The LaFollette Family

A Register of Its Papers in the Library of Congress

Prepared by Kate M. Stewart
Revised and expanded by Laura J. Kells
Revised by Michael Spangler with the assistance of Jewel Parker

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

2005

Contact information: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mss/address.html

Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 2006

Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms006038

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

Names:

Subjects:

Administrative Information

Provenance:

Processing History:

Transfers:

Copyright Status:

Preferred Citation:

Biographical Notes

Robert M. La Follette, Sr.

Robert M. La Follette, Jr.

Belle Case La Follette

Fola La Follette

Philip Fox La Follette

Gilbert E. Roe

Alfred Thomas Rogers

Mary Josephine La Follette

Grace C. Lynch

Scope and Content Note

Related Material

Organization of the Papers

Description of Series

Container List

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein.

Administrative Information

Part I of the La Follette Family Papers was deposited in the Library of Congress by members of the family in several installments from 1931 to 1974. Formal conveyance of the papers to the Library occurred in 1966. Carolyn J. Mattern, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, donated additional material in 1986. Part II of the collection, included in the estate of Mary Josephine La Follette, was donated to the Library by her daughter, Joan La Follette Sucher, in 1988.

Part I of the La Follette Family Papers was organized in 1981. Additional material was organized as Part II in 1995. The Library published the finding aid describing Part I in 1981. This finding aid and the one prepared for Part II in 1995 were revised and updated to reflect changes in the organization of the collection in 2005.

Photographs have been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division where they are identified as part of the La Follette Family Papers.

Copyright in the unpublished writings of Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Robert M. La Follette, Jr., Belle Case La Follette, and Mary Josephine La Follette in these papers and in other collections of papers in the custody of the Library of Congress has been dedicated to the public. The status of copyright in the unpublished material by other persons in the La Follette Family Collection is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Roman numeral designating the Part followed by a colon and container number, La Follette Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Biographical Notes

Scope and Content Note

Part I

Part I of the La Follette Family Papers spans the years 1781 to 1973, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1900-1953. The material is organized in ten series of interrelated files beginning with Family Correspondence and followed by personal papers of Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Robert M. La Follette, Jr., Belle Case La Follette, Fola La Follette, Philip Fox La Follette, Mary Josephine La Follette, Gilbert E. Roe, and Alfred Thomas Rogers and records of the National Progressive Republican League.

The Family Correspondence documents personal, social, and political affairs. Frequent and long absences due to political activities and speaking tours resulted in numerous letters exchanged among Robert M. La Follette, Sr., and his wife and children. During World War I when La Follette faced censure for his strong antiwar stand, he wrote almost daily to his “Dear Ones.”

The papers of Robert Marion La Follette, Sr., (1855-1925) span the years 1844-1925, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1900-1925. The collection of a principal figure in the early twentieth century progressive movement reflects his role in national politics, including his service in the United States Senate and his activities in presidential politics. The papers reveal the development of La Follette's political strategy and philosophy, the emergence of reform issues, the struggle within the Republican Party, and the internal dynamics of the Senate. The papers also shed light on the organizational environment in which the political process unfolded. There are sources for studying formal mechanisms, such as political primaries and regulatory commissions, and informal mechanisms, such as nonpartisan reform lobbies and the use of academic advisers in framing legislation. La Follette took advantage of the emerging professionalization within the social sciences and the willingness of university administrators and professors to play a public role and worked with citizen reform groups such as the National Consumers' League, the National Conservation Association, and the National Municipal League. A number of supporting organizations were created directly by La Follette, and there are files on the People's Legislative Service, the National Progressive Republican League, and the Conference for Progressive Political Action.

La Follette developed an interest in foreign policy and emerged during the administration of Woodrow Wilson as an advocate of nonintervention. The papers contain information on La Follette's criticism of Wilson's Latin American policy, his opposition to American entry into World War I, and his efforts against Wilson's policies on conscription, wartime taxation, civil rights, the Russian revolution, and the League of Nations. Other files relate to the Seamen's Act of 1915, the regulation of railroads, tariff schedules, preservation of public lands, women's suffrage, civil rights, the Teapot Dome investigation, the Senate investigation of La Follette's antiwar stand, and La Follette's presidential campaign in 1924. The presidential campaign of 1912 is documented in the National Progressive Republican League series. Correspondents include Ray Stannard Baker, Charles Austin Beard, Mary Ritter Beard, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, William Jennings Bryan, Charles Richard Crane, Zona Gale, Norman Hapgood, B. W. Huebsch, Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), Gifford Pinchot, William Thomas Rawleigh, Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), Rudolph Spreckels, and Lincoln Steffens.

