" helped den]," and "Money goes up in smoke [fuel]." wash down the food substitutes. Public li Four children from a nearby state school for braries in Stanley, West AUis, and Stevens deaf-mutes won the contests. Point pushed war gardens. "Realizing that this As the year progressed, and more libraries year as never before gardening must prove a began to turn their attention to working with success in every sense of the word, the public children, some redoubled their efforts to get library has selected a number of books to meet children committed to food conservation. The the requirements of both the small-plot and Elkhorn Public Library participated with its the market gardener," said the Stanley Repub local schools in sponsoring an effort to use lican. "Are you going to have a kitchen garden older children as teachers of younger chil this summer?" asked the West AUis Press. "Pa dren. Members of a junior English class were triotism, economy, prudence, all urge it; inex expected to deliver lectures on the necessity perience alone may be holding you back. for food conservation to grade school classes. Don't be beaten, but come to the West AUis Li For information the librarian provided issues brary for books on practical gardening." "Let of Food News Notes for Libraries, a wartime peri no back yard be a slacker this year," admon odical published out of Edith Guerrier's ished Stevens Point Public Library director USFA Library Section. At Galesville the librar Mary Dunegan, who said that her library had ian posted "A Little American's Promise" over plenty of information to make veterans of a table containing pledge cards. "The children novice gardeners.^' come to the library eager to sign the pledge to Public libraries in Elkhorn and Marinette save food," the librarian reported. She also concentrated on potatoes. On "Potato Day" sent a copy of a USFA poster entitled "Sugar the Elkhorn Public Library served over 200 Sends the Bluebird of Happiness to Europe" visiting women a variety of dishes designed to to a fourth-grade teacher, and asked the show them how the potato could assume a teacher to have her students write original sto larger role in their daily diet. Guests sampled ries based upon it. She later posted the best potato soup, potato omelets, potato pancakes, stories in the library, and then forwarded potato bread, potato biscuits, and potato cake. them to Washington for an exhibit at Food In April, children's hours at the Marinette Administration headquarters.^** Public Library were devoted to encouraging children to consume potatoes, and thereby save wheat. On one Saturday story hour "two little boys gave a dialogue entitled 'General Po UT Wisconsin public librarians tato' and a food fairy tale was told. . . . Recipes B were more than "agents of pa for the use of potatoes were distributed free to triotic publicity," and Wisconsin pubic li children for their parents," the librarian re braries were more than assembly places for ported to the Wisconsin Free Library Com patriotic activities during World War I. Be mission in May. At the Grand (now Wisconsin) yond the colorful posters and innocent admo Rapids Public Library the director organized a nitions to grow vegetables and use less fuel group of children into a "potato army" that there stirred a darker, more oppressive force distributed USFA literature door-to-door. in librarianship. In efforts to prove their The Aram Public Library in Delavan cast a "wholehearted and unconditional loyalty to broader net. In May it sponsored a poster con the United States," librarians also became ac test among local schoolchildren centered tive censors. In fact, the Wisconsin public li brary community, guided by its own WFLC, had the best developed public policy towards ""Being Done in Wisconsin," WLB, HiT.S-TG, 100- 106 (1918); Carnegie-Stout Free Public Library, AR, 2»"Round the Circle," WLB, 14:1.58-160, 187-19.S 1918, p. 12. (1918). 220 ^^^mt The Fond du Lac public library's war histoty exhibit, about 1918-1919. \\ ii[|\:))i4'.ii 1 "the literature of disloyalty" of any state public sure that patriotic literature be given the wid library community in the nation. est dissemination possible. "Fhe library must "It is most important. . . that the library au remain above suspicion," the commission con thorities do not permit themselves to be misled cluded. The Milwaukee Wiscomin applauded by the argument that it is a duty to present the commission's public position, because in both sides of all controverted questions," the the recent past, the newspaper noted, "Ameri WFLC advised in January, 1918, "and that can public libraries have been utilized for the therefore anti-American books are permissi promotion of propaganda."~'' ble. To do this will inevitably invite well- In a private memo circulated at commission merited criticism and the accusation that it is headquarters shortly after a controversy operating as an agency for the distribution of anti-American propaganda." To carry out this policy, the commission suggested that Wiscon ^•'"The Wisconsin Policy as to the Literature of Disloy sin's librarians withdraw any questionable lit alty," WLB, 14:.'59-40 (19i8); Milwaukee Wisconsin, Janu erature from their shelves, refuse to admit any ary 28, 1918. The author could find no evidence of active or passive resistance to the WIXC: policy in the published new material of a "suspicious nature," and en or unpublished sources he consulted. 221 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 erupted at the Free Public Library in Newark, make their contribution to the war effort. New Jersey, where head librarian John Cotton Dudgeon included an annotated bibliography Dana refused to remove titles which a New of titles which showed what literature should York-based group called the Vigilantes found receive librarians' attention. All biographies of objectionable, the commission was even more Bismarck, Frederick the Great, and Kaiser explicit. "We regard the public library as a Wilhelm should be removed, unless they pre government agency for the distribution and sented "an unfavorable review." Books on circulation of literature," the memo pointed German history and travel should be carefully out, "and as a part of the government it is nec screened. For example, What Is Back of the essarily enlisted for one paramount War? by former Indiana Senator Albert J. Be- undertaking—to help the American people veridge. The European War by John Burgess, win this war." Dana was wrong, the memo ar Understanding Germany by Max Eastman, A gued; the materials should indeed have been German-American's Confession of Faith by Kuno removed from Newark's collection. They had Francke, and The King, the Kaiser and Irish Free already been removed from collections in Wis dom by James K. McGuire were all labeled as consin public libraries.^" either pro-German or advocating Pan- Implementing the policy posed no difficul Germanism. Other titles, hke Roland G. Ush ties. By January, 1918, the commission had re er's Pan-Germanism, merited praise for "expos moved all German titles from its traveling li ing" German "aims." Such titles. Dudgeon brary collections. If anyone asked why, said, "should be circulated widely."^^ Dudgeon advised Jessie Weldon, head of the Reaction to WFLC policies and recommen Traveling Library Section, tell them simply, dations was quickly evident. In an editorial of "We are not now sending out the German li February 2, the Baraboo Daily News welcomed braries." In a letter to Julia Robinson, secre the commission's proactive stance on banning tary of the Iowa Library Commission, he elab German-language books from traveling li orated the point. "Without giving any brary collections. Accessions books for 1918 at publicity to it, we are quietly refraining from the Oshkosh Public Library record the word sending out any more German books," he told "blacklisted" beside scores of titles, including Robinson. "We of course realize that there is On Furlough by Frederick Law Olmstead, Dip not real harm in the German books which are lomatic Background of the War by Charles Sey in our libraries, but we do not care to be mis mour, and Napoleon, the Last Phase, by Lord understood and placed on the defensive."-^' Rosebery (Archibald Philip Primrose). The On February 6 Dudgeon sent a circular to Milwaukee Sentinel complimented the Kellogg all Wisconsin public libraries: "The library, Public Library of Green Bay for removing all supported by public funds, is a part of the gov books "with a Teutonic point of view."