Title: Jerome L. Blaska Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1959-1963

Creator:

• Blaska, Jerome L., 1919-

Call Number: Mss 681

Quantity: 0.4 c.f. (1 archives box)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Papers of a Dane County farmer and Assemblyman (1959-1966), consisting of campaign literature, photographs, and constituent correspondence concerning trading stamps, Sunday store closing, the 21-year-old drinking age, the state budget, and other issues of the 1963 legislative session.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00681

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Jerome L. “Jerry” Blaska was a dairy farmer and four-term Democratic Assemblyman from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. The following information on his career is abstracted from the 1966 Wisconsin Blue Book. He was born in Sun Prairie on July 4, 1919. After attending local schools, Blaska worked as the field manager for a cannery from 1939 to 1942. From 1942 to 1946 he served in the Army. Blaska returned to farming after World War II, but he nevertheless found time for numerous civic and political involvements. He was a committeeman for the Agricultural Conservation Service, a member of several farm and veterans organizations, and school clerk and a member of the school board. Blaska was also statutory chairman of the Dane County Democratic Party and a member of the executive committee of the Dane County Democratic Party. In April 1959 Blaska was elected to the Assembly in a special election to fill the seat vacated by Carl Thompson. Blaska was reelected in the next three regular elections.

In the Assembly, Blaska was chairman of the Highway Committee, vice-chairman of the Agriculture Committee, and a member of the Committee on Interstate Cooperation. He also served on the Legislative Council's Highway Advisory Committee and its Conservation Land Purchases Committee. In many ways Blaska's liberal record typified the resurgence of the Democratic Party in Dane County during the 1950's, and he won strong electoral support from both union and farm groups. In the legislature he was an advocate for the family farm and small-town problems and a strong supporter of Democratic tax reform policies.

The Jerome Blaska Papers are a small collection consisting of constituent correspondence concerning trading stamps, Sunday store closing, the 21-year-old drinking age, and the state budget and other issues of the 1963 legislative session, together with a small amount of campaign literature. The constituent correspondence is arranged alphabetically by subject or bill number. The campaign literature consists of cards, clippings of newspaper advertisements, and drafts of a few press releases. Unfortunately, the collection contains only a few isolated items concerning Blaska's own activities within the Democratic Party or as an assemblyman.

Photographs taken for the campaign literature are available in the Visual Materials Archive where they are filed in a Name File and the Wisconsin Democratic Party file.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Jerome L. Blaska, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, September 10, 1971. Accession Number: M71-245

Processing Information

Processed by Carolyn J. Mattern, 1986.

Box   1 Folder   1	Campaign literature, 1959-1962
	Constituent correspondence, 1963
Box   1 Folder   2	Assembly bills
Box   1 Folder   3	Budget impasse
Box   1 Folder   4	Senate bills
Box   1 Folder   5	Twenty-one-year-old drinking age
Box   1 Folder   6	Miscellaneous correspondence