La Follette remained active in Wisconsin politics after he moved into the national political arena. The Special Correspondence files include letters exchanged with newspaperman William Theodore Evjue, state politicians Charles Henry Crownhart and Herman Lewis Ekern, former law partner Alfred Thomas Rogers, and fellow members of the Wisconsin congressional delegation, Irvine Luther Lenroot and Isaac Stephenson. La Follette also relied on expatriate Wisconsinites such as Gilbert E. Roe in New York and William Thomas Rawleigh in Illinois for managing his national campaigns. La Follette founded La Follette's Weekly Magazine, which enabled him to reach readers throughout the country with his policies of progressivism developed during his years as governor of Wisconsin. The collection includes material relating to this magazine and its successor, the Progressive.

The papers of Robert Marion La Follette, Jr. (1895-1953), span the years 1895-1960 and are mainly concentrated in the period 1925-1947 when the younger La Follette served as United States Senator from Wisconsin. The collection consists of personal correspondence, Senate office files, a political campaign file, speeches and writings, a subject file, financial records, and miscellaneous printed matter. The papers include personal and official material prior to 1925 but chiefly pertain to his senatorial career during the New Deal, especially immediately before and during World War II.

The Senate Office File comprises papers documenting La Follette's legislative work, contact with constituents, and Wisconsin politics. Like his father, La Follette opposed participation in a European war, and letters of 1938-1939 show the support he received from antiwar and anti-interventionist Americans. The Senate files also contain constituent reactions to President Franklin Roosevelt's “court-packing plan” of 1937, as well as responses to the appointment of Henry Agard Wallace as secretary of commerce in 1945. Other material includes veterans' claims, letters concerning immigration and naturalization cases, and a special bills file of legislation which La Follette introduced in Congress. A government department file consists of correspondence and reports from various executive agencies, among them Cabinet departments and wartime regulatory commissions. A special case file maintained for La Follette's first three terms and a legislative file kept during his last term document issues for which he felt particular concern, such as oleomargarine laws, American Indian affairs, the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, taxation, and foreign policy, especially with regard to Latin America and Asia.

The papers also include political material from five election campaigns. Files for 1940 contain La Follette's correspondence with supporters and lists of important backers on a county-by-county basis. Files pertaining to the primary campaign of 1946 include letters from friends warning the incumbent of defeat because of trouble from the right and left wings of the political spectrum and a lengthy telegram from his opponent, Joseph McCarthy, challenging La Follette to a debate and charging him with various offenses, including war profiteering and weakness with respect to foreign policy.

The correspondence file is dominated by political, legal, and business matters pertaining to Wisconsin progressivism and the interest of the La Follette family in their magazine. Correspondents include Joseph D. Beck, John J. Blaine, W. Wade Boardman, Alice Goldmark Brandeis, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, James H. Causey, Bronson M. Cutting, Jo Davidson, Thomas F. Davlin, Herman Lewis Ekern, Wiliam Theodore Evjue, Felix Frankfurter, Ralph M. Immell, William Kirsch, Walter Jodok Kohler, David Eli Lilienthal, Basil Maxwell Manly, Sylvester W. Muldowny, Richard L. Neuberger, William Thomas Rawleigh, Glenn D. Roberts, Gilbert R., Gwyneth K., and John Ernest Roe, Alfred Thomas Rogers, Morris H. Rubin, Rudolph Spreckels, Arthur H. Vandenberg, and Frank P. Walsh. La Follette wrote frequently to Charles M. Dow, Edward G. Little, Gordon Sinykin, and A. W. Zeratsky, personal acquaintances and aides to his brother, Philip Fox La Follette, while the latter was governor of Wisconsin. Other correspondents were Grace C. Lynch and Nellie Dunn MacKenzie, Robert La Follette's secretaries. Presidential correspondents include Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), and Harry S. Truman. Condolence letters to Rachel La Follette on the death of her husband in 1953 contain a letter from Richard M. Nixon, then vice president, expressing his regrets and offering the recollection that his father had been an avid voter for the senior La Follette in 1924.