-^'^ ernment which is at war with Germany and Some public libraries showed their own ini Austria and has necessarily taken sides. It is, in tiative. In September, 1917, La Crosse public fact, itself in this war against Germany. To be librarians had reported to the local United neutral now is disloyal." To help librarians States Attorney that they found copies of a "se ditious" tract banned by the Postmaster Gen eral folded into some current magazines. A •'""Distorted Facts and Misleading Interpretations," careful check of other periodicals turned up n.d., Box 48, WFLC, Ad. Accounts of Dana's problems some anti-war comments pencilled into the may he found in New York Tribune, January 11, 14, 17 and 21, 1918. See also John Cotton Dana, "Public Libraries as Censors," in the Bookman, 49:147-152(1919). Titles to which the Vigilantes objected included Germany's Fighting •'^"War Censorship—Pro-German Material in Li Machine by Ernest F. Henderson, England or Germany by braries," Wisconsin Free Library Commission, 1918, as Frank Harris, Germany's Point of View, and What Germany found in Library, School of Library and Information Wants by Edward von Mach, and Understanding Germany Studies, University of Wisconsin—Madison, 02L2 W753r. by Max Eastman. "Baraboo Daily News, February 2, 1918; accessions '"Dudgeon to Weldon, January II, 1918, Box 49; books in Historical and Genealogical Office, Oshkosh, Dudgeon to Robinson, January 15, 1918, Box 48, WFLC, Oshkosh Public Library, Oshkosh; and Milwaukee Sentinel, Ad. ' May31,1918. 222 VVHi(X3)449I6 The Victory Arch in Oshkosh. margins. All were removed from circulation. changed street names honoring German lead In March, 1918, Green Bay public library of ers such as Bismarck and Frederick the Great, ficials turned two books "belittling England" banned the teaching of German in public and over to the Brown County Council of Defense private schools, and persecuted and jailed citi "so others in the country may learn their dan zens whose only transgression was that they gerous influences." Two months later, opposed the war or would not buy Liberty Wausau public librarians identified to local au Bonds or criticized the government. Ameri thorities a man who had left "seditious" litera can public librarians in gerieral, and Wiscon ture between pages of a book.^"^ It was plain sin public librarians in particular, reflected the that Wisconsin public librarians would toler same wartime hysteria which characterized ate no "literature of disloyalty" on Wisconsin most American professions and institutions. public library shelves. In some states, in fact, public librarians World War I censorship activity towards boasted of burning German-language materi "the literature of disloyalty" represents an als in library furnaces.•'' Apparently no Wis- ugly scar on Wisconsin public library history, but it must be understood in the context of wartime hysteria. Between April, 1917, and August, 1918, for example, communities ''American public library censorship activities are cov across the country (including Wisconsin) ered in more depth in the author's forthcoming book, "An Active Instrument for Propaganda: American Public Li braries During World War I," especially chapter 4 (West- port, Connecticut, June, 1989). For extensive discussion of two other institutions and professions which were '^La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, September 9, caught up in the war hysteria, see George T. Blakey, Histo 1917; Green Bay Press-Gazette, March 30, 19J8; Wausau rians on the Homefront: American Propaganda for the Great Record-Herald, September 5, 1918. War (Lexington, Kentucky, 1970), and Carol S. Gruber, 223 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 cousin public librarians resorted to book- For a time, however, World War I changed burning, but they did willingly—even all that. The state became the library's author eagerly—exercise a self-imposed charge to ity, and Wisconsin's public librarians, advised censor certain materials by removing them by their own state library commission, listened from library shelves. carefully in order to "prove" the library's usefulness—and its loyalty. The war helped solidify the role of Wisconsin's public libraries as a viable municipal service and a focal point OR Wisconsin public librarians, for community endeavor. Librarians opened F World War I was indeed an ex up their community rooms to all sorts of war- citing time that served as a watershed in their related agencies and activities. They played a service to the citizenry. They hadjust emerged large role in disseminating the food conserva from several decades of healthy growth, had tion literature generated by the federal gov implemented numerous new public services, ernment, and they helped collect money to and had taken the lead in sponsoring traveling fund the war. They added measurably to the library collections to rural areas. They had flood of information—and propaganda—that honed their expertise within the libraries they spurred America's war effort. In their zeal to managed, provided new bibliographic tools to please, however, they also abandoned what retrieve information, and developed methods they correctly perceived as their traditional for managing their institutions at relatively neutrality. With little regard for objective low cost to their local governments and the truth or ordinary common sense, they will state. But they still had problems. They wor ingly blacklisted authors and censored books, ried that more people did not take advantage even though they recognized nothing inher of public library collections and services; and ently wrong with their contents. In this, to be they lamented their relative lack of profes sure, they were not alone. Men and women in sional authority. other professions—men and women of intelli gence and good will—temporarily abandoned a goal of objectivity and fairness for a brief Between Mars and Minera: World War I and the Uses of Higher fling with jingoism and xenophobia. Once Learning in America (Baton Rouge, 1975). Atrocities and civil liberties violations towards Wisconsin residents who "the Hun" was defeated, most quickly re opposed the war are detailed in Stevens, "Suppression of gained their senses; but the years of the Great Expression in Wisconsin During World War I." See also War represent a tumultuous and in many re Lorin L. Gary, "Wisconsin Patriots Combat Disloyalty: spects a somber chapter in the history of Wis The Wisconsin Loyalty Legion and Politics, 1917-1918" consin's public libraries and librarians. (master's thesis, Universitv of Wisconsin, 1965). 224 BOOK REVIEWS The History of Wisconsin. Volume VI: Continuity Thompson tells us much about our private and Change, 1940-1965. By WILLIAM and public lives in these twenty-fi\e years, of FLETCHER THOMPSON. (State Historical Soci ten extending his discussion into the 1980's. In ety of Wisconsin, Madison, 1988. Pp. xx, 791. the book's first three chapters, he peoples the Illustrations, maps, notes, appendix, essay on state's hamlets and cities in 1940, describes our sources, index. ISBN t)-87020-122-0, $35.00.) small-town sensibilities, furnishes farmyards and houses, assesses the importance of ethnic ity, and suggests how World War II and other In this engaging and provocative book, Wil forces began to erode the familiar worlds that liam F. Thompson, Wisconsin's State Histo were based on settled jDatterns of residence rian, explores some of the changes that swept and strong ethnic and kinship ties. Two later through this mostly progressive, rural- chapters, "At Home " and "At Ease," examine minded state during the twenty-five years af the decline of rural areas, suburbanization, ter the outbreak of World War II. Fhe sixth the increase of women in the work force, lei and last chronological volume in the State His sure activities, and the aging of our population torical Society's History ofWisconsin, Continuity and other demographic changes. In chapters and Change represents a fitting capstone to this on agriculture and industry, Thompson ana already distinguished series. (Two volumes lyzes how increasing capital investment in covering the years 1893-1940 are in piepara- farming and conservative manufacturing tion.) strategies were mainly responsible for the de Thompson grabs our attention on the cline in farms and the corporate relocations of book's first page ("for perhaps