The collection is comprised of two parts: an oral history interview and a copy of Lenz's “Black Book” on state legislators.
Interview
I [interviewer Dale Treleven] recorded this interview in Mr. Lenz's living room for the Wisconsin Agriculturalists Oral History Project. Several weeks prior to the actual taping, I had arranged a pre-interview meeting with Lenz at which we discussed the purpose of the project and how he might contribute to its success. He found miscellaneous materials pertaining to WAC among his personal possessions and donated some of them including a small “black book” he kept on legislators' voting records and attitudes towards cooperatives in the mid-1940's. Beyond comments by Lenz on the development of the Wisconsin Association of Cooperatives between 1945-1948, his remembrances and opinions about such areas as the cooperative movement, liberal politics, and key individuals involved in both will be of interest to the researcher. The sad, often harrowing story of a German family uprooted from their Ukrainian land, subsequent extended incarceration, and emigration to the United States is a valuable addendum to an interview with one of the leaders of the modern Wisconsin cooperative movement.
Abstract to the Interview
The tapes for this interview have two tracks: a voice track containing the discussion and a time track containing time announcements at intervals of approximately five seconds. The abstract below lists, in order of discussion, the topics covered on each tape, and indicates the time-marking at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears.
Thus, the researcher by using a tape recorder's fast-forward button may find expeditiously and listen to discrete segments without listening to all of the taped discussion. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic on “WAC AND WISCONSIN FARMERS UNION COMPETE FOR LENZ” should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 03:55 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “three minutes, fifty-five seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “WAC AND WISCONSIN FARMERS UNION COMPETE FOR LENZ” continues until approximately 05:25 at which point discussion of the next topic (“OPENS WAC OFFICE AT MADISON IN APRIL, 1945”) begins.
Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example the sentences underneath “WAC AND WISCONSIN FARMERS UNION COMPETE FOR LENZ” give further details on what appears on the tape between 03:55 and 05:25.
The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them.