The speeches and writings file treats the full range of La Follette's tenure in the Senate, including addresses delivered in the Senate as well as at public forums. Speeches and articles are represented in various stages of preparation from drafts to published copies.

The papers of Belle Case La Follette (1859-1931), wife of Robert M. La Follette, Sr., span the period 1879-1931, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1898-1931. Her files consist of correspondence, reports, memoranda, speeches and articles, drafts, and reference material related to the biography of her husband, financial records, and memorabilia. Other than the biographical file, there is little material documenting Belle La Follette's early life and activities.

During the years her husband served in the Senate, Belle Case La Follette was associated with numerous political and social movements and organizations identified with the Progressive and post-World War I eras. The subject file and the speeches and writings file reveal her views and wide range of interests. She wrote and spoke frequently on behalf of women's suffrage, civil rights, child labor laws, education, hygiene, the World War I peace movement, disarmament, outlawing war, and other issues closely connected with early twentieth century reform movements. The papers also reflect her involvement in the presidential campaigns of 1912 and 1924, La Follette's Magazine, the Progressive, and numerous organizations, including the Emily Bishop League, a physical-culture organization which she cofounded in Madison, Wisconsin, the National Council for Prevention of War, the National League of Women Voters, the National Popular Government League, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Belle La Follette's papers also illustrate the transformation in the role of the American woman in the twentieth century. These developments are indicated not only in own her papers, but also in the writings of other active American women who corresponded with her, including Jane Addams, Emily Montague Mulkin Bishop, Alice Stone Blackwell, Alice Goldmark Brandeis, Elizabeth Glendower Evans, Zona Gale, Helen Keller, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot, Vinnie Ream, and Emma Wold. Other correspondents in the papers are Ray Stannard Baker, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, John Rogers Commons, Calvin Coolidge, Eugene V. Debs, Theodore Dreiser, Felix Frankfurter, Wayne L. Morse, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, William Allen White, and Woodrow Wilson.

Papers of Fola La Follette (1882-1970), Mary Josephine La Follette (1899-1988), and Philip Fox La Follette (1897-1965), children of Robert M. and Belle Case La Follette, Sr., are also included in the collection. Fola La Follette participated with her mother in the suffrage movement and spoke and wrote frequently on women's rights and related issues. Notable in her papers are the research notes and interviews in the biographical file on Robert M. La Follette, Sr. The bulk of Mary La Follette's papers are in Part II.

Papers of Gilbert Ernstein Roe (1865-1929) and Alfred Thomas Rogers (1873-1948), law partners of Robert M. La Follette, Sr., are also included. The Gilbert E. Roe Papers, which span the years 1887-1961, are concentrated in the period 1900-1925 and consist chiefly of correspondence and legal files supplemented by speech and article files, clippings, printed matter, and miscellaneous material. Roe's principal correspondents were Robert M. La Follette, Sr., and members of the La Follette family. As an associate for thirty-five years, Roe corresponded with the senator regularly on many subjects and often offered political, legal, and financial advice. Other correspondents in Roe's special correspondence file include associates of La Follette such as Charles Henry Crownhart, Rudolph Spreckels, and Lincoln Steffens. The legal file contains briefs and statements used in many of the cases in which Roe was counsel. In addition to Robert M. La Follette, Sr., clients represented include Eugene Debs, Max Eastman, and Margaret Sanger. The speech and article file indicates Roe's views on such matters as judicial reform, espionage, women's suffrage, the League of Nations, World War I, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, direct primaries, and social justice.

The records of the National Progressive Republican League, 1911-1912, include correspondence, financial records, and address cards. The league, whose constitution was drafted by Robert M. La Follette, Sr., was founded at a meeting at his house early in 1911. Political correspondence between staff members, including Walter L. Houser and local politicians, reveals the league's attempt to control the progressive elements of the Republican Party and to overthrow the conservative William H. Taft elements in order to nominate La Follette for the presidency at the Republican convention in 1912. Correspondents include John D. Fackler, A. C. Grimm, Frank A. Harrison, Thomas M. McCusker, R. O. Richards, Walter S. Rogers, and Bela Tokaji.

The league's general office file includes correspondence of John J. Hannan, Walter L. Houser, and Medill McCormick and centers around lecture schedules, conference engagements, and the status of election laws. The records also include a special correspondence file containing letters from progressives who remained loyal to La Follette after Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) became a presidential candidate, financial records, and a card file used by the organization for canvassing.