the last time in more recent years. Thompson's nearly one- 1940," he writes, "the people ofWisconsin had hundred-page chapter called "Unrest and deep roots in time and place"), and keeps us Protest" describes how blacks and others con interested to the last sentence of the text, fronted entrenched discrimination in the late which summarizes how by 1965 Wisconsin I950's and 1960's, especially in Milwaukee, had "abandoned its penchant for one-party where "most of the elected and ci\ ic leader and three-party politics and joined the Ameri ship of the city simply refused to admit that a can mainstream of two-party states." A native serious racial problem existed. . . ." The final Californian who has lived here for over thirty- five chapters focus on changes in state politics five years, Thompson writes about everything from Julius Heil's crushing defeat of Progres from fashions to farm life with the heart of a sive Covernor Philip La Follette in 1938, native-born Wisconsinite, the curiosity of a vis through the years of alternating Republican itor from another world (which California is), and Democratic jjrominence in which the state and the historian's imperatives for sound struggled over school consolidation, a modern scholarship. The result is a loving, richly de highway system, reapportionment, farm pol tailed, balanced portrait that deserves to be icy, tax issues, regional planning, daylight sav widely read and acclaimed. ing time, and much else. 225 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 Throughout, Thompson uses a splendid ture Thompson shows how the transition array of sources to add much humanity to the from labor- to capital-intensive farming oc book. He tells us what towns looked like in curred in "a rural society that remained stable 1940, how much food cost, what we thought in its structure and institutions. . . ." Yet he about ourselves, and how we survived cold also argues that the willingness of farmers to winters and coped with wartime fears. He lets incur debt to expand operations increasingly us hear our own voices: a prisoner of war required off-farm sources of income and writes in his secret diary that he has "no desire tested traditional rural values based on indi for revenge," and wants only "to go home and vidualism and farm family labor. try to forget about the lost years"; blue-collar Forces of change confronted tradition in parents of five in Milwaukee explain in 1958 industry too. Thompson claims that many es how they juggled two jobs and family sched tablished family-owned companies remained ules to make ends meet on $7,200 a year; a successful in the twenty years after the war. young farmer complains in 1969 that banks But he says their reluctance to invest their con refuse him loans because he lacks formal agri siderable capital resources in research, new cultural education. And he scatters incidents plants, and equipment, and to become public and anecdotes about daily living to give much corporations, seriously limited their ability to life to his sea of statistics. The book's fine col compete successfully with more modernized lection of seventy-five photographs and corporations in the I970's. Moreover, con twenty-three maps helps us to visualize and servative banking practices limited the avail understand even more about this period. ability of capital for small and new business ex Thompson's underlying theme unifies all pansion. these seemingly disparate elements. While all Industry leaders also resisted elements of historical eras are marked by "continuity and Wisconsin progressivism, that "broad range of change," Thompson effectively uses this approved attitudes and activities . . . about theme to give new meaning to the years he honesty and efficiency in government and covers. For example, in the chapter on agricul business, a willingness to undertake and pro- The Standard Oil service station at the corner of Regent and Mills, Madison, December, 1947. Photo by Meuer Photoart House. Wlli(M492)4V2 A BOOK REVIEWS tect unpopular causes, a concern for the wel kee, Thompson details how realtors, bankers, fare of those in need (if not always including legislators, mayors, and civic organizations the rights of racial minorities), a great faith in blocked black access to better lives. Most ob education, and an openness to new ideas." servers blamed blacks for their own Wisconsin's progressive movement began in the problems—not white society. Blue-ribbon 1890's as citizens demanded that businesses commissions appointed by mayors Frank and utilities assume a more equitable share of Zeidler and Henry Maier even claimed that the responsibility for financing essential serv black poverty stemmed from deficiencies in ices. While Thompson readily concedes that black culture. Zeidler's committee argued that "through the 1960's Wisconsin imposed a because blacks did not customarily visit with heavy tax burden on most of its businesses," he others, they did not put "a high prestige on the argues that business people remained critical cleanliness and orderliness of homes where of the state's business climate, even after legis people would be glad and proud to invite their lators granted them many concessions, and relatives and friends." Maier's commission that much of the criticism was unwarranted. concluded that blacks "do not have a long heri Once corporate taxes were lowered, business tage of culture and an ethical tradition on people tried to get personal taxes reduced. which to build their lives." Frustrated blacks Some blamed high taxes for moving opera sought redress in the courts and the streets, ac tions elsewhere instead of acknowledging tivities which Thompson discusses at length. "candidly that the company no longer wanted While Thompson agrees with Maier that Mil to continue to pay high wages and benefits to waukee could not address all race problems one's fellow townspeople," or that another without outside aid, he argues that the city state or nation provided more favorable oper could have done much more in the 1960's and ating conditions. I970's to ease problems and tensions. Thompson also explores the fate of pro As this brief summary suggests. Continuity gressivism as he carefully examines continuity and C^hange is no dusty chronicle of bygone and change in the state's political history. days. It challenges, provokes, and informs us Drawing upon private correspondence, oral at every turn, forcing us to think about some evidence, newspaper accounts, and quantita of what Thompson calls the "contradictions tive data, Thompson adds much depth to the and incongruities in the state's collective per familiar story of how old progressives and sonality." Despite its length, readers still may young Democrats took advantage of splits want to know more about business, labor, edu within the Republican party after Senator Jo cation, and the arts in these years, among seph R. McCarthy's election in 1946. This coa other things. But Thompson has provided a lition revitalized the Democratic party. Only a sound context for studying these subjects. decade later, Democrats elected William Prox- Continuity and Change is an enlightening explo mire to fill McCarthy's vacant Senate seat. ration of the state's recent past that will be They gained more victories a year later. For come a model for such studies in other states. those who wonder how progressive Wisconsin could elect someone like McCarthy, Thomp MICHAEL A. GORDON son reminds us that McCarthy was part of a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee conservative current that prevailed for years within the state's Democratic party until it flourished under Thomas E. Coleman's lead ership in the Republican party in the late 1940's. Thompson demonstrates how this same current combined with white ethnic The Immigrant Labor Press in North America, fears to help George Wallace of Alabama win 1840's-1970's: An Annotated Bibliography. Vol 34 per cent of the votes in the 1964 Demo ume 1: Migrants from Northern Europe. Edited by cratic primary. DIRK HOERDER. Assistant editor CHRISTIANE Thompson's heavy emphasis on politics HARZIG. (Greenwood Press, Westport, Con and government clearly reflects his particular necticut, 1987. Pp. vii, 278. Indexes, tables. interest in those subjects, and his writing here ISBN 0-313-24638-6, $39.95.) is especially thorough and balanced. But the book's most compelling chapter is the one on This first of a projected three volumes on civil