The Kinney Papers at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin represent a small portion of the known documentation about his career. The main body of his papers (4 c.f.), including correspondence, reports and writings, are held by Cornell University. However, in 1957 in an apparent effort to make his papers more accessible to likely users, Kinney placed files concerning Minnesota Indian reservations at the Minnesota Historical Society and papers concerning his work in Wisconsin at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. At the time the Wisconsin papers were processed in 1989, the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections failed to indicate if similar divisions were made for the remainder of his subject files.
The Kinney Papers described here are comprised of two Wisconsin-related categories of material: files on his monitoring of the ongoing problems of Menominee Indian Mills at Neopit, Wisconsin, and files on timber lands on several reservations officially designated as swampland by the State of Wisconsin. Each of these categories is subdivided alphabetically into the subjects utilized by Kinney. Included in the files are correspondence, memoranda, reports, minutes, notes, and statistics.
Taken together, the files contain extremely detailed information about the federal management and conservation of the Indian resources in Wisconsin. Because of the presence of departmental filing codes on many pages, it is likely that many items duplicate official Bureau of Indian Affairs records at the National Archives. However, Kinney's files contain many memoranda, notes, incoming correspondence, and other items which are likely to be unique. In addition, Kinney arranged his files so that they are more accessible for researchers interested in Wisconsin topics than are the departmental records at the National Archives.
While the majority of the documentation dates from his work as director of forests for the Indian Service, several files relate to his ongoing interest in this topic after assuming other responsibilities. In addition, the Menominee Indian Mills file contains copies of related nineteenth century documents which Kinney may have used during research on one of his books.