Part II

Part II of the papers of the La Follette family spans the period 1905-1988, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1935-1985. The collection consists largely of papers of Mary Josephine La Follette, the youngest child of Robert and Belle Case La Follette, and papers of Grace C. Lynch, secretary to both Robert La Follette, Sr., and Robert La Follette, Jr., when they served as United States senators from Wisconsin. Following her divorce from Ralph Gunn Sucher, Mary La Follette resumed used of her maiden name.

The Family Papers series of Part II contains correspondence between family members, mostly addressed to Mary La Follette or her children, Joan and Robert La Follette Sucher. There is extensive correspondence from her children and from her sister-in-law, Isabel Bacon La Follette. Her niece, Sherry La Follette Zabriskie, daughter of Philip and Isabel La Follette, cowrote a biography of Belle Case La Follette, and her consultation with Mary La Follette on the project is documented in the family papers. Also in the series are printed matter and related material concerning various members of the extended family. The file on Bronson C. La Follette, son of Robert M. La Follette, Jr., contains campaign literature and clippings related to his election to and service as attorney general of Wisconsin, 1964-1968 and 1975-1987. Bronson La Follette was the third generation of La Follettes to become prominent in Wisconsin politics.

The Fola La Follette Papers in Part II include material relating to the donation of the La Follette Family Papers to the Library of Congress and to the estate of her husband, George Middleton, as well as assorted notes and an address book.

Correspondents include attorneys Peter A. Arntson, Austin F. Cansler, and John Ernest Roe, and friends Lorena King Fairbank, Katharine F. Lenroot, and Gwyneth K. Roe. Also in Mary La Follette's files is correspondence regarding her children's schooling, letters to scholars about the La Follette family, and letters to politicians and organizations reflecting her opinions on political and social issues. A section on government employment includes files relating to her jobs as a researcher, editor, and indexing specialist in various government agencies. Files on her work in the Agriculture Department include material she gathered on handicrafts in the United States. A subject file contains information on numerous topics, organizations, and individuals, including the Democratic Party and tributes to La Follette family members written after their deaths.

The Grace C. Lynch Papers contain material compiled by Lynch during her career as secretary for Robert La Follette, Sr., and Robert La Follette, Jr., while they served in the Senate. Correspondence files include copies of office correspondence, constituent requests, and personal notes. Correspondents include Wisconsin governor John J. Blaine; John J. Hannan, private secretary to Robert La Follette, Sr.; Rachel Young La Follette; and Alice Roosevelt Longworth.

Mary La Follette reviewed the papers in Part II prior to their donation to the Library of Congress and made pencil annotations on many of the items.

Related Material

Other collections in the Manuscript Division which relate to the La Follette Family include papers of George Middleton, dramatist and husband of Fola La Follette; records of the People's Legislative Service, which include records of the La Follette-Wheeler Campaign Committee; and papers of William Thomas Rawleigh, Ray Stannard Baker, Albert J. Beveridge, George W. Norris, Gifford Pinchot, and other La Follette contemporaries.

Additional La Follette material is held by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, including papers relating to the state career of Robert M. La Follette, Sr., and the bulk of the papers of Philip Fox La Follette.

Organization of the Papers

The collection is arranged in fifteen series:

• Part I: Family Correspondence, 1852-1973, n.d.
• Part I: Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Papers, 1844-1925, n.d.
• Part I: Robert M. La Follette, Jr., Papers, 1895-1960, n.d.
• Part I: Belle Case La Follette Papers, 1849-1931, n.d.
• Part I: Fola La Follette Papers, 1781-1970, n.d.
• Part I: Philip Fox La Follette Papers, 1911-1971, n.d.
• Part I: Mary Josephine La Follette Papers, 1924-1971
• Part I: Gilbert E. Roe Papers, 1887-1961, n.d.
• Part I: Alfred Thomas Rogers Papers, 1900-1928
• Part I: National Progressive Republican League Records, 1911-1912, n.d.
• Part I: Oversize, 1913-1945, n.d.
• Part II: Family Papers, 1914-1988, n.d.
• Part II: Fola La Follette Papers, 1928-1970, n.d.
• Part II: Mary Josephine La Follette Papers, 1925-1988, n.d.
• Part II: Grace C. Lynch Papers, 1905-1965, n.d.

Description of Series

Container List