rights. Focusing mostly on black efforts to the foreign language labor, radical, and re desegregate housing and schools in Milwau form press is an impressive collaborative ef- 227 WMUEMir VVHi(X;l)17 A German singing society at an outdoor gathering in Wausau, about 1913. fort which is much more than its subtitle sug papers there are no known copies, and the edi gests. Only about half of the work is devoted to tors had to rely upon secondary sources for annotated bibliographies of the left and the annotations. working-class newspapers published in North The impetus for this volume and the two America by the Danes, the Swedes, the Norwe that will follow it: Migrants from Eastern and gians, the Finns, and the Icelanders. The rest Southern Europe and Migrants from Southern and of the volume is comprised of essays by the Western Europe came from a conference of la various expert scholars who compiled the bib bor and immigration historians that met in liographies. These essays set out the context of 1978 in Bremen. The project, known as the the immigration and the language usage of "Labor Newspaper Preservation Project," has each national group, as well as providing some an impressive publication record: more than a statistical evidence for the number of immi dozen books that include anthologies, bibliog grants in each group and the size of its left raphies, surveys, and an almost equal number press. of journal articles. The guiding spirit behind Making sense of the language complexity the project is Dirk Hoerder, Professor of So of the Scandinavian people is not always cial History at the University of Bremen. His straightforward given five centuries of domi long essay, "An Internationally Mobile Work nance of Danish culture over Norway and the ing Class and Its Press in North America; A fact that a number of Swedish papers included Survey," which opens this volume, not only re material in Danish or Norwegian. The largest counts the activities of the Labor Newspaper group of papers is in fact Swedish; the smallest Preservation Project but serves as a powerful are the Norwegian and Icelandic. The essays statement of the reach of the new immigration almost all give a detailed explanation of lan history. Just one of the many insights in the re guage subtleties. The annotations include, in search that he surveys concerns the oft-asked addition to what one might expect to find, the question of whether the ethnic press fur names of the first editor, classification by polit thered or retarded the process of assimilation. ical affiliation (e.g. socialist, communist, anar Hoerder rejects this question as posing alter chist, Christian socialist, etc.), and the location natives that are much too narrow, certainly for of existing files and their state of preservation. the earliest stages of immigration. "At a time It is quite sad to note that for a fair number of when migrant workers expected to return to 228 BOOK REVIEWS the culture of origin and when—on average— The Anglo-American Winter War With Russia, one third actually did so, it was not a question 1918-1919: A Diplomatic and Military Tragi of acculturation at all but rather a question of comedy. By BENJAMIN D. RHODES. (Greenwood receiving help for a temporary stay in the new Press, Inc., Westport, Connecticut, 1988. Pp. culture and sufficient information about the xxviii, 156. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, old culture to make the return easy." index. ISBN 0-313-26132-6, $35.00.) Hoerder comments in several places that the scope of the project has been narrowed, "Tragicomedy" is the key word in Professor i.e., fewer languages covered, because of the Rhodes's title. His history describes the results unwillingness of North American foundations of the military intervention by British and to match the support that he and his col American troops in the Russian Civil War. leagues have obtained from German funding This intervention, which lasted from April, sources. This substantial volume and the oth 1918, to September, 1919, was waged in Arch ers already published and those projected at angel, the northernmost port in Russia, just test to the commitment of these scholars, and below the Arctic Circle on the White Sea. The American support for their efforts should be war against the Bolsheviks was folly because its provided. aim was lunatic, to establish a White govern ment which would bring Russia back to the ELLIOTT SHORE trenches of the Eastern Front, and it was folly The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton A promotion of Mother's Day using the officers and men of the U.S.S. South Dakota in Vladivostok, Siberia, during the "Winter War" with Russia. \VHi(\:l)44299 MOTHER'S DAY For Your Mother In fiir-,i'Wa;y and tfoiiiil^J \'Li u \H'.-I , ?Jv!,>(, "5 i^fliceis and QOO men o\ •• !wm km. Tl- boiVExl 'iiM,i. -unk'litL' fht- . M'it=iHV |v>r nolils wonwnlutij of ^ (.?nter. Hvviy m.in ^\ tU> -! p'-.. 'nip3ii> wKo was fortunate s;nc CANNOT YOU REMFM BER YOUR 1U )M I: ()\ \[() IHliR'S DXY-^Seiond Sunday in May? TKls wonderftJ ptcmm shows some of tl^ far-re«hing 'xavV Q^ Mother's Da^. WHY DON'T YOU HELP US? WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 compounded because the lessons of its failure counterpart in the history of mankind." So were ignored, buried, never analyzed. wrote Magnus Morner in Race Mixture (1967). Briefly and succinctly, Rhodes details the His views are sustained by the research of diplomacy which persuaded a reluctant Henry Dobyns and again by the present work Woodrow Wilson to commit 5,000 Yanks of of Russell Thornton. Increased attention to the 339th Infantry Regiment to a British Ex American Indian population history has de peditionary Force whose components were molished old ideas which held that the popula Royal Scots, a Canadian artillery battalion, a tion of America at first European contact was small French force and White Russian volun hardly larger than today. There is no longer teers. These soldiers tried to fight a war of room for doubt that introduced diseases penetration and movement in a land where brought an appalling decline in aboriginal vast distances have always been the singular population. There were, at the same time, military reality. The Whites proved not only genocidal massacres, but these were less im inept at forming a government but unwilling portant than contagion as a destroyer. Other and the troops they mustered proved muti causes of population decline, such as reloca nous. tion, disturbance of the food supply, and alco Rhodes's fine concentration is on the mili holism, added to the disaster, but with lesser tary maneuvers of the Allied expedition ferocity. against a Bolshevik army steadily improving, Thornton holds that the population of the steadily reinforced, and steadily pressing its area now occupied by the coterminous United advantage. Using new archival materials, States was, in 1492, about five million, and fell Rhodes draws a deservedly devastating por to a nadir of about 250,000 by 1890. His early trait of the Allied commanders: of General figure is thus about midway between James Edmund Ironside, the perfect soldier, who Mooney's 1928 esdmate of about 900,000 for held Americans in contempt, shot dozens of the same area at first white contact and Henry Russians out-of-hand, and too slowly realized Dobyns's 1966 minimal figure of about nine the impossibility of his mission; of Colonel million. George Stewart, the American commander, Fhornton's book contains fifty-seven tables confused, bewildered by his orders, and, when illustrating Indian demographic develop these emotions got the better of him, occasion ments since earliest contact times. One of his ally craven. conclusions is that while the Indian popula That the United States fought a shooting tion seems to be growing rapidly (1,370,000 in war against the Russians in Russia itself is still 1980), this is partly due to new ways of count news to most Americans. What Rhodes insists ing, in which individuals are asked to self- we did not learn is that civil wars are never set identify their racial or ethnic affiliation to the tled by third parties, that military means must census taker. One dubious result is the emer be adequate for the political task, which means gence of the Cherokee as the largest group of that as that task alarmingly enlarges, so will it Indians, replacing the Navajo. The Cherokee draw more and more on men and materiel. figure brings to mind Indian jokes about the Eventually, insists Rhodes, there are no mini hordes of white people who claim Cherokee mum efforts, no sideshows. Every effort will grandmothers. fail and crunch the bones of men unless its That leads to another feature of the new aims are comprehensible and possible. figures, which is that the Indian population is increasingly diluted with white blood. Thorn RICHARD GOLDHURST ton predicts that the combination of the ap Westport, Connecticut proaching diminution of natural increase, more intermarriage, and less tribalism will ul timately eliminate American Indians as a dis American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Popu tinct population, thus achieving what years of lation History Since 1492. By RUSSELL THORN decimation from European contact could not. TON. (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Thornton here renews his previously pub 1987. Pp. XX, 292. Illustrations, tables, maps, lished view that the ghost dance movement of index. ISBN 0-8061-2074-6, $29.95.) 