The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

Wisconsin Democratic Party oral history project interviews

Repository: Wisconsin Historical Society. Library-Archives

Collection Description (CRHP): Interviews with Julia Boegholt, Virginia and Henry Hart, Warren Sawall, John Reynolds, Philleo Nash, and Frank Nikolay specifically discuss the civil rights movement.

Collection Description (Extant): Interviews with 37 former and current activists in the Democratic Party of Wisconsin concentrating particularly on the Party's building period between the end of World War II and the electoral successes in the late 1950s. Interviewees include former Progressives, former Socialists, pre-1945 Democrats, activists in farm and labor organizations, successful and unsuccessful candidates for office, local party workers, and party chairmen. Because so much of the party's leadership came from Dane and Milwaukee counties, interviewees come disproportionately from these areas. Also present is one box of research materials. [. . . ] The research materials include lists of potential interviewees, biographical synopses, lists and charts of political and electoral statistics, outlines of questions used for some of the interviews, and miscellaneous clippings and photocopies.

Origin Info: The Wisconsin Democratic Party Oral History Project was sparked and partially funded by longtime party activist Julia Boegholt. Other sponsors were the Evjue Foundation, the Cudahy Foundation, Friends of Carl Thompson, and many individual donors. In September 1982 Catherine Coberly began interviewing former and current party activists. By the end of June 1983 she had interviewed seventeen individuals for a total of twenty-one hours of discussion. In October 1984 Jim Cavanaugh of the State Historical Society picked up the project. Between December 1984 and May 1985 he interviewed fifteen people for a total of nearly forty-two hours of discussion.

In September 1986 four additional interviews were conducted by Jim Cavanaugh as a supplement to the Wisconsin Democratic Party Oral History Project. Descriptions of these interviews have been integrated into this finding aid.

Date(s): 1982-1986

Digital Status: Unknown

Existing IDs: Call numbers: Tape 1030A; Mss 661

Extent: 0.8 c.f. (1 archives box, 2 volumes); 81 tape recordings

Finding Aid URL: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-tape01030a

Language: English

Interviewees: Julia Boegholt, Virginia Hart, Henry Hart, Warren Sawall, John Reynolds, Philleo Nash, Frank Nikolay

Rights (Extant): No release forms were gathered from Virginia North Lehman or Gretchen Pfankuchen. Researchers, therefore, should not quote directly from these interviews.

Subjects:

Civil rights movements--Wisconsin
Democratic Party (Wis.)
Political campaigns
Politicians
Wisconsin--Politics and government

Genres:

Interviews
Sound recordings