The Clausen Papers date from 1905 to 1965, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1924 to 1963. The collection primarily documents his personal and political interests and activities, with a smaller portion concerning his business career. Of the latter, the majority of the documentation relates to his career with the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad and with Dain Manufacturing Company. Documentation of his Case presidency is limited, although this aspect of his career is amply treated through his historical and autobiographical writings.
The collection is arranged as AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS, CORRESPONDENCE, and SUBJECT FILES. Prior to its arrival at the WHS, the collection was rearranged, perhaps by one of Clausen's surviving relatives, and some documentation in the collection suggests Clausen himself may have begun arranging his papers. Some remnants of the original filing scheme is still present, however, primarily within the subject files, which were originally numerically classified.
The AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS consist of an undated autobiography, as well as chapters of a second similar work written during 1962-1963 in response to requests from his daughters. Most of the chapters are autobiographical, although several digress to various general political, social, and economic issues. In addition, a 1922 letter written by his father, Hans Clausen, concerns his world travels as a young man. The photographs in the collection document several highlights in Clausen's career, approximately 1940 to 1949. Among the photographs is a portrait of the 1897 University of Wisconsin band, in which Clausen and his brother Frederick are included; images of Clausen's 72nd birthday celebration and 25th anniversary as J.I. Case president; as well as two photographs of Clausen dating from the early 1940s.
The SPEECHES AND WRITINGS date from approximately 1921 to 1963, and principally consist of handwritten notes and outlines for speeches given by Clausen to local youth and agricultural organizations in Racine, Chicago, and Kansas. Clausen apparently seldom spoke from a prepared text and the speeches for which there is a full text in the collection were probably created from a stenographer's notes on what he said rather than a work fully prepared in advance. The speech in most polished form in the collection is an address presented to the 1921 convention of the National Implement and Vehicle Association on improving business practices. The file entitled “other writings” includes a number of reflective memoranda on general topics prepared by Clausen that were probably intended for Case managers. Similar memoranda elsewhere in the collection may also have been written by Clausen, although they are not so identified.
The CORRESPONDENCE consists of general and business subcategories. The general correspondence, the bulk of which is identified by the designation “personal” written on the item, concerns Clausen relatives, property and financial holdings, and politicians and leaders in conservative organizations. This section is further subdivided into chronological and alphabetical correspondence.
Family correspondence within the general section consists of letters to and from his brother F. L. Clausen, an executive with the Van Brunt Manufacturing Co. in Horicon, Wisconsin, and exchanges with several foreign relatives. It was undoubtedly Fred who provided the connection to Wisconsin businessman Willard A. Van Brunt, whose brief correspondence is filed elsewhere in the series. Files on properties owned by Clausen and his summer home in Green Lake contain information on his philanthropic endeavors as well as information on life in that resort community. After Clausen retired as president of Case, his letters were often lengthy essays on contemporary issues. The majority of these letters were addressed to Joseph R. McCarthy, Lawrence H. Smith, Alexander Wiley, and the Wisconsin congressional delegation in general, but he also occasionally wrote to other political figures such as Harry Byrd and Barry Goldwater. The oversize folder contains “The Wisconsin Citizen,” a rare 1946 campaign newspaper issued by Joseph R. McCarthy, whose election Clausen supported. Taken together, these letters provide ample documentation of Clausen's conservative political and economic views. Clausen's contacts included some of the leading political and economic conservatives of his era such as Merwin K. Hart of the National Economics Council, Virgil Jordan of the National Industrial Conference Board, Joseph P. Kamp of the Constitutional Education League, Walter E. Spahr of the Economists National Committee on Monetary Policy, and James L. Wick of Human Events. Verne Kaub of Madison, who founded the American Council of Christian Laymen, was also a frequent correspondent. Exchanges with Harry Jung, head of the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation of Chicago include investigative reports about individuals found suspect by that organization during the 1930s and 1940s. Jung's influence also appears in Clausen's correspondence with Episcopal Bishop Harwood Sturtevant of Fond du Lac.
The business correspondence primarily concerns Clausen's career before 1924, the year in which he was hired as president of Case. Of note from his career with the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway are files on signal practices and engineering and on his association with the Railroad Signal Association of America. Subject matter covered includes the railway industry's change from manual to automatic signaling. Other areas documented include Clausen's interest in railroad accidents, reports on station service and improvements, and engineering and electrical changes. Files on the Dain Manufacturing Company of Ottumwa, Iowa, where Clausen worked from 1912 to 1924, include managerial correspondence, memoranda, and statistics on operations and costs. Some of these records consist of files received as loose documents, while others were received as a group that had been collected by Clausen in 1929 for use by another Case executive. This period of Clausen's career is also represented by a 1920 Deere labor policy handbook.
Administrative correspondence from Clausen's tenure as president of Case is limited. Of note are files on the circumstances surrounding his hiring in 1924 and reports on sales prospects from a world trip made in 1933. No organic files deal with the company's labor relations, although this section contains important labor documentation that he collected later. Labor relations during the 1930s are documented by a handwritten labor history Clausen wrote, probably during the late 1950s or early 1960s. Of particular value here are copies of many confidential, internal corporate documents, dating from 1933 to 1935, that were compiled by Clausen as exhibits to support his narrative. Unfortunately, the thermofax copies of the original documents he made for this work were greatly deteriorated by the time of their arrival at the Historical Society. Their content has been preserved to the greatest degree possible with digital prints. About the 1946 strike of United Automobile Workers Local 180 there are mimeographed company memoranda, mainly 1945-1946; newspaper clippings; and copies of display ads the company placed in local newspapers. Other mimeographed memos filed here were mainly prepared for Case executives after Clausen retired as president. Clausen's memoirs partially compensate for the brevity of this section.
The SUBJECT FILES consist of remnants of a numerically classified file of secondary information; similar material bearing no evidence of inclusion in the numerical subject files was added in the Archives. Subjects covered within this series concern economics, labor, and politics. These files have been extensively weeded to remove easily available newspaper clippings and printed material, although all items clearly identified as having been circulated by Clausen to Case executives have been retained. Most of these files are of a general nature such as economics (#40) and labor (#99). Several specific files added to the SUBJECT FILES such as the Bricker Amendment and research on Winston Churchill are of considerable interest. The economics file includes memoranda of a loose organization of Mid-western businessmen, identified by Clausen as the “Chicago Group,” about their interests in combatting the effects of the Depression in 1932 and 1933, as well as several papers and an unpublished book, “The Honest Dollar” apparently written by William A. Wirt for the Chicagoans.