1890 was especially related to depopulation trends among participating tribes. In a confer "If there were 50 million or more Indians in ence at Newberry Library in 1984 I presented the New World, the demographic disaster that data suggesting that his thesis was not sus took place after 1492 is probably without tained. 230 BOOK REVIEWS times. The passage commencing "The utmost good faith" is not from the act creating the war department but is a garbled version of Article 3 of the Northwest Ordinance. The Long Walk of the Navajo to Ft. Sumner was about 300 miles, not 900 (Ruth Underbill, The Nava- jos, 1956, p. 124). Thornton says that their res ervation created in 1868 was 7,000 miles square; perhaps he meant 7,000 square miles. Actually, the reservation initially embraced 5,468 square miles, or 3,500,000 acres. The Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936 was a federal statute, not a state law. Orthographic and typographic errors could have been reduced by better proofread ing: it is inoculation, not innoculation; dis persed, not disbursed; Bauxar, not Bauxer; contiguous, not continuous, in the Catlin quote; Smoky Hill, not Smokey; Platte, not Piatt; Bozeman, not Boseman; Cavalry, not Calvary; Burke, not Burk; venereal, not veneral; whooping cough, not whopping; Ev erett, Washington, not Everette; Vermilion River (of Illinois-Indiana), not Vermillion; and St. Albert, Canada, not St. Alberta. Of course, these flaws are greatly out weighed by the positive achievements of this book, which sheds light on a long-neglected topic. Its graphic accounts of massacres and other cruelties against Indians are a necessary corrective of blank pages in history. This book WHi(X3)34324 will endure as a notable contribution to Indian "The Pool—Apache," a photo by Edward S. Curtis around the demography. turn of the century. VIRGIL ]. VOGEL Northbrook, Illinois Some error gremlins must be noted: Roa Melting Pot Soldiers: The Union's Ethnic Regi noke colony was in present North Carolina, ments. By WILLIAM L. BURTON. (Iowa State not Virginia. The Hurons were Iroquoian, not University Press, Ames, 1988. Pp. x, 282. Illus Algonquian. There are at least three interpre trations, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0— tations of their tribal name, not two. The ab 8138-1115-5, $26.95.) original derivation, by Errett (1885) and Beauchamp (1907), is set forth in my Indian William L. Burton's book is the product of Names in Michigan (1986). Thornton says ample research and one which employs, as the Huronia covered about 340 square miles, author admits, "traditional historical analy roughly coinciding with present Simcoe sis." His major argument is that the ethnic reg County, Ontario; but the area of Simcoe iments (like other volunteer regiments) were County is 1,663 square miles. "political creations" and reflected the group Maroa and Tamaroa are listed as tribes of power, self-awareness, and loyalty of ethnic the Illinois confederacy, but Maroa is merely a Americans who followed charismatic leaders contraction of the name Tamaroa. The saying into military service. Ethnic leaders, such as "as long as the grass grows or the rivers flow" is the German-American Carl Schurz and the not in any United States treaty or allied docu Irish-American Thomas Meagher, knew how ment. Such phrases were used in colonial to use party machinery and political patron- 231 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 age to advance their individual and group in Navy for its lack of analytical rigor, Burton terests; civilian skills served them well in form misses numerous opportunities to evaluate ing and leading military regiments. In short, critically much of his evidence. This is exem Burton argues, "Civil War armies mirrored plified in the brief chapter, "Song and Story," Civil War society." an overview of Civil war poems, songs, anec Burton focuses on the regimental unit be dotes, and flag ceremonies, which centers al cause it was the "building block of the Union most exclusively on Irish-American activities. army" and the "center of the soldier's life." In A comparative perspective is needed to ana defining an ethnic regiment, the author con lyze ethnic rituals and their military and civil tends that "a large majority of its members " ian significance. Burton's whistle-stop tour of were foreign-born or the sons of foreign-born electoral politics in the North in the 1850's and fathers, and that both they and the larger soci 1860's is poorly organized and lacks sufficient ety viewed the regiment as an ethnic organiza depth to examine and explain the political suc tion. The best two chapters in Melting Pot Sol cess of different groups in scattered cities. An diers focus separately on German and Irish other problem surfaces when the author sin regiments; Burton details the amazing machi gles out the Irish for their separate motive of nations of ethnic leaders to create their own nationalism, which, he argues, "had a pathetic regiments throughout the North. We learn lit quality about it in the context of an American tle here, however, of what the common ethnic war." Burton notes rightly but disdainfully volunteer felt or believed. Nonetheless, Bur that, after the Civil War, Irish-American writ ton claims that the common soldiers were not ers created a "vast hagiographical and as motivated by (or interested in) ethnic poli filiopietistic literature" that exaggerated the tics as were their civilian and military leaders. true exploitsof their countrymen. He neglects The German-American soldier, like his Irish- to look more deeply at the need for such myth- born counterpart, "displayed a heartening making in the face of continued discrimina love of country that shamed those who abused tion and fears of renewed nativism. the system to personal advantage"—such as While Burton's descriptions of opportunis their leaders. Another chapter, "The Others," tic ethnic leaders are engaging and well- examines ethnic regiments of Scots, French, researched, his footing is unsure at best in the Scandinavians, and the Garibaldi Guard, "a difficult terrain of ethnicity. But, because of cockpit of nineteenth-century ethnic Amer the author's regimental research and service ica" which featured no less than six languages able prose, Alelting Pot Soldiers provides a use and five ethnic groups. During the war, patri ful introduction to a fascinating aspect of Civil otism gave way to monetary incentives, reflect War society and its soldiers. ing a growing dissatisfaction with the war and a diminution of ethnic identification. Although the author criticizes Ella Lonn's EARL F. MULDERINK III "monumental" Foreigners in the Union Army and University of Wisconsin—Madison Book Reviews Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers: The Union's Ethnic Regiments, re\'iewed by Earl F. Mulderink III 2,^1 Hoerder, editor. The Immigrant Labor Press in North America, 1840's-l 970's: An A nnotated Bibliography. Volume 1: Migrants from Northern Eurof)e, reviewed by Elliott Shore 227 Rhodes, The Anglo-American Winter War with Rus.sia, 1918-1919: A Diplomatic and Military Tragicomedy, reviewed by Richard Goldhurst 229 Thompson, The History of Wisconsin. Volume VI: Continuity and Change, 1940-1965, reviewed by Michael A. Ciordon 225 Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492, reviewed by Virgil f. Vogel 230 232 Family History Center and/or one of their Wisconsin History regional centers. Checklist Driessel, Richard Henry, and Driessel, Margaret Louise Otto. Genealogy of Richard Retciill\ piii)lisho(i .iiul c ui ii'iuh av.iilahlc \V'is( ousi.ui-i Henry Driessel: a Luxembourger Family in added to the Socicls's Lil)iiiT\ .ire listed bitow. i IK- Wisconsin. (Fern Park, Florida, 1988. compilers, (icrald R. Kgf^loslon. Accjuisilions I.ibrai i.in. Second edition. 223 leaves. Illus. No price and Susan Dorsl. Older LibraTi.in. .irc intcri-slcd in listed. Available from Richard H. Driessel, oijiaining intormalion about (or topics o! I it en is dial arc 207 Nettlewood Lane, Fern Park, Florida not widol\ advertised, siu ii as piiiibi atioiis ot io(.il 32730.) historical soeielies, f.niiilv histories and gene.tlogies, pri\atel\ printed works, .ind liistoiies ol (biiKJies, instilLitions. or orj^ani/atioiis. Aiiliiors and pubiisliers Epley, Anna P. The New Richmond Tornado of wishing to reach a wider .iiidieiu e and also to pertoriii a 1899: a Modern Herculaneum, edited by \alLiabIe bibliographii set \ ice are iitged to infoitii the Michael G. Corenthal. (Milwaukee, eonipiiers of theit publications, including the' loll;)v\ing intorniation: author, title, loc alion .md ii.une ot |mi>lislier, Wisconsin, 1989. Pp. iv, 278. Illus. $15.00. date ot publication, price, p.igination. and .iddress ot Wisconsin residents add 5 per cent sales supplier. Write Susan Dorst, Ac t)uisitioirs Section. tax. Available from Yesterday's Memories, 5406 West Center Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53210 or MCC, Memories, Graphics and Communications, 5314 West Bluemond Road, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53208.) An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indian History, edited by Donald L. Fixico. Filardo, Gregory. Old Milwaukee: a Historic (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, cI987. Pp. iv, 541. Tour in Picture Postcards. (Vestal, New York, Illus. No price listed. Available from cl988. Pp. vi, 121. Illus. $10.95. Available University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, from Vestal Press, Ltd., 320 North Jensen College of Letters and Science, American Road, P.O. Box 97, Vestal, New York Indian Studies, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, 13851-0097.) Wisconsin 53201.) Goldstein, Lynne G., and Osborn, Sannie K. A Behrend, Alice Judy. Burning Bush Including Guide to Common Prehistoric Projectile Points Many Rivers to Cross. (Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in Wisconsin. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, cl988. Peshugo Times, 1988. Pp.' 138. $10.00. Pp. 74. Illus. $7.95 plus $2.50 postage and Available from author, W2298 Kleinke handling. Wisconsin residents add 5 per Park Lane, Menominee, Michigan 49858.) cent sales tax. Available from Publications Two separate historical subjects are treated Section—Order Dept., Milwaukee Public in this volume: stories of Peshtigo Fire Museum, 800 West Wells Street, survivors; and the impact of the Civil War Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233.) on Marinette County residents. Gruenwald, Myron E. Baltic Teutons: Pioneers Church Records Survey of Brown County, of America's Frontier. (Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Wisconsin. (Green Bay, Wisconsin, 1988. cl988. Pp. 89, 3, [11]. Illus. No price listed. Pp. iii, 110. Illus. $10.00. Available from Available from author, 1260 Westhaven Bay Area Genealogical Society, c/o Mrs. Drive, Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54904.) History Kris Olson, 1075 Kenwood Street, Green of the Baltic German settlement in the Bay, Wisconsin 54304.) Midwest, particularly in Wisconsin, between 1838 and 1890.' Clark, Donna K. Sources of Clues, Dane County, Wiscousin. (Arvada, Colorado, 1988. Pp. 29 Hawkinson, Nancy. Surname Index, Volume II. [13]. $6.20. Available from Ancestor (River Falls, Wisconsin, 1988? Pp. 29, 3. Publishers, 6166 Janice Way, RL 16, $3.00 plus $1.25 postage and handling. Arvada, Colorado 80004.) Information on Available from St. Croix Valley Dane County that is available through the Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 396, River Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Falls, Wisconsin 54022.) 233 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 Hieb, Jane. Eau Claire, Heartland of the Koch, Ronald M. Decoys of the Winnebago Lakes. Chippewa Valley: an Illustrated History. (Omro, Wisconsin, cl988. Pp. 208. Illus. (Northridge, CaHfornia, 1988. Pp. 126. $34.00. Available from Rivermoor Illus. $27.95. Available from Windsor Publications, 5023 Rivermoor Drive, Publications, Inc., 9121 Oakdale Avenue, Omro, Wisconsin 54963.) P.O. Box 2500, Chatsworth, Cahfornia 91313.) Kressin, Vernon, and Kressin, Lois. 60th Anniversary oJ the St. Paul Evangelical Hoeft, Marcella Hanrahan. From the Hills of Lutheran Church Building. (Bloomer, Monaleen: the Story of the Hanrahans. Wisconsin, 1988. Pp. 23. Illus. No price (Waukesha, Wisconsin, 1988. Pp. v, 156. listed. Available from authors, Route 3, Illus. No price listed. Available from Box 59, Bloomer, Wisconsin 54724-9411.) author, 1325 Josephine Street, Waukesha, Wisconsin 53186.) Kriehn, Ruth. The Fisherjolk of Jones Island. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, cl988. Pp. ix, 142. Israel, Kathleen Kennedy. Fox De Luxe. Illus. $13.75 plus $1.50 postage and (Roswell?. Georgia, 1988. Pp. 131 [13]. handling. Available from Milwaukee Illus. No price listed. Available from County Historical Society, 910 North Old author, 4225 Singing Post Lane, Roswell, World Third Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Georgia 30075.) History of the Fuchs/Fox 53203.) Jones Island, a mile-long peninsula family. bordering on Lake Michigan, is presently the site of the Milwaukee Sewage Treatment facility. In the I870's it was Johnson, Vicki. Kelly Family History, settled by Kashubian fishermen (Polish 1810-1987. (Chili, Wisconsin, 1987. 120 immigrants from the Baltic Peninsula of leaves. Illus. No price listed. Available from Hel), and it was the heart of the local fishing author. Route 1, Box 220A, Chili, industry into the early twentieth century. Wisconsin 54420.) Laun, Peter. The Bemis Story: a History of the Johnson, Vicki. Vaillancourt Family History, Bemis Manufacturing Company of Sheboygan 1644-1987. (Chili, Wisconsin, 1987. 162, Falls, Wisconsin. (Madison?, Wisconsin, [4] leaves. Illus, No price listed. Available 1988. 74, [8] leaves. Illus. No price listed. from author, Route 1, Box 220A, Chili, Available from author, 5718 Bittersweet Wisconsin 54420.) Place, Madison, Wisconsin 53705.) Juneau County: the First 100 Years, edited by Lovell, Burrell B. A Genealogical Outline of the Merton Eberlein. (Friendship, Wisconsin, Descendants of Calvin &f Anna (Gannon) cl988. Pp. viii, 186. Illus. No price listed. Hawkins, 1794-1988. (Vale, Oregon, 1988. Available from New Past Press, Inc., V, 89 leaves. Illus. No price listed. Available Friendship, Wisconsin 53934.) from author, 3999 John Day Highway, Vale, Oregon 97918.) Kadonsky, William J. A Pioneer Family in North America: a History of the Kadonsky Family Meindel, Alan C. My Family History and the (With Branches oj the Stoughton, Kinzell, and Times We Lived. (North Fond du Lac?, Buchholz Families.) (Wausau, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, 1988. 1 vol, various pagings. 1988. Pp. V, 184. No price listed. Available Illus. No price listed. Available from from author, 4165 Mapleridge Drive, author, 506 Wisconsin Avenue, North Grapevine, Texas 76051.) Fond du Lac, Wisconsin 54935.) Klett, Ronald. Andreas Bernhard Klett and Oberly, James W. A History of Graduate Johanna Dorothea Klett (Born Holland) and Education at the University of Wisconsin—Eau Their Descendants. (Greendale?, Wisconsin, Claire. (Eau Claire, Wisconsin, 1988? Pp. 1988. Pp. 60. Illus. No price listed. 80. Illus. No price listed. Available from Available from Mary Klett, 5316 Robin UW—Eau Claire School of Graduate Drive, Greendale, Wisconsin 53129.) Cover Studies, 201 Schofield Hall, Eau Claire, title is Klett Family Genealogy. Wisconsin 54702.) 234 WISCONSIN HISTORY CHECKLIST Secord, Jane Kresge. The Role of Women's Trading Post to Metropolis: Milwaukee County Organizations in the Development of Health First 150 Years, edited by Ralph M. Institutions and Public Health Programs in Aderman. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1987. Madison, Wisconsin from 1890—1920. Pp. X, 419. Illus. $12.00 plus $1.00 postage (Madison?, Wisconsin, 1987. Pp. 85. No and handling. Available from Milwaukee price listed. Available from author, 1511 County Historical Society, 910 North Old Sumac Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53705.) World Third Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53203.) Smithers, Elaine Vertz. Haley, Marshall, Getchell, Barlow Genealogy. (Waukesha, Wieland, Lauretta Larson. Celebrating a Wisconsin, 1988. 94, [15] leaves. Illus. No Century, Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church. price listed. Available from author, W263 (Pewaukee, Wisconsin, 1987. Pp. 58. Illus. SSI5 Fairlawn Way, Waukesha, Wisconsin No price listed. Available from Christ 53188.) Evangelical Lutheran Church, 111 Prospect Avenue, Pewaukee, Wisconsin Strehlow, Helen Schmidt. My Menomonee Falls. 53072.) (Pulaski Wisconsin, COMMUNICATE!, 1988. Pp. 139. Iflus. $7.95 plus $ .90 Wymore, Jeanette, and Nelson, Edna I. Glen postage and handling. Available from Flora—Gleanings from the Past. (Ladysmith, author, 2329 North 103 Street, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, Cloverland Press, 1988. Pp. Wisconsin 53226.) Compilation of columns 172. Illus. No price listed. Available from which have appeared in the Menomonee Jeanette Wymore, N5894 Anderson Road, Falls News over the last forty years. Glen Flora, Wisconsin 54526.) 235 Curtiss, Wisconsin, ca. I9I0, including de scriptions of the store's appearance, stock, cus tomers, and daily routines, and including many anecdotes. A photocopy of a photo graph of the store's interior, also ca. 1910, ac companies the typescript. Presented by Ms. Johnson, Pawcatuck, Connecticut. Records, 1915—1965, oi the Medford Cooper ative Creamery, a cooperative which manufac tured butter and other milk products and Accessions which merged with Consolidated Badger Co operative in 1962; including minutes, corpo rate reports, financial and tax records, a few Services lor microtilining, xeroxing, and photostating all land and legal records, and daybooks noting but certain restricted items in its manuscript collections amounts paid members for milk and cream; are provided bv the Society. presented by Morning Glory Farms, Shawano. Papers, 1863, 1879-1887, oi Ellen Sfauld- Area Research Centers ingMiller (1843—) of Eau Claire, consisting of letters she wrote to relatives in New York com menting on family matters, domestic life, eco Eau Claire: Papers, 1938-1980, of Walter H. nomic conditions, lumbering, and other top Brovald (1928—), editor/pubhsher (1954- ics; two photos of her husband, Jefferson 1967) of the award-winning Cadott Sentinel; in Miller; and published Sunday School newslet cluding personal correspondence, papers ters and a booklet of Christian marital advice; from his studies at the University ofWisconsin presented by Maxine M. Swanson, Alma. in the I940's and the University of Minnesota in the I960's, photos and writings for the Unidentified medical record books, 1870—1880, Wisconsin-Nicaragua Partners of the Ameri written in German by a physician or druggist cas, files from his Methodist lay ministry activi probably from the Neillsville area, including ties, and professional papers on the purchase pharmaceutical recipes and treatments for and operation of the Sentinel, leadership of the various diseases, financial records of treat Wisconsin Press Association, and his relation ments, and clippings from German-language ship with journalists and Wisconsin politi newspapers; presented by the Jackson County cians; presented by Mr. Brovald, St. Paul, Historical Society via Frances Perry and Carol Minnesota. Kinley, Black River Falls. Partial corporate records, 1925—1980, of Flambeau Valley Farms Cooperative, Ladysmith, Wisconsin, a milk and dairy products market Green Bay: Records, 1928—1983, of Consoli ing coop formed in 1924 as the Ladysmith dated Badger Cooperative, a Shawano-based Milk Producers' Co-Operative Assoc, and dis dairy cooperative best known for its Morning solved in 1979; including by-laws, minutes, Glory brand; including minutes, annual re correspondence, members' loan papers, news ports, financial and legal papers, labor re letters, stock records, minutes of the Dairy Co cords, statistical records, sample cartons, and operative Institute, and other items; pre records from merged dairy plants; presented sented by the Cooperative, via John P. by the Cooperative. Trudelle. Primarily financial records, 1916-1967, of Papers, 1954-1970, of Willis J. Hutnik the Holt Hardwood Company, Oconto, a com (1915—), a Republican Assemblyman (1953— pany which produced flooring until 1959 I97I) from Ladysmith, Wisconsin; including when it began producing custom wood prod correspondence with constituents, colleagues, ucts and precision electronic equipment; in state agencies, and advocacy groups, subject cluding board and stockholder minutes; orga files on legislation, material on the Highway nizational documents; a time book; a few sales Safety Advisory Committee, press releases, records; blueprints and drawings of the physi campaign files, and other papers; presented cal plant and equipment; extensive financial by Mr. Hutnik. ledgers, journals, and other records; and a few A reminiscence by Dorothy H.Johnson about items from the firms of Holt and DeWitt and life behind the counter of a general store in Sever Anderson Logging Co. Portions pre- 236 ACCESSIONS sented by Holt Lumber Company via the (1922—), a Republican legislator from Out Oconto County Historical Society, and other agamie County, primarily consisting of bill portions presented and loaned for copying by files containing correspondence from constit C. P. DeWitt, Oconto. uents, colleagues, government officials, and Fragmentary papers, 1861—1935, concern lobbyists; plus biographical information, a few ing Eldon Klauser's management of a farm in press releases and speeches, and other items; Stiles, Oconto County, owned by the Anson presented by Mr. Lorge, Bear Creek. Eldred Co., including farm progress reports, Minutebook, I906-I927, and a constitu correspondence with college agriculture de tion of the Manitowoc County Horticultural Soci partments concerning farm management, ety; presented by the Society via Malcolm N. brief other records, and a few personal and Dana. family papers; presented by the Oconto Records, 1919—1967, of the New London Co County Historical Society via Duane Ebert. operative and its predecessors which bought Additions, 1842-1956, to the/oigp/iG. Law- and sold agricultural products, equipment, tow Papers, including letterbooks, daily jour and petroleum products and other supplies. nals, papers of his daughter, Ellen J. Lawton, Records are from the New London Farmers' and business and financial records, primarily Exchange Company, New London Coopera on Lawton's land transactions in the De Pere tive Exchange, New London Farmers Cooper area; presented by Randall W. and Catherine ative Oil Company, and Bi-County Con Lawton, De Pere. sumers Cooperative Association. Presented by Papers, 1957-1980, of Gerald D. Lorge Norman Fenske, New London. Walter H. Brovald of Eau Claire.July. 1945. WHi(X91)20660 237 A photograph by Frederick L. G. Straubel of bicyclists m Green Bay, about 1890. VVHi(S86)74 Papers, 1897-1969, oi Frederick E.G. of extended family communication. Civil War Straubel (1861-1938), an inventor, business letters of Vermonter Cornelius W. Morse are man, and amateur photographer from Green also present, as are World War I letters from Bay, primarily regarding the sale of his com George W. Vilas in France. Presented by Su pany, Automadc File and Index Company; san Vilas Manuel, Balboa, California. patents he held on filing devices; his estate; Waldo-Henderson Family Papers, 1829-1979, and other business matters; presented by the Green Bay Public Library. including papers of several women members of a prominent Green Bay family and of Mor Logbooks, August, 18V2-December, 1901, ris A. Waldo (1828-1902). Included are dia March, 1902-December, 1912, from Tail ries, correspondence, clippings, wridngs, and Point Light Station, a lighthouse on the western other items including exchanges between shore of Green Bay, in which lightkeepers Waldo and his wife during the Civil War; ra Louis Heutzler, Ole Hansen, and Carl Witz- dio talks, student papers, and World War II mann recorded the daily weather and winds era correspondence of Laura Henderson and their acdviues; presented by Kathy Jans- Jackson on child care and family matters; and sen, Denmark. papers of other family members; presented by Primarily family correspondence, 1813- Anne Jackson Foster and Ruth Hartman, 1950, of members of the Vilas Family, Manito Green Bay. woc, and some of their relatives in the Morse Papers, 1965-1969, of Rtjbert Warren and Piatt families; including discussions of (1925—), a Green Bay Republican, document family matters, health, travel, and other rou- ing his work as a state senator (1965-1968); in dne topics valuable in its span and illustration cluding correspondence, biographical mate- 238 ACCESSIONS rial, and subject files pertaining to the Kellett Records, I9I6—1981, documenting the La Committee on Governmental Reorganization, Crosse Business and Professional Women's Club's the Joint Finance Committee, and other legis activities such as its scholarship fund, work on lative committees and topics; presented by Mr. behalf of child labor laws, civil service reform, Warren, Madison. and the Equal Rights Amendment, and educa Records, 1927-1967, of White House Milk tional support. Also included are a few re Co., a subsidiary of the Great Atlantic and Pa cords from the larger groups of which the club cific Tea Company, which primarily produced is an affiliate; presented by the Club via Sally evaporated milk; including some financial in Oswalt. formation from the central office in Manito Treasurer's book, 1914-1923, in English woc, Wisconsin; physical plant and equipment and Yiddish(?), of the La Cro.sse Jewish Relief So records from plants in ten Wisconsin and ciety, a Jewish charitable organization estab Michigan communities; statistical studies, lished in 1914; presented by Myer Katz, La 1948—1951, on dairy processing; sample can Crosse. labels; and other records; presented via Records, 1912—1986, of theLa Crosse Music Henry F. Harder. Study Club, a women's organization devoted to the study and performance of music; includ ing by-laws, minutes, programs, yearbooks, microfilmed newsclippings, and other papers. La Crosse: Photocopied typescript of a Memo Included too are clippings on the College Club rial Day address delivered at Whitehall, Wis (1925-1932), the local branch of the Ameri consin, 1917, by Gustavus Bronson, a Civil War can Association of University Women. Pre veteran who served with Company C, 10th sented by the Club via Elizabeth Mielke, La Regiment of the Wisconsin Volunteer Infan Crosse. try; presented by the Adjutant General of the Papers, 1926—1970, of Lincoln Neprud State ofWisconsin via Gretchen L. Smith. (1898-1972), a judge of the Vernon County Papers, 1953—1964, of a Democratic Wis Court (1937-1952) and the Wisconsin Sixth consin congressman from Black River Falls, District (1952-1969); consisting of case files Lester R. Johnson (1901—1975); including cor and various other judicial papers, political pa respondence, and other papers documenting pers, and files on civic activities with the Snow- his work in dairy marketing and price sup flake Ski Club of Westby, the Vernon County ports, soil and water conservation, wetlands Baseball League, and the Viroqua Centennial and wildlife refuges, and the Ice Age National (which featured a controversial appearance by Park; presented by Mr. Johnson, Black River Gerald L. K. Smith); presented by John and Falls. Mary Neprud Sutton, La Crosse. 239 Contributors WAYNE A. WIEGAND, associate professor in the JOHN O. HOLZHUETER'S three articles on Frank school of library and information services at Lloyd Wright's early Madison work, the first the University of Wisconsin—Madison, is a of which appears in the previous issue, mark Badger State native. Born and raised in Mani his twenty-fifth year of association with the So towoc, he earned his B.A. from the University ciety and this journal. He joined the Society of Wisconsin—Oshkosh (1968), his M.S. in his staff in June, 1964, as a graduate student to tory from the University of Wisconsin- the editors of the Magazine, and ever since he Milwaukee (1970). He also holds a Ph.D. in has been affiliated with the agency in a variety history from Southern Illinois University of temporary, contractual, and permanent po (1974) and an M.L.S. from Western Michigan sitions involving editorial, research, writing, University (1974). He is author of The Politics reference, and public-speaking assignments. of an Emerging Profession: The American Library He is best known for his weekly historical Association, 1876—1917 (1986), which won the sketches on Wisconsin Public Radio, which he 1988 G. K. Hall Award for Outstanding Con has contributed in behalf of the Society since tribution to Library Literature, and is cur September, 1975. He has been a frequent con rently working on a biography of Melvil De tributor of articles and reviews to the Magazine wey. and has been instrumental in preparation of the six-volume History 240 THE BOARD OF CURATORS PETER ADAMS, Neenah MRS. WILLIAM E. HAYES, De Pere THOMAS H. BARLAND, Eau Claire DR. FANNIE HICKLIN, Madison MRS. B. L. BERNHARDT, Cassville RICHARD H. HOLSCHER, Milwaukee MRS. JEROME BOGE, La Crosse THOMAS MOUATJEFFRIS II, Janesville ELBERT S. BOHLIN, Mineral Point ERROL K. KINDSCHY, West Salem DAVID E. CLARENBACH, Madison MRS. J. CARLETON MACNEIL, JR., Bayside GLENN R. COATES, Racine GEORGE H. MILLER, Ripon E. DAVID CRONON, Madison FREDERICK I. OLSON, Wauwatosa MRS. JAMES P. CZAJKOWSKI, Wauzeka JERALD PHILLIPS, Bayfield MRS. L. PRENTICE EAGER, JR., Evansville FRED A. RISSER, Madison C. P. Fox, Baraboo PEGGY A. ROSENZWEIG, Wauwatosa HARRY F. FRANKE, JR., Milwaukee BRIAN D. RUDE, Coon Valley PAUL C. GARTZKE, Madison WILLIAM F. STARK, Oconomowoc DR. LYNNE GOLDSTEIN, Milwaukee ROGER STAUTER, Madison MRS. VIVIAN GUZNICZAK, Franklin GERALD D. VISTE, Wausau MRS. HUGH F. GWIN, Hudson MRS. ALAN WEBSTER, Oshkosh EUGENE P. TRANI, Vice-President, Academic Affairs, ROBERT B. L. MURPHY, President of the University ofWisconsin Wisconsin History Foundation MRS. GERALDINE DEARBORN, MRS. SHARON LEAIR, President of the Friends Coordinating Council Wisconsin Council for Local History Friends of the State Historical Society ofWisconsin LOREN OSMAN, Milwaukee, President MRS. WILUAM J. WEBSTER, TWO Rivers, MRS. ROBERT BOLZ, Madison, First Vice- Secretary President MRS. ALFRED E. SENN, Madison, Treasurer MRS. THOMAS J. NEWMAN, Second Vice-President JOHN W. WINN, Madison, Past President Corporate Sponsors AMERICAN FAMILY INSURANCE NORTHWESTERN MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY Madison Milwaukee APPLETON MILLS FOUNDATION PIERSON PRODUCTS, INC. Appleton Janesville APPLETON PAPERS, INCORPORATED RACINE FEDERATED, INC. Appleton Racine CONSOLIDATED PAPERS FOUNDATION, INC. W. T. ROGERS COMPANY Wisconsin Rapids Madison CUNA MUTUAL INSURANCE GROUP ST. FRANCIS SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION Madison Milwaukee CARL AND ELISABETH EBERBACH FOUNDATION, SCIENCE RELATED MATERIALS, INC. INC., Milwaukee Janesville FIRST WISCONSIN NATIONAL BANK WALGREENS Madison Deerfield GOODMAN'S INCORPORATED WEBCRAFTERS-FRAUTSCHI FOUNDATION Madison INCORPORATED HiGHSMiTH COMPANY, INCORPORATED Madison Fort Atkinson THE WEST BEND COMPANY INTREPID CORPORATION West Bend Milwaukee WiNDWAY FOUNDATION, INC. S. C.JOHNSON AND SON, INC. Sheboygan Racine WISCONSIN BELL MENASHA CORPORATION FOUNDATION Milwaukee Neenah WISCONSIN PHYSICIANS SERVICE NELSON INDUSTRIES, INC. Madison Stoughton WISCONSIN POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY NICOLET INSTRUMENT CORPORATION Madison Madison Fellows Curators Emeritus Patrons VERNON CARSTENSEN, Washington JOHN C. GEILFUSS, Milwaukee MR. AND MRS. ROBERT M. BOLZ, Madison RICHARD N. CURRENT, Massachusetts ROBERT H. IRRMANN, Madison FIRST WISCONSIN FOUNDATION, INC., MERLE CURTI, Madison MRS. EDWARD C.JONES, Fort Atkinson Milwaukee ROBERT C. NESBIT, Washington HOWARD W. MEAD, Madison DR. ROBERT H. IRRMANN, Madison ALICE E. SMITH, California DR. LOUIS C. SMITH, Cassville MR. THOMAS M. JEFFRIS II, Janesville PAUL VANDERBILT, Madison MRS. WILLIAM H. L. SMYTHE, Milwaukee MR. FREDERICK G. WILSON, Madison MILO K. SWANTON, Madison MR. AND MRS. JOHN W. WINN, Madison THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY SHALL promote a wider appreciation of the American heritage with particular emphasis on the collection, advancement and dissemination of knowledge of the history of Wisconsin and of the West. —Wisconsin Statutes, Chapter 44 ^Wm VVlli(X3)3«279 Wisconsin 21, Ohio State 0 at Madison, October 23, 1915. Isbs >